Big Apple Boomtown

NEW YORK: If you can make it here, sang one particular Chairman of the Board, you can make it anywhere. Now what was true in the musicals is true in real life, and all the CEOs are singing it. Fortune magazine has shot the Big Apple straight in to the top of its list of North American cities to do business in.

After all, what's not to love? Crime is down, commerce is booming and Wall Street is going crazy (mostly in a positive sense). So much so, Manhattan and its boroughs have toppled the plinth of last year's winner: The Microsoft-and-mocha metropolis of Seattle.

If that gets West Coasters down, they can always emigrate to Dublin, perhaps, which tops the European list; or Santiago, Fortune's Latin American Mecca. But with Rudy Giuliani almost certain to win reelection Tuesday, it looks as if nothing can stain the Big City's smile. Start spreading the news.