label priority

[Jeff Portwine]

I'm using a shapefile called citiesx020 to show cities in the US, and I'm 
having a small problem.   In many places cities are very close together.   I 
have already limited it to cities with population over a certain amount so I 
don't end up not being able to distinguish points but in certain cases there 
are sufficiently large cities that I want to show that are close enough 
together so that their labels collide.   I have a buffer of 5 pixels, so in 
such cases only one of the cities will show their label, and the other one 
won't.    In one particular case though I have New York City that is pretty 
close to Newark, Elizibeth, and Jersey City and I have the label for 
Elizibeth blocking the label for New York city.    How can I give New York 
City precedence over the smaller city?

I have two classes now, one that draws cities with populations over 500,000 
and the other with populations of 100,000-499999.   The bigger class draws 
bigger citiy markers and uses bold names, the smaller pop cities use smaller 
labels and markers.    I've tried reversing the order the classes appear in 
the map file, but it didn't change anything... is there any way to 
accomplish this?

Thanks!
-Jeff