Believe it or not, worldwide there are many cities that are more expensive than New York City and San Francisco — or any other U.S. city — in which to live. The most expensive U.S. city (New York) only ranks as the ninth most expensive.
“Singapore retains its title as the world’s most expensive city for a fourth consecutive year in a top ten that may have a familiar feel to it. Not only has Singapore stayed top but Hong Kong remains second, closely followed by Zurich. The latest survey has also seen a return to the top ten most expensive cities for Tokyo and Osaka. The Japanese capital, which was the world’s most expensive city until 2012, has moved seven places up the ranking owing to a sustained recovery in the strength of the Japanese yen.With Japanese cities returning to the fold, Asia now accounts for half of the ten most expensive cities ranked. Western Europe accounts for a further four cities, while New York City is the lone North American representative. The Big Apple, which rose to seventh place last year, has fallen to ninth owing to a slight weakening of the U.S. dollar, which has also affected the position of other US cities. For New York, this still represents a comparatively sharp increase in the relative cost of living compared with five years ago, when New York was ranked 46th.”
Here are the 10 most expensive cities in the world as charted by Statisa.
I guess the comparisons allow you to get a better understanding of the cost of living of any city before you move there if you intend to work in a foreign country like Japan. Everything is relative in calculating the cost of living index. Here they collected prices for 400 individuals experience worldwide across 160 products. There are 197 countries (192 UN countries) worldwide. Or is the data skewed? Were there two collections of price from all countries or approximately 2 per country? There is no mention of statistical significance. Were the collection of prices from these individuals an assignment or from recollection? The more data collected, the more accurate the index will be. Seems to be more questions then answers.
It would be nice to see the salary comparison and local vs expat population for these cities as well. Are the cost of living in these cities inflated due to expat population? In NYC, there is a diverse range of earners and the results for average salary gets skewed by high salary earners.
When thinking of cities that are expensive to live in, one tends to think about cities like NY, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo, where the cost of living is high. Its interesting to see which cities have made the top ten most expensive cities but it makes you think, is living in an expensive city worth it?