The devil is in the details

What?????

Last week was a very bad week in my corner of the world. I'll try to update on all that soon, but suffice it to say that last week sucked. This post, however, is about random baffling trivia found on the internet.

Bostonians often talk about how ridiculously expensive it is to live here. We generally say that it is the third most expensive city to live in, followed by New York and San Fransisco. If I remember my grad school searching days correctly, the living stipend for students in our program is about the same as NYU and UCSF with all three being the highest in the country, although I could be wrong.

While doing some random internet browsing this morning, I noticed a story at abcnews.com which said that Moscow was now the world's most expensive city, replacing Tokyo which had previously held the title. 144 cities (some of which seem random to me) are ranked, and after some googling I found an article that lists all of the cities so that I could see where Boston fell. I've got the list below. (Yes, I probably could have found a site other than a random Irish site, but whatever, it was the first one that popped up.)

What I found interesting is that a.) Boston was not where I thought it was and b.) I guess I would have naively thought that American cities would be higher. I was definitely surprised at some of the placements, particularly because they were places that I never would have expected to have a high cost of living. I feel kind of ignorant (and not at all well travelled, which I already knew) now. I feel particularly bad that most of the cities that surprised me are in Africa. I guess I will have to re-think Africa. I will look into the methodology more if I get a chance (unlikely), but from the articles that I read it sounded like "availability/cost of a large house" was a major criteria. I also can't figure out why these particular cities were chosen...they seem a little random to me, at least the US cities. I wonder how the rankings would be different if the list were based on tourism.

The list (bold=surprises, italics=US)
Rankings


1 MOSCOW Russia
2 SEOUL South Korea
3 TOKYO Japan
4 HONG KONG Hong Kong
5 LONDON United Kingdom
6 OSAKA Japan
7 GENEVA Switzerland
8 COPENHAGEN Denmark (did not seem unreasonable when I was there last year)
9 ZURICH Switzerland
10 OSLO Norway
NEW YORK CITY United States
12 ST.PETERSBURG Russia
13 MILAN Italy
14 BEIJING China
15 ISTANBUL Turkey
PARIS France
17 SINGAPORE Singapore
18 DUBLIN Ireland (I understand the expensive because of being in Europe part, but I still wouldn't have expected it to be so high
19 SYDNEY Australia
20 SHANGHAI China
21 ROME Italy
KIEV Ukraine
VIENNA Austria
24 TEL AVIV Israel
25 HELSINKI Finland
DUBAI United Arab Emirates
27 DOUALA Cameroon
28 TAIPEI Taiwan
29 LOS ANGELES United States
30 ABU DHABI United Arab Emirates
31 LAGOS Nigeria
32 BEIRUT Lebanon
HANOI Vietnam
34 SAO PAULO Brazil
SAN FRANCISCO United States
36 STOCKHOLM Sweden
37 HO CHI MINH CITY Vietnam
38 CHICAGO United States
39 MIAMI United States
40 RIO DE JANEIRO Brazil
41 LUSAKA Zambia
41 AMSTERDAM Netherlands
43 WHITE PLAINS United States (I'm not surprised it is expensive, but I am confused as to why it was selected for the list.)


Okay....must go to a meeting now. Will finish reformatting these later. :)
Many hours later....
44 SHENZHEN China
45 ABIDJAN Cote d’Ivoire
DAKAR Senegal
47 TORONTO Canada
48 JAKARTA Indonesia
BRATISLAVA Slovak Republic
50 PRAGUE Czech Republic
51 ALGIERS Algeria
52 ALMATY Kazakhstan
53 MADRID Spain
54 GUANGZHOU China
55 SAN JUAN Puerto Rico
56 VANCOUVER Canada
BARCELONA Spain
LUXEMBOURG Luxembourg
59 ATHENS Greece
60 GLASGOW United Kingdom
61 FRANKFURT Germany
62 AMMAN Jordan
DUSSELDORF Germany
WARSAW Poland
65 MUNICH Germany
BUDAPEST Hungary
67 HONOLULU United States
68 MUMBAI India
69 BIRMINGHAM United Kingdom
70 BRUSSELS Belgium
71 CALGARY Canada
72 BERLIN Germany
73 NEW DELHI India
74 MELBOURNE Australia
75 ACCRA Ghana
76 HOUSTON United States
77 HAMBURG Germany
78 KUWAIT CITY Kuwait
79 ZAGREB Croatia
80 MONTREAL Canada
81 RIGA Latvia
MEXICO CITY Mexico
83 WASHINGTON United States
84 MORRISTOWN United States
BOSTON United States
86 ATLANTA United States
87 MANAMA Bahrain
88 CASABLANCA Morocco
LISBON Portugal
90 OTTAWA Canada
91 SANTIAGO Chile
LYON France
93 GUATEMALA CITY Guatemala
CAIRO Egypt
PERTH Australia
96 TALLINN Estonia
97 DENVER United States
98 RIYADH Saudi Arabia
99 BRISBANE Australia
100 JEDDAH Saudi Arabia
AUCKLAND New Zealand
102 SEATTLE United States
103 MONTERREY Mexico
ST. LOUIS United States
105 WELLINGTON New Zealand
106 LJUBLJANA Slovenia
107 NAIROBI Kenya
108 ADELAIDE Australia
109 KINGSTON Jamaica
110 CLEVELAND United States
111 PORTLAND United States
SOFIA Bulgaria
113 PITTSBURGH
114 KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia
BUCHAREST
Romania
69.3
71.4

116
91
VILNIUS
Lithuania
69.2
73.6

117
116
JOHANNESBURG
South Africa
69.1
67.4

118
100
LIMASSOL
Cyprus
68.7
71.9

118
118
LIMA
Peru
68.7
66.9

118
113
BANDAR SERI
BEGAWAN
Brunei
68.7
68.5

121
114
PANAMA CITY
Panama
68.5
68.3

122
101
DETROIT
United States
68.3
71.8

123
85
LEIPZIG
Germany
68.1
74.8

124
119
WINSTON SALEM
United States
66.7
66.6

125
129
TEHRAN
Iran
66.4
64.4

126
99
SANTO DOMINGO
Dominican Republic
65.3
72.3

127
125
BANGKOK
Thailand
64.9
65.3

128
131
TIANJIN
China
63.6
62.5

129
130
BLANTYRE
Malawi
63.1
62.7

130
133
BOGOTA
Colombia
62.7
62.7

131
127
DACCA (DHAKA)
Bangladesh
62.5
62.5

132
132
COLOMBO
Sri Lanka
61.4
60

133
126
TUNIS
Tunisia
60.7
65.2

134
135
SAN JOSE
Costa Rica
58.1
58

135
137
QUITO
Ecuador
57.4
54.6

136
138
CARACAS
Venezuela
57.2
54.4

137
138
CHENNAI (MADRAS)
India
56.7
54.4

138
140
MONTEVIDEO
Uruguay
56.5
53.5

139
141
BANGALORE
India
56.4
51.7

140
136
KARACHI
Pakistan
56.1
56.1

141
143
MANILA
Philippines
56
49.8

142
142
BUENOS AIRES
Argentina
54.8
50.3

143
134
HARARE
Zimbabwe
50.9
58.4

144
144
ASUNCION
Paraguay
43.5
40.3

posted by Immunegirl @ 8:21 AM