

The Most Expensive Cities in the World - limist
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=15659589

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nandemo
For what is worth, this is what I could fid about the methodology:

<http://eiu.enumerate.com/asp/wcol_HelpIndexCalc.asp>

Basically, it says it's only useful to companies to decide what to pay their
expat executives.

For the rest of us it's pretty much irrelevant. Normal people will change
their consumption patterns according to their income and the local living
cost. If you move from Rio to NY and then to Tokyo you'll probably settle for
a smaller apartment each time.

But the index seems implausible even for its stated purpose. Let's say you're
a "regular" person and are happy with x in NY; then you'll be very comfortable
with 1.4x in Tokyo, and will live like a king in Rio with .85x. So what kind
of stuff are execs consuming that makes those numbers equivalent?

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elai
Where is the complete list?

And it's very surprising that shanghai would be nearly as expensive as new
york, a city that is already considered fairly expensive.

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quant18
Yes, these lists tend to be aimed at corporate expats with spouses and
children negotiating with HR about their cost-of-living adjustments for
overseas assignments. So you get a basket of goods that reflects that audience
--- big flat in an expat-friendly district, private schools, foodstuffs which
are available locally in NY but have to be imported in Shanghai, etc.

What Hacker News really needs is a list of cities ranked on minimum cost of
living: how little can a foreigner spend on housing, meals, entertainment,
etc. in a given city, without being in danger of crime, disease, ceiling
collapse, frostbite, or an unstable internet connection? That figure is far
lower in Shanghai and even Hong Kong than in New York ...

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stevoski
A couple of years ago, Asuncion, Paraguay won in a "cheapest city" survey. I
wonder what their Internet connectivity is like.

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hiena03
I live in Asunción and the Internet connectivity sucks in general :( This is a
link to an ADSL ISP <http://www.click.com.py/planes.php> if you want to see
prices

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lionhearted
The best mix of price and quality of life I've found is Taipei, Taiwan. You
can live very cheaply - cheap rent, the street food and convenience store food
is remarkably good, cheap transit, lots of cheap access to technology, nature,
art in the city and surroundings.

I was really blown away with the quality/price mix. I figure the government
must be artificially keeping the Taiwan dollar down - I literally couldn't
figure out any other explanation for why it'd be so cheap. The place is
absolutely wonderful and I think has something to offer most people. I like
Japan a lot, but Taiwan has 90% of the quality of the life, cleanliness, and
conveniences at less than half the price. Worth checking out for anyone in the
area, it's a city I could live in.

They're also pretty liberal about giving living/working permits, long term
touring visas if you can prove you have funds, or letting you visa run as much
as you want. Only downside is that visa waiver is only 30 days, but there's
short hops to lots of interesting places nearby if you want another 30 days.
Taiwanese people are generally pretty welcoming and it's easy to make friends
there, too - highly recommended.

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etherael
is Taipei behind the Great Firewall? What kind of price is normal for middle
of the road livable apartment in a central location with a stable net
connection and food / incidentals per month in your experience?

For the record, Sydney figure in my experience is about 2.5k AUD per month,
Tallinn figure in my experience is about 900 AUD.

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eugenejen
Taiwan is NOT RULED by China. There is no restriction to access Internet in
Taiwan. But the bandwidth to U.S., Europe is limited due to number of undersea
optical cables available.

Once in a while the cable between Taiwan and Hong Kong or Japan was cut off by
fishing fleet by accident, it usually takes weeks for bandwidth to resume to
previous level.

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paraschopra
Mumbai is at the bottom of the list and Shanghai much above it. What a
dramatic contrast for the economic hubs of two leading economies of the world.

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wmeddie
Tokyo is up to number 2? No wonder I'm constantly poor.

Been thinking about this lately though, it looks like Tokyo is home to more
Fortune 500 companies than any other city.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_Global_500#2009_breakdo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_Global_500#2009_breakdown_by_city)

So it might be the best place for a B2B start-up.

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sjf
Frankfurt?

Why is Frankfurt ranked so high? It's not a capital city, and in general
Germany is relatively cheap for Europe.

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nagrom
Frankfurt is a financial center and has a huge airport hub. Since these
rankings are based around 'executive-level' compensation, these things make a
major difference.

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intranation
Anecdotally this seems true to me—when moving to London 4 years ago I was
taken aback by the cost, but recent visits to my hometown of Sydney has also
surprised me at how much it's "caught up" with London.

Bit surprised Moscow is lower than London—it cost the earth when I was there a
couple of years ago.

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nagrom
In the article, Moscow's drop in price is attributed to the drop in the Rouble
against the Dollar...this feels right to me also since Russia has been less
openly aggressive recently, which would lead to a cheaper cost of living I
guess.

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antester
While low expenses are a good thing, I've learned the hard way I'd much rather
pay higher rent to live somewhere I am happy, than to halve my expenses and
live somewhere not as nice.

On the other hand, I think I'd appreciate almost any of the cities on this
list.

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TeHCrAzY
I wonder what caused the move from 8th to 17th by London, and likewise 17th to
12th in Sydney?

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elai
Property Values? I've heard that austrilia hasn't had a real estate bubble
'pop' yet.

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tdm911
though some media reports may say otherwise, australia hasn't had a
significant decrease in property values in the last 5 years.

there are some isolated cases of properties/suburbs falling significantly in
price, but absolutely nothing like what has happened in the united states.

in particular, inner city areas have continued to experience growth year on
year.

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delackner
The fluctuation of the dollar has no impact if your entire income and
expenditures are all in a different currency. But as others here mention, this
kind of chart is mostly for "expats" living in a bubble.

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electromagnetic
Is it just me, but every city at and below the 100 mark are world renowned for
their criminal histories, and all the cities above it are not.

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chipsy
Ever heard of the Paris suburbs? They are not a nice place.

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pingou
Yes, but it's not about the suburbs in this survey. Paris suburbs are a lot
more cheaper, and many of my friends flew Paris to get there. Paris is
appealing to the wealthy and old people,and because of them the costs of real
estate are sky rocketting, a lot of young people cannot afford an appartment
in Paris. And 10 euros a beer when the average income is 1500 euros/months is
ridiculous. I want cheap beer !

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nagrom
I seem to remember that beer everywhere in France is comparatively expensive
to Germany or the UK, for example. I also seem to remember that really good
wine is surprisingly affordable - certainly in France I would always drink
wine and not beer.

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joss82
Yet another reason to not start a startup in Paris.

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JimEngland
Chicago is as expensive as New York? Really?

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antidaily
yeah, no way. we have outrageous sales tax, but rent is fairly reasonable.

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jrockway
The good news is that we have no stores, so there is never an opportunity to
collect that sales tax.

