The Expensiveness! It Burns!
Not really something to gloat about, but it appears as though London is the second most expensive city in the world (link courtesy of Anne). Those of you New York City lovin’ readers who bitch about the cost of living there, this article claims that London is 25% more expensive than life in NYC. Personally, I would love to know how they came to these conclusions. NYC is pretty damn expensive, particularly if you want to live in Manhattan. At the same time, while I know there are places in NYC where it’s possible to live a little less absurdly expensive lifestyle, if you want to actually live in London (or one of it’s central boroughs), there are very few cheap options unless you live 1.5 hours from the center.
Looking on the bright side, at least it’s not Moscow (how the hell is it so expensive to live there???).
June 24th, 2007 at 8:34 am
it must be the cost of heating the place. it’s mighty cold up there in the arctic circle (or wherever moscow kinda is).
June 24th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
But don’t they have buttloads of oil/natural gas and are making money hand over fist on it? I’m sure it’s all been concentrated into a few hands, but I would be shocked if gas/oil prices were very high there. And the article mentions CDs. Isn’t Russia home of most pirated music and software? Maybe the price of CDs is so high as no Russian actually buys them? 🙂
June 25th, 2007 at 8:06 am
it’s b/c there’s only one CD available: “The Theme from Tetris.” i mean, once you own it, there’s no need to buy another copy, geez.
of course, now you will have the Tetris music stuck in your head allll day…. 🙂
June 25th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Not to be an uber-dork, but the study methodology explains it all. The cost of living in NYC was used as the baseline, and then compared to the cost of living in other cities. While NYC is definitely one of the most expensive cities in the US, the study’s comparisons with non-US cities were heavily influenced by currency fluctations against the dollar. If the ruble hadn’t rallied so hard against the dollar, Moscow might now have earned the top ranking.
Plus, everyone knows all Russian CDs are counterfeit. 😉