YACR: Expensive cities from UBS Switzerland.

aaaww.

most expensive cities in the world not counting australia

It seems strange that Brussels is more expensive than Amsterdam. It always seemed to me that Amsterdam is way more expensive than any other place in the Benelux. I've heard some prices for appartment rental there and they sounded outrageous, while in Brussels you can often rent a place quite cheaply.

It is an index of goods and services...not just rent prices. I'll go try and find out how they came up with numbers...

stoo

Nuuk Greenland) isn't listed

Wine is over 20US$ a bottle. Grrr.

I can't believe Seoul is more expensive than Los Angeles.

Nic

"cost of a basket of 115 good and services weighted in favour of Western European consumer habits (excluding rents) ."

Am I blind or is San Francisco not up there?

It is more $$ than LA, and BsAs...and unless Chicago skyrocketed, higher than that (and our COL has just skyrocketed, too, we are getting close to NYC prices like in the dot.com days again.

I wonder what this was based on.

quote:

Originally posted by Stoo:
It is an index of goods and services...not just rent prices.

Yeah, I know, but nearly everything seems to be more expensive in Amsterdam than elsewhere in the Benelux. Maybe that's because I've only been to the touristy parts. There are overly expensive pubs in the centre of Brussels too, if I was a tourist who didn't know any better I might think Brussels was expensive too. Still, the Netherlands in general are more expensive than Belgium for most things, so it's weird to see Amsterdam below Brussels.

quote:

Originally posted by anniebanannie:
Am I blind or is San Francisco not up there?

It is more $$ than LA, and BsAs...and unless Chicago skyrocketed, higher than that (and our COL has just skyrocketed, too, we are getting close to NYC prices like in the dot.com days again.

I wonder what this was based on.

see previous post

i also think there were only so many cities that they indexed.

quote:

Originally posted by seraphim:
Yeah, I know, but nearly everything seems to be more expensive in Amsterdam than elsewhere in the Benelux. Maybe that's because I've only been to the touristy parts.... Still, the Netherlands in general are more expensive than Belgium for most things, so it's weird to see Amsterdam below Brussels.

I tried to find out exactly what items they went shopping for but they are not lised. must be some big secret.

we should put together a BnA world city cost index based on what we care about!

Prices for many things here are $$, not just rent. I am still surprised.

Is rent completely excluded, or is it factored in. London and NY are expensive, but if it wasn't for the atrocious rents, it would be possible to survive there on a regular wage.

I guess Reykjavik was too small a city to make the cut, but prices there are very steep -- yet fish is always the cheapest item on the menu. Go figure!

Jim Paris

annie: i don't see sf on there...that means it was not included in the survey. there is no comparision to be surprised about. they only looked at those 71 cities.

ww: rent is completely exculded. but london is still bloody expensive!

corvinus: yea...reyk is crazy expensive. hmmmm...i wonder if booz was one of the 'products' considered