World’s most expensive and cheapest cities revealed
Paris and Hong Kong for the first time joined Singapore as the world’s most expensive cities to live in, a study revealed on Tuesday, with utilities and transport driving up the cost of living.
Zurich, Geneva and Japan’s Osaka trailed closely, with emerging market cities like Istanbul and Moscow plummeting down the ranking due to high inflation and currency depreciation, said the Economist Intelligence Unit’s bi-annual survey of 133 cities.
It was the first time in more than 30 years that three cities shared the top spot, a sign that pricey global cities are growing more alike, said the report’s author, Roxana Slavcheva.
“Converging costs in traditionally more expensive cities ... is a testament to globalisation and the similarity of tastes and shopping paterns,” she said in a statement.
“Even in locations where shopping for groceries may be relatively cheaper, utilities or transportation prices drive up overall cost of living,” she said.
Rising costs in cities are oten driven by a vibrant job market atracting skilled workers with high wages, said Anthony Breach, an analyst with the British think tank Centre for Cities - which was not involved in the study.
Urban planners need to plan ahead and build more housing to keep prices affordable and overall costs down, Breach told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
For the EIU survey researchers compared the cost of more than 150 items such as cars, food, rent, transport and clothing in 133 cities.
A woman’s haircut was about $15 in Bangalore, India, compared to $210 in New York, for example.
British cities recovered a few positions a year ater reaching the cheapest level in more than two decades due to Brexit uncertainty, with London ranking 22nd and Manchester 51st, up eight and five spots respectively.
Political turmoil in Venezuela plummeted Caracas to the bottom of the ranking, followed by Damascus, Syria, with Karachi, Pakistan, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and New Delhi, India also featuring among the 10 cheapest cities.