From Site Selection magazine, November 2000
D E C I S I O N D A T A |
Watching Where Your Money Goes b y J A C K L Y N E
Study: East, West Coast Metros Tops for 'Total Living Costs'
Four East Coast metros and four West Coast metros made the top 10 "most expensive" list in the Runzheimer study, which monitored "total cost of living [for] the entire family budget."
The four West Coast metros were San Jose (No. 1), San Francisco (No. 2), Los Angeles (No. 7) and San Diego (No. 8). The four East Coast metros were New York (No. 2), Boston (No. 4), Washington, D.C. (No. 6), and Philadelphia (No. 9). Rounding out the most costly top 10 were Honolulu (No. 5) and Chicago (No. 10).
Commented Runzheimer cost-of-living analyst Patricia Mileski, "As a general rule of thumb, cities are more expensive when located on either the East Coast or West Coast versus the middle of the country, [when] in the northern half rather than the southern half, and [when] in large metropolitan areas vs. medium-sized cities."
Tubfuls of dollars lie between the survey's upper and lower reaches. Living and working costs in least-expensive Lubbock, Texas, are roughly half the comparable costs in most-expensive San Jose.
Even with the Euro's weakness, European office rents are rapidly rising, reports the new "Global Market Rents Survey" from CB Richard Ellis (www.cbcommercial.com). London's West End, at US$142.58 per sq. ft., was far and away the priciest market for July 2000, while Budapest, at $27.87 per sq. ft., was the least expensive.
"A tight office market has led to large increases in a number of European centers," the report noted. "Annual rent increases in excess of 30 percent were seen in Barcelona, Madrid and Stockholm." And the rebounding Moscow market is among Europe's most expensive.
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How much it costs to live and work in a location has a huge impact on employee recruiting and retention. And when it comes to the most expensive U.S. metros in which to live and work, the coasts have it, Rochester, Wis.-based Runzheimer International (
That observation also resonated in the survey's 10 least expensive locales: All are from the Southeast, Southwest or Midwest, and their populations skew small. (The lone exception: New Orleans, the No. 8 least expensive metro.)
