Here’s a list of the Top 25 World’s Most Expensive Cities. No real surprise except for entry no. 22, Douala, Cameroon. I didn’t think any African city would place on the list, except may be for Johannesburg, South Africa.
The Top 10:
1. Tokyo, Japan
2. Osaka, Japan
3. London, Britain
4. Moscow, Russia
5. Seoul, South Korea
6. Geneva, Switzerland
7. Zurich, Switzerland
8. Copenhagen, Denmark
9. Hong Kong, Hong Kong
10. Oslo, Norway
Article comments
1 - Duane
I didn't realize that all these cities were up for sale. Hmmm. I wonder how much it would cost to buy a smaller city, like, say, Boulder, Colorado. I doubt that I could afford any of the Top 25.
2 - dietdoc
It would be interesting to compare the cost of living in a city (your list) with one of the top 25 tourist cities in the world. There seems, at least on cursory glance, to be a superficial correlation.
Cheers,
Ron
3 - Nancy
Interesting list, and (some entries) very surprising. Guess I'll have to stop feeling sorry for myself living where I do, as my area hasn't even made the top 25 ;)
4 - Kris
Your comment: No real surprise except for entry no. 22, Douala, Cameroon.
The answer: Corruption, corruption, and more corruption! (Cameroon ranked 2 years in the row as the most corrupt country in the world and remains in the top 10). When you have to pay "rents" to so many intermediaries just to obtain basic services, it causes prices to rise and fosters runaway inflation.
In addition, all eyes are now on African oil from the gulf of Guinea as an alternative to the Middle East, attracting speculators to the area.
Finally, a limited supply of services such as housing, communications, healthcare, and energy in the face of increasing demand can only lead to outlandish prices.
Still, the place remains a huge, smelly shanty town with open gutters everywhere and rampant insecurity. I guess an increase in the cost of living is one of the side effects of bad governance. An inefficient dictator named Paul Biya, propelled by the French, has been running the country of Cameroon to the ground for 23 years and shows no sign of slowing down a age 73.
5 - Jerry Brugoto
When you can't afford God & Country there is something wrong with America!
6 - STM
One of the major problems with the European cities on this list isn't so much the ordinary day to day expenses of providing for a family, renting or buying a place to live. It's the cost of running a bloody car, if you choose to live in the commuter belt, or forking out for very expensive public transport.
That is certainly the case in the UK, where the cost of petrol is about double what I pay here.
And in Japan, God knows how, they've managed to get the price of a steak up to about $50 a pop. But then what do expect from a society that sells USED and unwashed schoolgirls' undies in vending machines?