City Mayors: World's most expensive cities in 2008

London is the world's most expensive city

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London is the most expensive city in the world
while Swiss cities are home to highest earners
A report by UBS

UBS survey 2008: Most expensive cities (Intro) | World's most expensive cities (table) | Richest cities by personal earnings (table) | Richest cities by purchasing power (table |
Mercer survey: Most expensive cities
EIU survey: Most expensive cities

RICHEST CITIES BY GDP
Introduction | 150 richest cities in 2005 | 150 richest cities in 2020 | Europe's richest cities |

The world's most expensive cities in 2008

Rank	Cities	Index (New York = 100)
1	London	120.2
2	Oslo	112.3
3	Dublin	105.2
4	Copenhagen	102.6
5	New York	100.0
6	Zurich	97.7
7	Geneva	96.0
8	Tokyo	94.4
9	Helsinki	92.8
10	Paris	92.8
11	Luxembourg	91.9
12	Stockholm	90.8
13	Vienna	88.3
14	Amsterdam	86.2
15	Munich	84.9
16	Frankfurt	82.4
17	Sydney	82.2
18	Chicago	81.8
19	Brussels	81.7
20	Milan	81.2
21	Los Angeles	80.8
22	Madrid	80.7
23	Rome	80.5
24	Toronto	80.4
25	Montreal	80.0
26	Barcelona	79.9
27	Nicosia	79.2
28	Lyon	78.5
29	Istanbul	76.6
30	Berlin	76.4
31	Seoul	76.0
32	Lisbon	74.6
33	Miami	73.1
34	Dubai	72.8
35	Hong Kong	72.3
36	Auckland	71.8
37	Moscow	71.2
38	Singapore	70.5
39	Athens	70.0
40	Caracas	68.6
41	Rio de Janeiro	66.5
42	Sao Paulo	64.9
43	Tel Aviv	64.6
44	Warsaw	63.5
45	Tallinn	63.0
46	Budapest	62.0
47	Ljubljana	60.2
48	Santiago de Chile	59.7
49	Taipei	56.4
50	Prague	55.9
51	Riga	54.8
52	Manama	54.8
53	Bucharest	53.7
54	Bratislava	53.5
55	Sofia	52.8
56	Mumbai	49.6
57	Bogota	49.4
58	Mexico City	49.1
59	Vilnius	48.3
60	Kiev	48.0
61	Bangkok	47.2
62	Nairobi	46.3
63	Jakarta	45.9
64	Johannesburg	45.5
65	Beijing	43.4
66	Manila	43.3
67	Shanghai	43.2
68	Delhi	41.4
69	Lima	39.3
70	Buenos Aires	34.4
71	Kuala Lumpur	31.0

Methodology
The cost of a weighted shopping basket geared to Western European consumer habits containing 122 goods and services including rent.

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Comment
Most expensive
dollar-cities
Author: John Courtney Watt Submitted: 18 December 2007
Dear Editor: In compiling your list of most expensive cities worldwide, why do you insist on standardizing all costs relative to the American Dollar? This means that the cost of those cities only pertains to a person spending or earning American dollars. It does not address the costs relative to what a person typically earns in that city. Wouldn’t it be far more meaningful and informative if you took the median income earned in that particular city and compared it to costs incurred in that city such as food, transportation and housing (which itself should be the median price). For example, prices may be cheap in American dollars in Lagos, Nigeria thus giving it a low ranking in terms of costs. But what if a person living in Lagos is earning an income similar to the median income for that city and the prices for food transportation and the median house price/rent is high relative to that person’s wages then Lagos should score a higher rank in the table of expensive cities. Even within the same country wages are not the same for identical occupations in different cities. A corporate lawyer in New York will earn more than a corporate lawyer in Mobile, Alabama but how do their wages compare to costs within their respective cities? This is how cost of living in cities should be ranked, not to the baseline of the American dollar.

Editor's reply:
We agree with the above comment. Indeed in our introduction we said: “The problem with all three surveys is that they convert local prices into US dollars, which means that any changes are as much the result of currency fluctuations as of price inflation. For example according to all three surveys, the cost of living in European cities becomes more expensive if the dollar weakens even when local prices remain unchanged.” More

London is the most expensive city in the world while Swiss cities are home to highest earners A report by UBS

London is the most expensive city in the world
while Swiss cities are home to highest earners
A report by UBS