Berlin is getting more expensive
Aug. 14th, 2007 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusAccording to figures released by Mercer, Berlin has shot up the list of the World's Most Costly Cities. In 2006 it was at 75 in Mercer's league table, nice and cheap. Just a year later, however, we find the city at 42. If it maintains that trajectory -- climbing another 33 places in the next year -- Berlin will be in the world's Top 10 most expensive cities.
That's not going to happen, of course; the big leap from 75 to 42 is the result of the strength of the euro. Mercer's table is designed to guide international companies on the kind of pay they need to offer their staff when they go expat. It measures the comparative cost of a basket of 200 expenses -- including housing, transport and clothing -- in each city, but it's particularly sensitive to currency fluctuations. I'm happy to say my rent hasn't doubled, though the dollars I used to earn with my Wired column just got lighter and lighter as the euro strengthened.
The world's most expensive city this year (as last year) is Moscow. London is at number two, followed by Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Copenhagen, Geneva, Osaka, Zurich and Oslo. There are no American cities in the Top 10; New York has slipped to 15.
Japanese cities are getting cheaper. So are Chinese ones, because the value of the Chinese Yuan has decreased against the euro. There are also low inflation rates and stable property rental prices in China. Seoul is, rather surprisingly, more expensive to live in than Tokyo.
Five African cities are among the world's 50 most expensive, and are climbing the table year-on-year: Douala in Cameroon is at 24, Dakar in Senegal at 33, Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire at 35. Lagos is at 37 but getting cheaper, and Algiers just scrapes in at 50.
Better mathematicians than I am could get a series of precise value-for-money coefficients by comparing Mercer's cost of living stats with its quality of living table, based on assessments of each city's stability, crime, economics, health, education, public services and transportation, recreation, consumer goods, housing, and natural environment. Here, Berlin is doing well -- it's holding steady as the 16th best city in the world to live in. The considerably more expensive London is, for quality of life, down at 39. Tokyo is at 35 and Paris at 33. Moscow, the world's most expensive city, is nowhere to be seen in the quality of life Top 50.
Since I'm blinding you with urbanist science today, I thought I'd add some facts about city densities I scribbled down the other day from a book I was browsing at ProQM. These density figures are based on the number of dwellings occupying 100 x 100 metres of land (one hectare).
Los Angeles has a density of 15 dwellings per hectare.
25 is the density at which a bus service becomes economically viable.
London has a density of 42.
60 is the density at which a tram service becomes economically viable.
The average density of consolidated urban areas in Europe is 93.
Town planners often set 100 as the ideal urban density.
In the 1970s Singapore had a density of 250.
Parts of Kowloon today have a density of 1250.
Sleep tight!
That's not going to happen, of course; the big leap from 75 to 42 is the result of the strength of the euro. Mercer's table is designed to guide international companies on the kind of pay they need to offer their staff when they go expat. It measures the comparative cost of a basket of 200 expenses -- including housing, transport and clothing -- in each city, but it's particularly sensitive to currency fluctuations. I'm happy to say my rent hasn't doubled, though the dollars I used to earn with my Wired column just got lighter and lighter as the euro strengthened.
The world's most expensive city this year (as last year) is Moscow. London is at number two, followed by Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Copenhagen, Geneva, Osaka, Zurich and Oslo. There are no American cities in the Top 10; New York has slipped to 15.
Japanese cities are getting cheaper. So are Chinese ones, because the value of the Chinese Yuan has decreased against the euro. There are also low inflation rates and stable property rental prices in China. Seoul is, rather surprisingly, more expensive to live in than Tokyo.
Five African cities are among the world's 50 most expensive, and are climbing the table year-on-year: Douala in Cameroon is at 24, Dakar in Senegal at 33, Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire at 35. Lagos is at 37 but getting cheaper, and Algiers just scrapes in at 50.
Better mathematicians than I am could get a series of precise value-for-money coefficients by comparing Mercer's cost of living stats with its quality of living table, based on assessments of each city's stability, crime, economics, health, education, public services and transportation, recreation, consumer goods, housing, and natural environment. Here, Berlin is doing well -- it's holding steady as the 16th best city in the world to live in. The considerably more expensive London is, for quality of life, down at 39. Tokyo is at 35 and Paris at 33. Moscow, the world's most expensive city, is nowhere to be seen in the quality of life Top 50.
Since I'm blinding you with urbanist science today, I thought I'd add some facts about city densities I scribbled down the other day from a book I was browsing at ProQM. These density figures are based on the number of dwellings occupying 100 x 100 metres of land (one hectare).
Los Angeles has a density of 15 dwellings per hectare.
25 is the density at which a bus service becomes economically viable.
London has a density of 42.
60 is the density at which a tram service becomes economically viable.
The average density of consolidated urban areas in Europe is 93.
Town planners often set 100 as the ideal urban density.
In the 1970s Singapore had a density of 250.
Parts of Kowloon today have a density of 1250.
Sleep tight!