The List of World's Most Expensive Cities May Surprise You
Hey, New Yorker in your $2 jillion a month apartment, drinking your $97 dollar latte, and reading your newspaper for free on your $6,587 iPad, you think you live in the most expensive city on Earth, don't cha? Wrong! In fact, you probably couldn't even find the most expensive city on a map.
The Mercer Group, which figures out how pricey the world's major cities are for corporations who have employees in those capitals, published its annual report of the world's most expensive cities and for the second year in a row Luanda is on top. No, that is not the latest Real Housewife. It's an oil-rich city in Angola. No, that is not a kind of sweater. It's a country in Africa. Apparently the mix of oil money and limited infrastructure means it can cost more than $7,000 a month to live there. New York didn't even crack the top 10, coming in as the 32nd most expensive city. So quit whining that the Greenpoint hovel you share with three other people (and two cats) now costs you more than $1,000 a month. Luandanians think you're a stupid whiner.
The rest of the top five is both familiar and mysterious. No. 2 is Tokyo, which makes sense. Next is N'Djamena, which you not only can't find on a map, but you also can't pronounce, ignorant American. Rounding out the top five are Moscow and Geneva, which I can't really say mean things about (as a condition of my probation). There you have it, New York. Now go have a $52 cocktail to get over the sting.