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Singapore skyline
Photo: EDGAR SU / REUTERS
Which city is the most expensive to live in?
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a company whose work is closely linked to the British weekly The Economist, investigates this question once a year.
According to an EIU survey, two cities share the dubious honorary title this year: the US metropolis New York and the Asian metropolis Singapore.
The main cost drivers are rising energy prices and inflation rates.
Last year's leader Tel Aviv dropped to third place.
The Australian city of Sydney is a new addition to the top ten.
The Russian cities of Moscow and St. Petersberg also surged up the rankings as sanctions and rising oil prices pushed prices higher.
Another factor that pushed cities up the rankings was strong currencies.
Six of the eight biggest climbers (after the two Russian cities) were US cities, led by Atlanta, which ranked 46th out of the 172 cities surveyed.
The US currency has appreciated significantly against almost all others as the US Federal Reserve hiked interest rates and announced further rate hikes.
Meanwhile, cities in countries where their currencies were collapsing were among those that fell down the list of most expensive cities.
Examples include Japan's metropolitan areas of Tokyo and Osaka (37th and 43rd, respectively, compared to 13th and 10th in 2021).
Stockholm and Luxembourg slipped the most, to places 99 and 104. The cities of Damascus in Syria and Tripoli remained the cheapest cities in the ranking.
British cities fell in the rankings, with London down from 17th to 28th. Edinburgh came in at 46th and Manchester at 73rd. Australian cities rose sharply in the ranking.
Venezuela's capital, Caracas, was not included in the EIU ranking due to exorbitant inflation in the country.
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