Ask any stranger to name the nation’s most expensive city to live in, and you’re likely to get the same response: New York or San Francisco.
Those answers are close to the truth but not entirely correct. According to this list shared by the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch, it’s Honolulu, Hawaii, that takes the title as the most expensive metropolitan area in the United States.
The list was compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and relies on Regional Price Parities (RPPs) to compare the cost of living among different cities. RPPs serve as an index to compare local prices against national prices. For instance, New York’s RPP of 122 means that prices in the Big Apple are 22 percent higher than the national average.
Here are the 10 most expensive cities to live in:
Bureau of Economic Analysis
Go to WSJ’s Market Watch to see the 10 least expensive cities to live in. If you want to see how 381 cities are ranked by the BEA, here’s a link to the full list.