This Is America’s Most Expensive City

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Nov 17, 8:50AM EST

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This Is America’s Most Expensive City — © ntzolov / E+ via Getty Images

Expensive, as a description of a city, can be measured in several ways. One is by the cost of living. Another is the pace at which prices to live in the city increase. By the second measure, Miami tops the ranks among the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. It is America’s most expensive city to live in now.

Based on consumer price index (CPI) data for October, prices rose 7.4%, about two times the national average. Unlike most cities and the country as a whole, the year-over-year CPI increase reached nearly 8% two years ago, but it has never dropped. (These are the states where inflation is stressing people out the most.)

Two major components of prices increased less than the figure overall. Food prices rose 4.5% year over year. Energy prices were up 5.7%.

The price increase in housing pounded Miami. Residential real estate prices rose 12.8%. While energy price increases overall were tame, the price of energy used in residences rose 10.5%, mostly because of electricity. No wonder it is now America’s most expensive city.

Apparel prices rose 13.0%, and non-alcoholic beverages rose 8.6%.

Miami did see the price of some components of the CPI decline. Used car prices dropped 8.0%, and medical costs were down slightly.

The news shows the extent to which inflation is uneven across the United States, not unlike prices of gasoline and real estate. This year, Miami is the unlikely one across America’s metros.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.