Welcome to the world's 47th most expensive city

Thanks to our friends at Shanghaiist, we have word of another list Houston's on — but this one doesn't have anything to do with our weight, children, dog poo or gold diggers. No, this has to do with The Economist magazine's Worldwide Cost of Living index, which ranks Houston 47th among the world's 132 most expensive cities in which to live, up one spot from last year's 48th place ranking. Shanghaiist has the details; we'll let them explain how the list was compiled:

This survey was compiled by the The Economist's inhouse number crunchers, aptly named the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU). The survey compiled its data set by collecting a snapshot of prices from 177 internationally comparable products and services sorted into 10 categories. From this data set, an index score was calculated and then normalised against the cost of living in New York City (index value of 100).

Based on that, the five most expensive cities in the world this year (with their index numbers) are, in order: Oslo (132), Paris (130), Copenhagen (126), London (125) and Tokyo (124). In the U.S., New York City still has the highest cost of living — as stated, its index is 100, which makes it the world's 28th most expensive city. Rounding out the top five in the U.S. are Chicago (index 95, rank 36), Los Angeles (index 94, rank 39), San Francisco (index 92, rank 41) and Washington (index 89, rank 44).

What's interesting to us is that Houston, with an index of 88 and a rank of 47, is only slightly less expensive than D.C. by The Economist's measure — when, from everything we know, D.C. has a far higher cost of living than Houston. Or does it? Here's a detailed description of how the Economist Intelligence Unit came up with the index, but what it boils down to is this: The rankings don't account for the cost of accommodations, and that's one of the first things that comes to our mind when we think about the cost of living. The EIU didn't consider that because its cost of living represents the amount an employee being transferred from one city to another would spend on food, clothing, recreation, transportation — in other words, day-to-day expenses. According to The Economist, that makes Houston a more expensive place than Miami, Seattle, Boston and Honolulu as well.

If you're looking for a value, head south: A quarter of the cheapest 30 cities on The Economist's list are in Latin America, including Panama City, Caracas, Buenos Aires and San Jose, Costa Rica. But if you're really wanting to stretch your dollar — or, in this case, your rial — move to Tehran, Iran, the cheapest city on the list. And be sure to send us a postcard.

And: Thanks to a zealous Shanghaiist commenter, you can check out the entire Economist list.

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Photo: flickr user laanba