Arlington ranks as the 10th most expensive to live in among the nation’s 100 largest urban areas, according to a new survey, rising 39 percent above the national average and fueled by the whopping cost of housing.
That’s according to a new data analysis by Apartment List, which looked at the cost of living through lenses of housing, utilities, transportation, health care, groceries and miscellaneous goods and services.
Arlington’s cost of living was above average in all those categories except for utilities, where it stood at 4 percent below the national average. But with the exception of housing (which stood 111 percent higher than the national average), most other costs carried by county residents were only slightly above the nation as a whole.
(Full data for all urban areas in the survey, plus the methodology, can be found at https://www.apartmentlist.com/cost-of-living.)
San Francisco topped the ranking; cost of living in there stood 83 percent higher than the national average, followed by New York City (77% above). Completing the top 10: Anaheim; the District of Columbia; Los Angeles; Seattle; Boston; San Diego; Oakland; and Arlington.
On the other end of the list stood Topeka, Kan., where the overall cost of living was 19 percent lower than the national average. Also affordable: Mobile, Ala.; Oklahoma City; Jackson, Miss.; and Augusta, Ga.
The community most closely aligned with the national average? Milwaukee.
Housing is by far the most significant factor in determining which places are affordable and which ones are not, analysts noted.
“This can be seen more explicitly by looking at the statistical range for each of the index components: the difference between the highest and lowest value,” they said. “Transportation costs, for example, span from a minimum of 31 percent below average in Columbia, S.C., to a maximum of 34 percent above average in Boston, for a swing of 65 percentage points. Housing, on the other hand, spans from 42 percent below average in Mobile, Ala., to 210 percent above average in New York City, making the range a staggering 252 percentage points.”
