Most expensive cities, 2005.

2005 Mercer cost of living rankings

Wonder how they compute these things. Living in Chicago & having friends in Boston, I don't know anyone who considers Chicago the more expensive city. More flat, yes. Stuck in the midst of a bunch of cornfields -- yes. But expensive? No.

P.S. We talked about it at work, and reasoned that they must have computed "expensiveness" in terms of local wages, rather than what you can get for amount of dollars or euros. Thus, Budapest is ranked as more expensive than almost all American cities, despite the fact that the average American income, in dollars, would go VERY far in Budapest.