Economy
Why Groceries Cost Less in Big Cities
Reversing the conventional wisdom on the cost of living in major cities like New York.
It’s a well-worn story that it’s much more expensive to live in big cities than smaller ones—in say, Brooklyn, New York, than in Brooklyn, Iowa. Housing prices are a huge part of this, obviously: The average property listing price in the New York City borough last week was just under $1.25 million; in the Iowa city, it was $166,000.
But while most people think just about everything else costs more in New York, a recent study by Jessie Handbury of the University of Pennsylvania and David E. Weinstein of Columbia University suggests that groceries and other staples may actually be cheaper in big cities than in small ones—when one does the proper sort of comparison.