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[h1]No. 1: Los Angeles, Calif.[/h1]
(Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, Calif.)
Cost of Living: 47 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 47 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 47 of 50
Average Salary: 15 of 50
[h1]No. 2: Chicago, Ill.[/h1]
(Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, Ill.)
Cost of Living: 44 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 36 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 43 of 50
Average Salary: 23 of 50
[h1]No. 3: Miami, Fla.[/h1]
(Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla.)
Cost of Living: 26 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 46 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 39 of 50
Average Salary: 31 of 50
[h1]No. 4: New York, N.Y.[/h1]
(New York-White Plains-Wayne, N.Y./N.J.)
Cost of Living: 47 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 50 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 37 of 50
Average Salary: 6 of 50
[h1]No. 5: Providence, R.I.[/h1]
(Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, R.I.)
Cost of Living: 26 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 28 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 48 of 50
Average Salary: 37 of 50
[h1]No. 6: Riverside, Calif.[/h1]
(Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif.)
Cost of Living: 23 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 34 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 49 of 50
Average Salary: 26 of 50
[h1]No. 7: Long Island, N.Y.[/h1]
(Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y.)
Cost of Living: 40 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 48 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 17 of 50
Average Salary: 24 of 50
[h1]No. 8: Cleveland, Ohio[/h1]
(Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, Ohio)
Cost of Living: 32 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 5 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 44 of 50
Average Salary: 40 of 50
[h1]No. 9 (tie): Newark, N.J.[/h1]
(Newark-Union, N.J./Pa.)
Cost of Living: 40 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 44 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 23 of 50
Average Salary: 12 of 50
[h1]No. 9 (tie): San Diego, Calif.[/h1]
(San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif.)
Cost of Living: 35 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 41 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 27 of 50
Average Salary: 16 of 50
[h1]No. 11: Philadelphia, Pa.[/h1]
(Philadelphia, Pa.)
Cost of Living: 35 of 50
Housing Opportunity: 38 of 50
Unemployment Rate: 23 of 50
Average Salary: 21 of 50
[h1]America's Most Overpriced Cities[/h1]Zack O'MalleyGreenburg, 05.06.09, 04:30 PM EDT[h2]Twenty metros where Americans have a hard time meeting expenses.[/h2]
[h4]In Depth: America's Most Overpriced Cities[/h4]Vexed by gang wars and rising real estate prices, late rapper Tupac Shakur mused in 1996 that the overall cost of living in Los Angeles was so high he would almost rather "live life in thepen[itentiary]."
Though East Coast-West Coast gang violence has since subsided, life in the City of Angels remains far from affordable. Thanks to bloated housing prices,lofty living costs and unemployment rates among the highest in the nation, the Los Angeles metro area tops our list ofAmerica's Most Overpriced Cities.
At least residents of Los Angeles and the third-ranked Miami metro get to enjoy balmy evenings andsunny days at the beach. Residents of the second-most overpriced metro area, Chicago, get sweltering summers andnear-Siberian winters on top of a 9.4% metro area unemployment rate and a cost of living trailing only Los Angeles and New York.
In Depth: America's MostOverpriced Cities
The Big Apple ranks fourth on our list; it's weighed down by high costs and an 8.8% unemployment rate. Those factors overwhelmed the considerableearning power of New Yorkers with bachelor's degrees--$69,200 per year, on average, according to PayScale.com--a figure rivaled only by those in Washington, D.C., and Bay Area locales, including San Francisco. Still, it's not enough tobridge the price gap.
"For the average professional, New York's premium is not as high as you'd expect, given the cost of living," says Al Lee, director ofQuantitative Analysis at PayScale. "The premium for a software developer in New York is actually less than it is in Seattle, and about the same as it isin Atlanta."
Even those in less-sprawling cities have it tough. Along with fifth-ranked Providence, R.I., Cleveland(No.
Behind the Numbers
To compile our list, we looked at earnings potential and living expenses in the 50 largest continental U.S. metropolitan statistical areas and metropolitandivisions--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishingfederal statistics.
