San Francisco Is the Fourth Most Expensive City in the U.S.

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San Francisco is fancy and just keeps getting fancier. The city has not been this expensive to live in since 2008, the Wall Street Journal reports. Only Manhattan, Brooklyn and Honolulu are more expensive places to live in the U.S., according to the Cost of Living Index from the Council for Community and Economic Research. Our city is 69% more expensive than the rest of the country.

San Jose and Oakland are not much cheaper, coming it at 51% and 41% more expensive, respectively, which puts them in the top 10 most expensive cities. It all seems to in accord with the bevy of high-end shops that have opened up in the Bay Area in recent months, including Prada, Miu Miu, David Yurman, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany and Cartier in San Jose; Vera Wang, Jimmy Choo, and more in SF, and Alexander McQueen, ACNE, Valentino and Christian Louboutin announcing plans (potential plans in Louboutin's case) to open in SF soon.

It also points to further challenges to neighborhoods who want to keep expensive stores and national chains out of their commercial centers, as well as for renters hoping to stay within city limits (or those hoping to relocate to SJ or Oakland for that matter).

It's an extremely contentious issue in this city, which has always attracted creative types who end up not being able to afford to live in the neighborhoods they made cool. The Mission and Hayes Valley are more recent cases in point, going back further, North Beach and the Haight are good examples, and like Manhattan already has, we're pretty much running out of less expensive neighborhoods. Check out the comments in this article at The Bold Italic to see just how riled up SF residents can get about the topic.
· Bay Area Vital Signs WSJ (subscription req'd)
· Jack Spade May Replace 25-Year Mission Mainstay [Racked SF]
· Gant Moving in on Hayes, Neighbors Are not Pleased [Racked SF]