"I love Australia, but I can't afford to live there"

I have said this to many people in the last few years: "I love Australia, but I can't afford to live there". Well I guess that is being overly dramatic; we could afford to live there, but we have chosen not to as costs in Australia, particularly Sydney, are out of control. We have a much higher standard of life in Shanghai.

The release of the Worldwide Cost of Living Survey seems to back up my point.

"The cost of living in Sydney is now almost 50 per cent higher than that of global business centre New York – while a decade ago Sydney was more than 25 per cent cheaper than New York," Worldwide Cost of Living report editor Jon Copestake told the Sydney Morning Herald.


The report found the cost of living in five Australian cities was higher than cities such as London, Rome, New York, Berlin, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Rio de Janeiro.

Read more here and here.