Shanghai the 8th most expensive Asian city for expats

You guys ready for yet another ranking of most expensive cities? ECA International has ranked Shanghai the 8th costliest city in Asia for expats, so if they're to be taken seriously, Shanghai is cheaper than Beijing which came in 7th but more costly than Singapore which came in 9th. Seoul was the most expensive Asian city, while Guangzhou came in 10th.

Also, Shanghai was named the 100th most expensive city in the world. That's 99 spots behind Luanda, Angola, which had the distinction of being the costliest city worldwide. Kinshasa in Congo came in 6th, Libreville in Gabon 8th, and Abidjan in Cote D'Ivoire 16th.This is curious, because the last time we checked, we were supposed to be the 22nd most expensive. Of course, this was another consulting company researching with a completely different basket of goods.

So one consulting company tells us we're the 22nd costliest and another tells us we're the 100th? Who are we supposed to believe? Feel free to make up your own mind, but personally we believe none of them. IMHO, all these "costliest" rankings and "quality of life" rankings are becoming increasingly irrevelant in the new world. Jaded expats like ourselves (and we aren't even strictly speaking an "expatriate", more like a "half-pat") now know better that it isn't going to get more or less costly for ourselves just because these guys tell us so. One man's meat is another man's poison, and we're all living different lifestyles, so really, one-size-fits-all rankings just don't cut it anymore. Do these consultants know it? Sure they do. But we doubt anything's going to stop them from spending more man-hours and money every few months coming up with a different ranking to make it to the news (and blogs like this one). Sigh.