Brooklyn is the second most expensive urban area in the US

Your reader is correct, San Francisco is usually the second highest community. Along with Honolulu, they have traditionally swapped second place after Manhattan. However, since Brooklyn began to collect data five or six years ago it has consistently been in second place. The difference in the Annual Review of 2 points between Brooklyn and Honolulu is not that significant. We are not dealing with conventional wisdom here, whatever that may be. We are dealing with actual data based on prices collected by our data collector in Brooklyn. There are 60 consumer goods and services collected quarterly. Bear in mind also that the target demographic group are professional/managerial households. The largest portion of the index is made up of housing. Having looked at the prices of the available housing in Brooklyn, I don’t think there is an error here. Every quarter we run the data through a rigorous statistical analysis. We allow only a certain level of standard deviation per quarter. We are not dealing with a specific income here. But the reader is correct. Other studies have shown that one can live better in Portland OR on $70,000 per year than living in San Francisco on $120,000 per year. However, that is not what this index is about. Bear in mind that what we produce IS AN INDEX, every index number is relative to the data set as a whole. The participating communities do not exist in isolation. Everyone’s index number is dependent on the totality of the data submitted. I could raise everyone’s housing index by 2 points by simply including Key West Florida in the mix. You don’t want to know what including Aspen Colorado would do to everyone’s index. I can reduce everyone’s index number by simply leaving out New York City completely. But then, what good is the report if it doesn’t include New York? You may direct your readers to our website, www.coli.org where they can find our methodology explained in complete detail. You may also download a copy of our manual that will explain everything in painful detail.