Top 25 Least Expensive Cities in the U.S.

by Tyler Osby on June 28, 2011

Cheaper Isn’t Always Better

A report issued Mon­day by the U.S. gov­ern­ment showed core infla­tion ris­ing 2.5 per­cent in the last 12 months for its biggest one-year gain since Jan­u­ary 2010.

Every­day liv­ing is becom­ing expen­sive, it seems.

But there are some U.S. towns in which the cost of liv­ing remains afford­able — and down­right cheap — as com­pared to the national aver­age. They’re detailed in a Busi­ness­Week piece titled “The Cheap­est 25 Cities In The U.S”.

In com­par­ing costs across 340 urban areas as com­piled by the Coun­cil of Com­mu­nity & Eco­nomic Research, cities in Texas, Arkansas, Ten­nessee and Okla­homa ranked con­sis­tently high. Cities in Hawaii did not.

Take note, though. Although the Busi­ness­Week piece high­lights inex­pen­sive cities in which to live, a low cost of liv­ing does not nec­es­sar­ily cor­re­late to a high stan­dard of liv­ing. Cost-leader Har­lin­gen, Texas, for exam­ple, boasts a poverty rate nearly triple the national average.

Other “Inex­pen­sive Cities” fea­ture sim­i­lar poverty rates.

The Top 10 “Cheap­est Cities” Are:

  1. Har­lin­gen, Texas
  2. Pueblo, Col­orado
  3. Pryor Creek, Oklahoma
  4. McAllen, Texas
  5. Cookeville, Ten­nessee
  6. Commerce-Hunt County, Texas
  7. Brownsville, Texas
  8. Fort Smith, Arkansas
  9. Musko­gee, Oklahoma
  10. Spring­field, Illinois

And, at the other end of the spec­trum, the top 5 most expen­sive cities/areas were, in order, Man­hat­tan, New York; Brook­lyn, New York; Hon­olulu, Hawaii; San Fran­cisco, CA; and Queens, New York.

Manhattan’s cost of liv­ing is more than twice the national average.

The com­plete list is avail­able at the Busi­ness­Week web­site.

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