L.A. Out of the Bag as Big-City Bargain
Angelenos who find themselves a little short of walking-around money this holiday weekend can take some consolation in this:
In at least 11 other American cities, they’d probably be even less flush.
If the latest quarterly cost-of-living index of the American Chamber of Commerce is to be believed, the country’s second-largest city is only the 12th most expensive among 325 metropolitan areas surveyed.
Ranked among other large cities, Los Angeles was sixth, far to the rear of top-ranked New York (Manhattan, actually), but also behind Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and San Diego. Los Angeles, according to the survey, is a bargain.
Prices are below the national average for 10-pound bags of potatoes; 29-ounce cans of brand-name peaches; 2-liter bottles of Coca-Cola; electric power; pinpoint oxford-cloth, plain-collar, long-sleeve men’s shirts; fifths of J&B; Scotch whiskey; six-packs of Budweiser, and 1.5-liter bottles of Gallo chablis.
Yearning for smaller-town life? Salinas and Santa Barbara cost more to live in than L.A., as do New Haven, Conn., and the Alaska cities of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and Kodiak, according to the survey. Los Angeles is just barely more expensive than Burlington, Vt.
The survey results fly in the face of a widespread notion that movie stars and other rich profligates have driven up prices in Los Angeles County.
That caricature, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the county’s Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, has always been off the mark.
“When we first started participating in the survey, people said, ‘Why do it? It’s not going to make L.A. look good,’ ” he said. “But we find that Los Angeles, in comparison to other major urban areas, is definitely a bargain. Depending on how many major urban areas were in this thing, we’ve held at about No. 5 or 6. The whole time I’ve been doing this, since 1984, never has Los Angeles been the most expensive place in the United States in which to live.”
The survey includes a number of unexpected findings about relative living costs in Los Angeles County. It shows that of all areas surveyed, L.A. ranks 17th in housing prices, 16th in transportation costs, and 57th in utility costs.
On the other hand, the survey places Los Angeles, despite its proximity to California’s productive farmlands, sixth in the cost of groceries--second if the import-dependent Alaska cities aren’t considered.
The survey, conducted quarterly by the Alexandria, Va.-based American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Assn. (ACCRA), has been in existence since 1968. The latest index resulted from canvassing done July 11-13 of last year. It measures prices for 59 goods and services from frozen peas to Kleenex to haircuts to bowling fees.
“A lot of people buy it because they or their companies are relocating, and they use it to compute salary differences from one place to another,” says ACCRA director Jason Jordan.
Even its advocates admit, however, the survey is far from exhaustive, even further from scientific.
For one thing, Jordan says, stores surveyed are those likely to be patronized primarily by consumers “within a range of middle income, middle management. Survey participants are asked to avoid neighborhoods that are either at the high end of the socioeconomic scale or at the low end.”
For another, the survey is restricted to what Kyser calls “lowest common denominator” items available in every community across the country--Del Monte canned peaches and McDonald’s Quarter Pounders with cheese, for instance. The prices of sashimi in L.A. or lobster in Boston or any other items peculiar to specific locales aren’t figured in.
The surveying is typically done by local chambers of commerce or economic development authorities, within strict parameters set by ACCRA.
In Los Angeles County the entire survey was done by Kyser of the EDC, and Tene Harris, an intern from the USC School of Public Administration.
“We split things up,” Kyser says. “I’m on the road a lot, so I collected the gasoline prices. We split up the grocery stores, and for a lot of the stuff we get by on phone calls.”
Typically, he says, they get prices for each item from at least five sources, and average them. Much of their information on consumer goods is gleaned from a Ralphs supermarket in midtown, a Vons in Downey, a Lucky in Torrance, a Hughes in Silverlake and a Max Foods in Pico-Rivera.
Kyser admits to being “a little perturbed” by the voluntary nature of the survey. He says it skews results in favor of low-cost smaller cities keen to use the survey as a selling tool to lure potential employers.
“But even with this skewing, we come out very, very well,” he said.
Besides, the survey can’t begin to address wider issues of quality of life.
“I used to work in Omaha,” he said, “and there wasn’t the armada of museums we have in Los Angeles, and there were no good Mexican restaurants and there were no mountains at any price.”
