Posted on 11/25/2025 9:29:07 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Today, Tupelo, MS is the nation’s most affordable city, where your dollar can stretch 21% further than the U.S. average.
Similarly, several Southern cities have the lowest cost of living in the country, typically seeing smaller populations and more affordable housing. In contrast, New York and California continue to rank among the most expensive places to live.
This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows the U.S. cities with the lowest and highest cost of living, based on data from the Council for Community and Economic Research.
Below, we rank cities by their cost of living index, which measured 61 items in Q2 2025:
Oklahoma stands out for affordability, with three of the nation’s 10 most affordable cities. Texas and Kansas follow closely, each with two.
In Oklahoma City, the median home sale price sits at $225,167, and more than half of homes sold in August went for less than the list price. Down south, McAllen, Texas saw the third-lowest grocery costs in the country.
At the other end of the spectrum, living costs in Manhattan are more than twice the national average—72% higher than even San Francisco. Neighboring boroughs like Brooklyn and Queens also rank among the least affordable in the U.S., driven by an influx of Manhattan buyers during the pandemic.
Honolulu, meanwhile, takes the lead for grocery expenses, with prices more than 32% above the U.S. average, and 13% higher than in Manhattan.
To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the world’s most expensive real estate markets.
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Half of those places aren’t really cities, it would be more interesting to see how actual cities of significant size rank on those scales. The place I live is a city in legal terms but the population is barely 5,000. I think of it as a town or a glorified village. It’s not really a city.
I wonder how affordable St George Utah and surrounding area might be, it’s certainly a far more attractive urban environment than most nowadays. I would prefer to live in a smaller place but if I wanted to move to a decent American city I would seriously look at places like that. Maybe Colorado Springs is a contender, I have not been there for a long time. When they list places as small as Richmond, Indiana that makes it apples and oranges really, the only real city I see in that list is Oklahoma City.
“St George Utah and surrounding area...” is OK if you do not consume alcohol...
“Maybe Colorado Springs is a contender, ...” it’s very expensive there.
I think most are affordable because they are pretty much in tornado ally. It’s risky living there. Of course, most places have some sort of weather risk.
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