That may not be surprising, but once you
account for these different preferences, it turns out that living in New
York is actually a relative bargain for the wealthy.
While compiling her research, Handbury looked at Nielsen shopping data
for 40,000 American households, across more than 500 food categories,
with details on everything from organic labeling to salt content.
Remarkably, she found that for households earning above $100,000,
grocery costs are 20 percent lower in cities with a high per-capita
income (like New York) than in cities with a low per-capita income (like
New Orleans). There’s evidence that the same forces hold true for other
products that cater to upper-income people, from high-end retail to
beauty services. The average manicure, for example, is about $3 cheaper
in New York City than in each of the rest of the top 10 biggest cities
in the United States, according to Centzy, a company that collects data
on the prices of services.
Part of the reason high-income residents get good deals, Handbury
explains, results from a particular economic system. Highly educated,
high-income New Yorkers are surrounded by equally well-educated and
well-paid people with similar tastes. More vendors compete for their
business, which effectively lowers prices and provides variety. There’s
also a high fixed cost to distributing a niche product to an area; if
there’s more demand for that product, then the fixed cost can be spread
across more customers, which will justify bringing the product to the
market in the first place. That’s why companies go through the expensive
hassle of distributing, say, St. Dalfour French fruit spreads in rich
cities but not in poor ones and why New York can support institutions
like the Metropolitan Opera.
Who Says New York is Not Affordable?
by Catherine Rampell
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/who-says-new-york-is-not-affordable.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
