If you are thinking of moving to the Old North State, you should be aware of the 10 most expensive cities to live in North Carolina, which is one of the most populous states in the United States of America. Although the general cost of living in this state is 4.6% lower than the US average, there are certain cities to be aware of if one has a low budget.
LesPalenik/Shutterstock.com
North Carolina previously had nothing to rely on for its economy other than a few industries like textile and tobacco. Now, however, its economy is boosting with great speed, expanding into finance, energy, and engineering sectors. Therefore, it’s a great place to live in employment wise, since the unemployment rate here is 6%, which is below the rate in an average city in the US. Furthermore, this state attracts many tourists to behold the amazing view of the Appalachian Mountains or to swim in the Carolina Beach. The North Carolina Museum of Art is also an interesting place to visit. Nevertheless, if you are still not convinced and want to consider another state to move to, you can see our list of 10 most expensive cities to live in Illinois.
Coming back to the 10 most expensive cities to live in North Carolina, it’s surprising that the capital city of this state (Raleigh) and the biggest one (Charlotte) have not made it into the list. To create our list, first, we have taken into account only the cities with a population of above 10,000 residents, and then out of those cities, we found 20 with the highest overall costs of living indexes. The overall cost of living index provides a comparison with the average living expenses in the US, i.e. if the index is 110, it means that the cost is 10% above the average, and it combines the effect of healthcare, housing, groceries, transport and utility expenses and miscellaneous. Those 20 cities were then ranked separately by healthcare index, housing index, transport index, and utility index, and the average ranking was calculated for all of them, hence getting the final list of the priciest cities in North Carolina. One may wonder why did we exclude “miscellaneous” from the categories, and here is an explanation for that: since the cost of miscellaneous index represents costs of things like restaurants and entertainment, which are not as necessary as all the other categories, we decided to exclude it. Otherwise, with taking that category into account also, we could have just used the overall cost of living index. But, we found that the mentioned 4 categories are far more relevant, and they make a more precise picture of the expenses that must be made. All statistics of the population have been extracted from City-Data whereas details of costs of living have been seen from Sperling’s Best Places.
The components of the factors used are explained as under:
- Grocery – Includes general cost of food in grocery stores.
- Health – Includes average daily rate of a hospital room and charges of a visit to the doctor counting dental checkup as well.
- Utility – Includes average cost of heating or cooling a house, along with electricity and natural gas expenses.
- Transportation – Includes gas expenses, car insurance and maintenance of vehicles.
