Cost of living in Boston, MA vs. Pittsburgh, PA.
The cost of living, especially in or around major urban areas in the United States, has skyrocketed in recent years. But some cities are still leaps and bounds ahead of others in terms of cost. Take Boston, for example. The biggest metropolis in New England, Boston has always been relatively expensive in comparison to other cities that are further inland. But during the pandemic, living costs have ticked up even more dramatically. A new survey released earlier this week found that the median monthly rent for a one bedroom in Boston now falls just over $100 shy of the average in San Francisco, a notoriously expensive city known as one of the country’s tech hubs. To quantify Boston’s surging cost of living, I’ve chosen to compare with some cost of living statistics for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a city I grew up an hour north of.
To make this comparison, I’m using data from the site Data USA. First, I believe it’s important to state the obvious. Boston, by population size, is about twice the size of Pittsburgh. In 2019, Boston’s population hovered right near 700,000. Pittsburgh sat at around 300,000. Still, some of the differences in cost, be it because Boston is a coastal city or an education hub, are stark. Property in any city is a hot commodity. In Boston, it’s a luxury. According to Data USA, the median property value in 2019 was $627,000, up from $575,000 the year before. In Pittsburgh, the median property value in 2019 was about 1/6th of Boston’s, at $149,000 (up from $140,000 the year before). As a result, only about 34% of people owned property in Boston in 2019. In Pittsburgh, 10 percent more people, or 45% owned property. Despite the higher cost though, about 2 percent fewer people in Boston lived below the poverty line. For that, there may be myriad reasons. As previously mentioned, Boston is filled with competitive universities. Its also a major metropolitan hub on the east coast, while Pittsburgh sits at the edge of the rust belt, and is not as high traffic an area as Boston.
