Wednesday, September 10, 2008

And the most expensive city in the world is...in Angola?!

This is perhaps one of the most surprising facts I've learned in a good long time: the most expensive city in the world is Luanda, capital of Angola. Angola's recently been awash with petrodollars, and probably a combination of a piss-poor building stock, disincentives for construction (read: bureaucracy, corruption, and lack of property rights), an influx of refugees, and a sudden boom have propelled it past Moscow, Tokyo, and London to be the world's most expensive city (presumably for the rich/expats? I can't imagine the slum-dwellers are paying $10 for a salad). The story's also got some interesting information on the slums in Luanda, and a proposal to legitimize them that would make Hernando de Soto proud.

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