As is too often the case, I thought the infographic, while creative, didn't communicate the actual data in a very clear way. So, here is another international cost of living index by city (in a boring, but searchable and sortable, tabular format) :

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings.jsp

FWIW,
Dr.F.

FWIW, I live in a small city / large town with a relatively cheap cost of living, just over half the cost of living in NYC (extrapolating from rank of the nearest city of any size).

I was in Switzerland a few weeks ago, we booked a week there just before they cut the Franc from the Euro (and prices skyrocketed like mad), so yeah I can assure that Switzerland is insanely expensive, especially now. A bag of crisps in a regular supermarket was 6,30 Franc, which is about 6 euros, which is... insane.

Why is Venezuela so expensive?

Google to the rescue

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102405016

This is some crazy shit.

I've never seen a site that has what I'm really curious about: Where in America is the cost of living the lowest for certain factors? I mean, I've driven through a lot of midwestern states, and there are a ton of towns that are dying off, where I assume the cost to own half the buildings on main street is less than most people's homes (and kind of an attractive idea, if you're creative and good with home repair). The problem is I wonder what happens if the water/electricity decides to stop serving the area? Can that happen? Can I get internet? Etc.

I mean, if it was connected to the web and had access to a few basic services, there are a lot of places that would be nifty to live and probably very, very cheap. But it's not like I ever see places like that ever listed on things like this; it's always major cities or whole states.

Utility companies can't legally go "Nope, not going there, not worth the money". This applies to electricity and phone service universally - if the company has to install extra infrastructure to service you, they are allowed to add a surcharge to your bill, but they're not allowed to not service you. This was all hashed out in the 1930's, and is federally regulated by the Rural Utilities Service department of the USDA. Gas service is similarly regulated, either requiring natural gas to be piped to the premises or a company to deliver LP gas/heating fuel to your own private supply cylinder.

Water service is typically only provided within city limits, but you can always have a well drilled if you live in the countryside. Inside city water service, garbage collection and sewerage are provided and included in the water bill; outside, you can rent a dumpster directly from the garbage collection company (or do what most other people do, either dig a trash pit and burn it occasionally, or sneak your garbage into the nearest town and toss it in a dumpster and try not to get caught), and most houses have septic systems.

Cities can go bankrupt, they can depopulate and fade into ghost towns, but utility service is legally mandated. If there is no longer a city to provide services, the state will step in and have a regulated private company provide services.

Internet, on the other hand, isn't (yet! Go FCC!) a regulated public utility. Most towns will have some kind of broadband available (typically 1.5mb/728k ADSL) within the distance limits of the local phone exchange. Outside of those distance limits, well, occasionally there will be a fixed-base wireless provider (usually 728k/256k), but you may well be limited to dial-up (33.6 because 56k is distance limited like ADSL, so lolno), satellite internet service, or tethering through your phone. But inside city limits, yeah, you can usually get at least one flavor of slow broadband.

Where I live now, a town of roughly 2k people in the Texas panhandle, there are two ADSL providers plus the cable company, so I'm not personally limited for options. In the last town of this size I lived in, 6mb/1mb ADSL was available, and I'm currently on 50mb/5mb cable internet service.

It's something I've given thought to as well due to the whole economic kerblooie devastating retirement plans and so on that made my ears perk up when a local news station did a story about towns in the rural areas that are depopulating. The residents were mystified because there were practically new homes (modest ones, not McMansions) that were available for $10,000 or so, but you had to be able to cope with a more country-like life.

I could get several such houses if I sold my city one, and I was always curious if it would involve other sacrifices like, say, snow removal (though climate change may take care of that where I live), availability of grocery stores, etc.

I live in a place where it doesn't snow much, so I really couldn't tell you about that. When it does bring on a snowpocalypse, everything tends to shut down until the highway department can start clearing roads.

Most towns have a grocery store. The prices may not be the best, and good luck with an organic / vegan / gluten free / highly ethical diet, but you absolutely can buy groceries. If there isn't a grocery store, there will be one in the next town over, but that's okay, because you absolutely must have a reliable vehicle to live rurally.

Toss out any other questions/concerns you have, and I'll take a shot at answering them.

If you can afford multiple 10k dollar homes, you could easily invest in a pickup truck with a plow blade attachment. But that sort of thing is really only needed for people who need to clear entire roads or huge driveways/lanes.

As for your other question: yes, there are a lot of dying rural towns out there, and they're all dying for the same reasons - the kids are leaving for the city. What jobs are available are either restaurant/retail or manual labor, neither of which pays well or offers much room for advancement. Shopping is limited - you might have two convenience stores, one grocery store, and one or two general stores, and nothing else less than sixty miles away. Your neighbors tend to be religious, conservative, older, and sometimes pretty nosy. Entertainment, ahaha, I hope you love football, redneck dive bars, and rampant drug and alcohol abuse.

I wouldn't trade any of it for the hustle, noise, and crowds of a city.

Welcome to Texas

I know a few guys that would work 3-6 months then head down to Costa Rica and surf all day for the remainder of the year.

In case anyone is wondering, those cost of living numbers are relative to New York City. A score of 120 means that the cost of living is 20% more than New York City; a score of 80 means that the cost of living is 20% less than New York City. Not the most transparent way of presenting data, I must say.

Surprised that Japan wasn't in the top 15. And even more surprised that the UK is at number 10. Must be because of the high cost of property in the south-east, because food here isn't too expensive.

I also didn't realise how expensive Australia is.

It's fucking expensive :-(

So what's expensive? Property, food, petrol? I should have thought property would be quite cheap, what with all the land.

Property is the worst, it's hard to get a first home in Sydney for less than half a million anywhere. 2 bedroom apartments selling for over that amount is not uncommon, and not just inner-city where you would expect it but 30+ kilometres into the suburbs. Very hard for young people to get into the market. Negative gearing and baby bloomers tend to get the blame but there is a shortage of land for new developments and despite all the space most of us live in one of 5 cities which puts demand on stock.
Courtesy of a duopoly on our national supermarkets, groceries are very expensive. I was in London last year and it was considerably cheaper there for a basket of groceries. They are also killing off our farmers through their predatory practices like $1 litre of milk etc and encouraging importing of produce for lowest cost.
Petrol is ok, more than US but less than Europe, about AU$1.35/L at the moment. Electricity is more expensive than it should be given we produce most the world's coal...
Eating and drinking out is expensive, it's not uncommon to pay over $9 for a corona at a bar (I use that as a comparison as I assume you have corona where you are.)
But Sydney is pretty and I'm lucky that my office looks over the harbour so can't complain too much.