Living Standards by Cities in Romania – Cluj Has Overtaken Bucharest
Cluj is just ahead of Bucharest in terms of local purchasing power and the amount needed for monthly expenses, according to data aggregated by the international website numbeo.com. Thus, with +0.7% in the first indicator and a slightly lower need for money for the same standard of living (despite higher rents), the capital of Transylvania marginally outperformed the capital of Romania.
The podium is completed by Timișoara, which benefits from a significantly lower level of the cost of living aggregated by several criteria (which include rents and the cost of shopping) than Bucharest or Cluj (13,358.4 lei compared to the reference 15,000 lei and the 14,926.2 lei related to Cluj). Ploiești ranks fourth, falling below the thresholds of 13,000 lei and -10% in terms of local purchasing power.
In the eastern part, Iași climbed to the 5th place in terms of local purchasing power, despite even lower revenues (12,800.7 lei), because it has significantly lower costs (almost -30% for rents and -20% for restaurants and 7.5% less than the Capital for shopping). After Brașov, Brăila appears, with an even lower monthly income requirement (only 11,017.3 lei, i.e. about 73% of the money needed in Bucharest and similar to Arad, 11,078.1 lei and also about -22% in purchasing power).
Living in Craiova is significantly more expensive than in Brăila (or neighbouring Galați, also located below the threshold of 12,000 lei, but very close to it) but somewhat cheaper than in Iași, so that the surprise comes, according to numbeo.com data, from the seaside. Where Constanța requires the highest revenues and the purchasing power is far from the reference (-41.9%), the probable explanation being the positioning of the city as a major tourist destination during the summer.
So, this is how the image of the 12 largest cities in Romania by number of inhabitants appears from the outside, analysed on significant economic criteria for those who live there, from the cost of shopping to rents. It is a diverse picture, which would deserve a more in-depth analysis of the centrally established revenues and a better calibration of the allocated financial resources.
Numbeo is the world’s largest cost of living database. Numbeo is also a crowd-sourced global database of quality of life data: housing indicators, perceived crime rates, healthcare quality, transport quality, and other statistics. The website was founded in April 2009 by former Google employee Mladen Adamović, to enable users to share and compare information about the cost of living between countries and cities.
Photo source: PxHere.com.
