June 2003
San Francisco’s bygone Beat poets would have been proud: the city’s residents spend more on books and booze than residents in any other American city. On May 12th, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics released a new, two-year study of urban spending habits, and the results manage to confirm a number of stereotypes. New Yorkers spend the most on clothes, Chicagoans cough up the most on utilities, Bostonians shell out for tobacco products and San Franciscoans blow their wad on literature and libations (as befits their counter-cultural reputation).
The study has evoked a certain pride among the city’s residents, but the bureau has added a caveat. It seems prices are simply higher for most things in San Francisco, so higher spending amounts are to be expected.
