Is
Moscow.
As in the one in Russia.
Well, I'll be damned...
I was in Moscow just after communism fell when you could trade in a pair of Levi's for a Fiat with just a few thousand kilometers on it. At the time exchanging any currency for rubles, even for just the day, was a poor idea because it fluctuated so wildly, but apparently the ruble's stability was a large
factor in moving the Russian capital to the number one spot. Here's the rest of the top ten:
1. Moscow
2. Seoul
3. Tokyo
4. Hong Kong
5. London
6. Osaka
7. Geneva
8. Copenhagen
9. Zurich
10. New York & Oslo (tie)
Apparently one of the cheapest places to live: Buenos Aries. That's right, the one in Argentina - which is kind of strange, because it's about as hot of a place to visit as there is on the planet right now (or maybe that explains why so many people are going there, take your pick).
So if anyone's interested in becoming an expat or even buying a summer home, get thee to South America. Maybe Buenos Aries will become like Prague was in the mid-/late 90s: full of disillusioned twenty-somethings with literary ambitions, tremendous drinkers with troubling writing problems. May they all eschew the existential melancholy of the cafés (it's so been done before) in favor of riding with the gauchos on the Pampas during the day and being seduced by the trilling r's of tango instructions by night...