Affordable or safe: the trade-off in 1103 cities

Of the cities in our index that are cheaper than the median, 60% also sit below the median for disaster safety. Low cost and low hazard exposure are not the same shortlist — and the cities that manage both are a much smaller group than relocation guides suggest.

Dominant hazard among affordable-but-exposed cities

Cities that are both affordable and comparatively safe

Above the median on cost score and above the median on disaster safety, ranked by the sum of the two. Cost score is higher when a city is cheaper.

#	Ciudad	País	Coste	Disaster safety	Habitabilidad	Top hazard
1	La Plata	Argentina	62	69	78	flooding
2	Buenos Aires	Argentina	62	69	77	flooding
3	Paraná	Argentina	62	69	77	flooding
4	Pedro Juan Caballero	Paraguay	62	69	77	flooding
5	Santa Fe	Argentina	62	69	76	flooding
6	Corrientes	Argentina	62	69	74	flooding
7	Posadas	Argentina	62	69	74	flooding
8	Resistencia	Argentina	62	69	74	flooding
9	Encarnación	Paraguay	62	69	74	flooding
10	Coronel Oviedo	Paraguay	62	69	74	flooding
11	Caacupé	Paraguay	62	69	73	flooding
12	Ciudad del Este	Paraguay	60	69	74	flooding
13	Concepción	Paraguay	62	67	71	flooding
14	Siem Reap	Cambodia	62	67	71	flooding
15	Nakhon Ratchasima	Thailand	62	67	70	flooding
16	Battambang	Cambodia	62	67	70	flooding
17	Ubon Ratchathani	Thailand	62	67	69	flooding
18	Johor Bahru	Malaysia	62	66	74	flooding
19	Kuala Terengganu	Malaysia	62	66	74	flooding
20	Formosa	Argentina	62	66	72	flooding

Cheap, but the most exposed

The other side of the same trade-off: affordable cities with the lowest disaster-safety scores in the index. A low cost of living does not price in hazard exposure.

#	Ciudad	País	Coste	Disaster safety	Top hazard
1	Cotabato	Philippines	62	31	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
2	Davao	Philippines	59	31	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
3	Butuan	Philippines	62	31	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
4	San Fernando	Philippines	62	31	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
5	Caloocan	Philippines	59	31	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
6	Quepos	Costa Rica	45	31	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
7	Tamarindo	Costa Rica	46	32	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
8	Puntarenas	Costa Rica	41	32	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
9	Banda Aceh	Indonesia	62	34	flooding
10	Calamba	Philippines	61	34	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
11	Zamboanga	Philippines	60	36	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
12	Jakarta	Indonesia	62	37	earthquake
13	Kota Kinabalu	Malaysia	62	38	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
14	Surabaya	Indonesia	62	38	storms (hurricane/cyclone)
15	Manila	Philippines	59	38	storms (hurricane/cyclone)

Method: medians computed across all 1103 cities in the index. Cost score derives from World Bank price levels adjusted for city size; disaster safety is the weighted composite of eight hazard tiers, of which earthquake, extreme heat and extreme cold are measured and the rest modelled from geography. Full formula and limits on the methodology page.

Methodology → Download CSV →