Clicking for costs: Sites say CdA cost of living tops Spokane

Several Web sites agree that Coeur d’Alene is roughly 10 percent more expensive a place to live than Spokane. And there are several places on the Web to find out just what that means for most of us.

One site that tracks census and economic data and slices them up is Sterling’s Best Places. Its cost of living calculator – at bestplaces.net/col/ – reports that Coeur d’Alene residents on average pay more for housing and food than in Spokane.

Out of the six indicators in Sterling’s scorecard, Spokane only has one category more expensive than Coeur d’Alene: health care. Three other indicators – utilities, transportation and “miscellaneous” are virtually the same.

It states Coeur d’Alene’s “overall” cost of living index is 102 and Spokane’s is 92, according to Sterling’s. In this system the U.S. average is 100.

“Near as I can tell it does a credible job of breaking down just where the difference in the cost of living is coming from,” said Jeff Zahir, state labor analyst for Spokane and Eastern Washington with the Employment Security Department.

Another cost of living indicator is Yahoo’s real estate neighborhood profiler, at realestate.yahoo.com.

It agrees that Coeur d’Alene is generally more expensive a city than Spokane; the two cost-of-living scores are 97 vs. 92 for Spokane. Notably, Yahoo’s profile says both are less expensive than the national average.

Zahir said economists use the paid search service offered by ACCRA at www.coli.org. One reason is ACCRA’s effort to use the most recent data available.

ACCRA doesn’t have Coeur d’Alene data, so we compared Spokane with Boise.

Using second quarter 2007 numbers, ACCRA showed Spokane’s cost of living is 97.4, while Boise’s is 97.1. ACCRA confirms the Sterling’s Best Places determination that Spokane’s health costs are well above the national average (at 109.6) and Boise’s is right at the national average.

Two-city comparisons at coli.org cost about $8 per query (less on bulk orders).

Another site that gives free cost-of-living comparisons is CNNMoney’s moving calculator (http://cgi.money.cnn.com/ tools/costofliving/ costofliving.html).

Again, CNNMoney data didn’t include Coeur d’Alene so we compared Boise to Spokane.

A $30,000 salary in Spokane would be equal to $29,957 in Boise, according to CNNMoney, which agrees with the ACCRA rating. CNNMoney offers five categories for comparison. It notes Boise’s food costs are 8.5 less than Spokane, housing is 1.2 percent less, utilities there cost 12 percent more than Spokane, transportation is 4.9 percent less and healthcare is 8.2 percent less than in Spokane.

Another site, Moving.com, offers a detailed set of numbers when comparing Spokane and Coeur d’Alene neighborhoods. At that site – http://www.moving.com/ Find_a_Place/Compare2 Cities/ – you have to use ZIP codes and not city names, however.

It reports, among other findings, a “total crime index” and says that number for Coeur d’Alene is 106. Spokane’s is a much higher 186. Again, 100 is the national average.

Moving.com also reports an air pollution index with Spokane coming out ahead, with a 111 score to Coeur d’Alene’s 114.