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It’s pricey to be a ‘cool’ person in the South End, magazine finds
Architectural Digest looked at living, dining, and entertainment expenses in 14 trendy neighborhoods.
The South End is reportedly the fifth-most expensive neighborhood in the United States when it comes to the cost of being social.
When Architectural Digest‘s review team looked at 14 trendy neighborhoods in the nation and calculated the “costs to be cool,” the South End landed just behind San Francisco’s Mission District.
| rank | neighborhood | total weekly social cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Greenwich Village (New York City) | $364.45 |
| 2. | West Loop (Chicago) | $337.90 |
| 3. | Venice (Los Angeles) | $329.80 |
| 4. | Mission District (San Francisco) | $291.97 |
| 5. | South End (Boston) | $271.28 |
| 6. | Wynwood (Miami) | $269.67 |
| 7. | Logan Circle (Washington, D.C.) | $267.85 |
| 8. | Capitol Hill (Seattle) | $265.65 |
| 9. | River North Arts District (Denver) | $264.20 |
| 10. | Williamsburg (New York City) | $251.40 |
| 11. | Fishtown (Philadelphia) | $248.00 |
| 12. | Silver Lake (Los Angeles) | $241.45 |
| 13. | South Congress (Austin) | $222.93 |
| 14. | Old Fourth Ward (Atlanta) | $184.90 |
“We assumed the resident would be attending an entertainment venue once a week, an art venue once a week, dining out and buying coffee five times a week, and enjoying a cocktail twice per week,” AD reporter Amanda Lutz wrote on Oct. 2.
How did the magazine determine the most trendy neighborhoods? It researched 52 neighborhoods in the 100 most populous cities in America and focused the list on the 14 most popular.
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Here’s how the magazine broke down the cost of living in the South End:
The magazine hailed the neighborhood for its Victorian brownstones, “vibrant atmosphere, bustling arts community, and dozens of parks,” but noted that going out each week costs about 18% of a resident’s median income.
Using Yelp, the magazine “researched the 10 most popular and highly rated restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and entertainment venues within each neighborhood to compile prices for social activities such as going out to eat; attending a live concert, comedy show, or art exhibit; grabbing a latte at a local coffee shop; and going out for a cocktail.”
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Some of the South End venues the magazine included were the Black Lamb, Cuppacoffee, and Greystone Cafe.
To find the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment, AD used the Zillow rent comparison tool to find the average rent for the whole city and the average rent for the trendy neighborhood. Then AD found the median earnings of full-time workers in each city using data from the U.S. Census.
According to an Oct. 4 analysis by ApartmentAdvisor, a rental marketplace, the median asking price for a studio apartment in the South End was $3,017 in September, a nearly 2% increase over the cost in September 2022. A one-bedroom unit would set you back $3,395 on average, but, on the bright side, that’s more than a 5% year-over-year decrease.
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