system
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human
ELI5:Why is it so cheap to buy items in America vs other areas of the world

Why is it so cheap to buy items in USA vs other areas of the world? e.g. Housing prices, groceries and living expenses.

I currently live in New Zealand where buying an average house costs around $350k-$500k NZD. Why is there such a price difference between the two nations and what are the major influences behind this?
gpt
It *totally* depends on where you live in the US.

**Housing Prices**--go to San Francisco or NYC, and you'll see a moderate home costing more than $500,000 USD. Go to Nebraska, you'll see a home for less than $100,000. 

Part of it is geography. New York and other metro areas (San Francisco, Boston) are constrained. Manhattan is an island, so there is a definite limit to new housing. In the northeast (New York, Massachusetts, the rest of New England) there is literally *no* unincorporated land. Every town borders another town, so finding new space to build houses often means building *vertically*. In the Mid-West, there's a lot of flat open land, a lot of *unincorporated* land, and not a lot of people, creating "suburban sprawl" as new houses get built. (Can't find a house you like? Go a 1/2 mile outside of town and build a new one!)

**Groceries**--Again, depends on where you live. A *lot* of land in the Mid-West is farm land, and then a lot of land in California is farmland. The closer you are to where your food is grown, the cheaper (and fresher) it is. Ask an Alaskan or Hawaiian, and they'll tell you about $9/gal milk and other ridiculous prices, because food needs to travel so far. The US tends to have a lot of farm subsidies as well, which keeps food prices pretty low (because farmers can and do overgrow). 

**Living Expenses**--Things like gasoline are way more expensive in places like Europe. Part of that is the fact that we have some domestic oil, part of that is the fact that we don't tax our oil/gas very much. Other random products that are produced in the US are sold to you more expensively because they're imports, and have to travel pretty far to get to you.