I like Visual Capitalist but they have gotten (understandably) funny about having their graphics reproduced.  So you will have to click on the link below. But it does include sortable tables which are fun to look at too.

The idea is to combine a “livability” score with an “affordability” score.  Both pretty subjective.  But what stands out is the big American cities (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles) are the worst value.  Honolulu and San Diego score high on livability but are expensive (checks out).

There is a cluster along the main diagonal which says lots of smaller American cities are more or less equally livable, but trade cost for livability.  I notice Albuquerque is mentioned, and is low on cost but low on livability but still scores well.  An outlier, surprisingly similar to Houston.

What I find a bit strange is Tulsa, OK is the winner for US cities.  Not sure what to make of that.

Quality of Life vs. Cost in 99 Cities Across the Americas

In Texas, electricity was cheaper but our power bills were much higher, especially in the summer.  In New Mexico, our house is a bit smaller and the weather milder, so our consumption is much lower.  I was curious how much it cost to charge an EV like ours (Tesla Model 3 with a 75 kWh battery).  It’s a little complicated because there are three tiers of rates with different summer and non-summer rates.

We have solar so it’s a different story for us but if we were using PNM power we would almost certainly be in the upper tier in the summer ($0.1994661/kWh) and the lower tier in the non-summer ($0.0896783/kWh).  So a fill-up from 0% to 100% would be:

Summer: ($0.1994661 x 75) = $14.96

Non-Summer: ($0.0896783 x 75) = $6.73

Or course gas prices fluctuate and have been high for some time.  But a similar vehicle with, say a 16 gallon tank would cost $64 at $4 a gallon.  Gas would have to be under $1 a gallon to compete with even the expensive summer charging.

I always thought this was a big advantage of EVs but you don’t hear about it much.  Plus there are no oil changes, radiator flushes, transmission fluid, spark plugs, etc to maintain.