From bread to booze, index reveals world's most expensive cities

As a tourist/visitor, I find Singapore somewhat of a bargain among developed countries.

When questioned on the BBC, they were asked about the practicality of owning a Car in Singapore / HongKong and the representative simply replied that they had to sample the same set of items across all countries. Owning a Car in the US is imperative in some places, but not in some places in Japan.

This doesn't seem to be the right way to compare Cities or other places.

Perhaps someone knows of an alternative index of comparison ?

If there isn't one, then say, identify the median population needs within a City and rank those into basic categories - food/water, housing, transportation, schooling then draw the comparisons.