When people make these comments, do they mean median rent for a 2 bedroom, or price per sq ft of a 4 bedroom home, or median home price, or what? Because any o

When people make these comments, do they mean median rent for a 2 bedroom, or price per sq ft of a 4 bedroom home, or median home price, or what? Because any of those can distort the reality quite a bit, depending on what someone is looking for. Sure the 'average' apartment in NY might be similar to the average apartment in Seattle, but does the latter have a full kitchen in a safer neighborhood while the former is a half kitchen in a rough neighborhood? Is the average home price both 2M but one of them gets you a 4 bedroom house and the other gets a 2 bedroom condo? Not to say that there isn't better reasons to live in NYC, but 'CoL' is hard to meaningfully capture by service level stats.