The view from Israel's first skyscraper. In the space of one of the cities most cutting-edge co-working spaces for start up founders. Photo: Kara Bieber.

Is Tel Aviv becoming more affordable? Israel’s commercial and cultural capital dropped 13 spots in ECA International’s annual Cost of Living survey, yet it still holds the title of most expensive city in the Middle East.

ECA’s annual listing compared 425 cities worldwide, and ranked them according to the costs of three categories: food (groceries, dairy products, produce, meat and fish), basic goods (alcohol and tobacco, miscellaneous goods, services) and general costs (clothing, electrical goods, motoring, restaurant meals).

Tokyo kept the top spot as the world’s most expensive city, with items like movie tickets costing an average of $22.93 and a can of soda costing $1.85.

Tel Aviv went down from 32nd in 2011 to 45th place this year, though it remained much more expensive than other large cities in the Middle East. Dubai for example was ranked 173rd, while the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah was named the most inexpensive in the Middle East, in 224th place.