Burlington—Expensive or “Cheap As Hell”?

Matthew Toll
3.21.2010

Burlington, Vermont can be one of the most expensive, or one of the cheapest places to live in the Northeast. With rent that can go as high as downtown Boston, or as low as any low-rent suburb, or concerts ranging from free to fifty dollars or more, one needs to navigate their financial way through Burlington with caution.

Prior to coming to Burlington, I thought I’d be experiencing the “cheap living” that Vermont has to offer. I had no idea how fast my money was going to fly, almost as if downtown was a vacuum. My bank account quickly emptied in my first few weeks in town.

One of my friends, Graham Kelly, a junior at UVM often says, “Burlington’s a black hole for bank accounts; it just sucks up all the cash you have.” I find this statement to ring true more often then not.

To begin, City Market is the only grocery store within walking distance of the general student population. City Market is known for their extremely high quality, completely organic and hormone-free food. They’re even more known for their outrages prices. This inhibits a broke college student from shopping for a large amount of food, or leaves the students to resort to far less healthy options for eating out.

(Going to go to city market, shaws, and price chopper to compare how much an average meal of the exact same food would cost at all of these places compared to city market).

Another major mark-up in the food expense that I noticed immediately is the price of something as average as a slice of pizza, or a whole pie. If one goes to Mr. Mikes for example, you could wind up paying six dollars or more for just two slices of pizza, and over twenty for a large. This is unheard of to anyone outside of Burlington, as in New York City or Boston, or any other town in my experience, it would be hard to find a place charging twenty for a large pizza, let alone delivery charges and tip when it’s all said and done.

This leaves students’ options extremely limited for food in Burlington, being that delivery is marked up far higher than other towns, and the only grocery store in walking distance has gained a solid reputation as an over-priced “money grubber,” as Graham described it.

Beyond food, the parking situation, and the money that it costs students is becoming a major issue as well. More often than not I’ve seen people forced to pay cash to get their car off a tow truck when they find that they’re being towed. In my experience anywhere other than Burlington the driver will take your car off the tow truck if you can get to him before he, or she drives away with your car.

Personally, I’ve paid someone as much as forty or fifty dollars to take my car down, as opposed to the sixty it would cost me if he actually physically towed it. I feel like I’m being extorted when someone asks me for cash to take my car down, when legally they’re allowed to do it for free if they haven’t actually towed me.

A lack of rent control is also a major factor in how expensive it is to live in Burlington or the surrounding area. With rent on two and three bedroom apartments coming to the same total as some equivalent places in major cities like Boston, it’s nearly impossible for someone to go to school here unless their parents are willing to pay for their rent in full. Studio apartments can be as high as eight, or even nine hundred a month, where as in some places out of Chittenden county can provide you with a full townhouse at your disposal for that amount of money.

Beyond the rapidly rising housing market, which saw at least a 25 percent increase over the last decade, the economy has been declining. While most housing markets and rentals are going down, the large student population and lack of sufficient housing for all of the students leaves the control in the hands of land-lords, who have taken full advantage of the demand for housing in Burlington.

This town, to me, seems on the verge of falling apart due to unnecessary expensiveness; and no one’s doing anything about it. There doesn’t seem to be any steps being taken to regulate the housing/rental market. Beyond that, the prices on food keeps increasing at the restaurants and bars, and there isn’t any alternative to the already over-priced City Market. Something needs to be done before Burlington turns into the “small-town New York City”, an over-charging, money hounding entity. Like what Graham Kelly said before, “Burlington’s a black hole for bank accounts.”