Population of top 10 most expensive cities

1. New York City, New York: 8,467,513
2. Los Angeles, California: 3,849,297
3. San Francisco, California: 815,201 
4. Honolulu, Hawaii. Population: 1,000,890
5. Washington, D.C. Population: 670,050 
6. Boston, Massachusetts: 654,776
7. San Diego, California: 1,381,611
8. San Jose, California: 983,489
9. Seattle, Washington: 733,919
10. Miami, Florida: 439,890

Total Poulation: 18,996,636
Total US population: 33,300,000
Minimum Total percent of US population living with this issue: 57%

What you fail to grasp is just how very many people live in very very few places.

This gets even crazier when you account for the greater Boston population. Boston being an ancient city relative to America, has an incredibly small size. The metropolitan area extends far beyond it as the second most densely populated part of America after NYC with 4.9 million people living in greater Boston. If you account for that the 10 most expensive regions account for nearly 70% of the us population.