[mikekchar]

When I was doing some budgeting in London, England several years ago, I found that the monthly rent for a small apartment was similar to the the cost of a desk in the office, so 17k per head sounds about right to me in large urban areas.

[wott]

> 17k per head sounds about right to me in large urban areas.

I don't know about the US, but in France, in large urban areas like Lyon or Toulouse, you can easily find office space for 100 to 200 €/m²/year. Which means, translated in $, that $17k per year would grant you 75 to 150 m² (800 to 1600 sq. ft.).

That would be a very very nice office, far from the shoulder-to-shoulder openspace model, even if you add other expenses than pure rent :-)

[ashtonkem]

There are some American cities where prices are similar. The data is old, but Dallas was about $10k cheaper per head than NYC was in 2015.

Of course, in America rents in NYC and SF are going to drive up the averages by a lot, with companies like FB and Google willing to pay huge amounts for prime real estate and luxury build outs.

So the interesting question for you is: how much are rents in Paris, and how does that affect the averages of France as a whole?