Oh, To Own a Hotel in Latvia!

Perhaps New Yorkers are just too bitter about all the wealthy Europeans who can snag a Park Avenue pied-à-terre for a song while they whittle away their incomes on rent. Or maybe it's that New York used all of its marketing muscle in its failed Olympics bid.

Whatever the case, New Yorkers clearly don't want the world to covet their real estate anymore than they already do. In Hasbro's online voting contest for cities in its first global edition of Monopoly, the Big Apple landed squarely in the middle of the road.

The game company announced last week that in the coveted Boardwalk ($400) and Park Place ($350) properties, the international version will feature Montreal, Canada and (surprise!) Riga, Latvia.

We can almost hear the cheers from Latvia's version of the National Association of Realtors.

New York and London are about halfway around the board in the red neighborhood where Illinois Avenue ($240) and Indiana Avenue ($220) are located in the U.S. version.

We feel sorry for the kids who grow up with this version, only to find out that in real life real estate in Montreal and Riga is considerably cheaper than in New York or London.

Then again, we always thought getting out of jail would be free if we ever found ourselves unfortunate enough to land there, and we've turned out okay.

No other U.S. cities mobilized the vote at all, apparently. China scored with three cities (Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai), as did Canada (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver). The Polish town of Gdynia (population: 252,443) snuck in as the cheapest property on the board where Mediterranean Avenue ($60) sits in the U.S. version.

The new game goes on sale today. Below is the full list of cities for your geography lesson of the day:

Dark Blue: Montreal, Riga
Green: Cape Town, Belgrade, Paris
Yellow: Jerusalem, Hong Kong, Beijing
Red: London, New York, Sydney
Orange: Vancouver, Shanghai, Rome
Magenta: Toronto, Kiev, Istanbul
Light Blue: Athens, Barcelona, Tokyo
Brown: Taipei, Gdynia

by Megan Barnett

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