Last month's Elliman Report on citywide rents was released today, proving once again that renting an apartment in this city is about as economical as pulling a cardboard box over your head and lighting a pile of money on fire. Today's news? Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens all saw rent increases from January 2014 to January 2015, and northwest Queens is so hot right now its median rent has eclipsed that of Our Most Artisanal Borough. No wonder the eagles are nesting in Staten Island.

According to the report [pdf], the median rental price in northwest Queens in January was $2,905/month, up nearly 31 percent from the same month last year. Median rents on studios shot up 14.5 percent; on one bedrooms 14.4 percent; 6.1 percent on two-beds, and 46.2 percent on apartments with three or more bedrooms.

Northwest Queens includes neighborhoods like Astoria and Long Island City, both of which have been hotspots for new waterfront developments and luxury condos. Ridgewood, which seems to be sopping up some of the hip spillover from now-expensive Bushwick, is also included in the data, as are the increasingly popular Sunnyside and Woodside.

This Queens jump is significant, considering median rent in north, northwest and east Brooklyn is only $2,901, a total four dollars less than northwest Queens. Then again, average rental prices in that section of Brooklyn were $3,201 a month as opposed to northwest Queens's $2,929 a month average, before the QUEENS NOW MORE EXPENSIVE THAN BROOKLYN headlines start bombarding you with their alarmist rhetoric.

Note that median rental prices in Manhattan are still at $3,299/month. The Big Island's not dead yet, no matter how cool-but-uncool people consider the Upper East Side.