Comments on: The Elite 100: America’s Highest Income Neighborhoods

By: Stephen Higley

Stephen Higley — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:12:53 +0000

There are 40 neighborhoods from Montgomery County alone in the top 1000 and virtually every estate village on the Gold Coast of Long Island are represented. Maryland’s many neighborhoods in Chevy Chase, Bethesda, Potomac, and Travilah are not always associated with great wealth because remember that DC is a government town and they are not as rich as the rich from a place like Silicon Valley.

By: james moore

james moore — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:13:52 +0000

I didn’t see places like Maryland and some part of Long island,NY and Atlanta .i think this information is not correct all the way.there are alot of wealthy areas there not on this list

By: Stephen Higley

Stephen Higley — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:17:57 +0000

Thanks for taking the time to comment! I have driven the neighborhoods from Vero Beach to Miami thoroughly. I’ve taken the water taxi in Fort Lauderdale and had a chance to see some sumptuous mansions and yachts. It came a huge surprise to me that the Census numbers for income did not make the Higley 1000. It was all the more puzzling that Boca Raton is well represented in the Higley 1000 with no less than seven neighborhoods.

The absence of the Fort Lauderdale, Delray Beach, and Pompano Beach neighborhoods from the Higley 1000 is a combination of several factors. First of all, my statistics are taken from Census Geography at the Block Group level. Many times waterside mansions are geographically linked to high-rises and condominiums that tend to kill high income averages. Secondly, many of these homes are second homes and the owners report their income at their first home address. An thirdly, it is my observation that a large number of retirees sometimes kills the mean income. This isn’t always the case, as almost all of Palm Beach is represented in the Higley 1000.

Florida is a particularly hard nut to crack geographically as the waterfront houses set up a linear pattern of wealth that is just difficult to capture in Block Group data. I’ve been agonizing over how to capture the waterfront wealth of Jacksonville’s St. Johns’ River mansions for the last couple of weeks!

If I feel a worthy neighborhood has not been captured by the Census data, I reserve the right to call it a “Higley Designated Place” where I estimate the income and build the racial makeup block by block of Census data. As you can imagine, this is an incredibly time consuming and difficult process.

The bottom line is that the data is not perfect and I am always working to refine the list of neighborhoods.

Thanks for your comments, I should possibly revisit the South Florida river front/canal front/oceanfront mansions.

By: Luiz Fernando

Luiz Fernando — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 10:34:08 +0000

Seems like a great rank, but what happened to Boca Raton and Delray Beach area in Florida. And the Beach mansions along the beaches of Pompano Beach and Ft. Lauderdale ? Some of them are quite mesmerizing.

Please e-mail me or something of that sort, I’d love to hear your opinion and study.

By: Stephen Higley

Stephen Higley — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:27:20 +0000

Islesworth just missed the Elite 100. One of the problems with Islesworth is that the median age is very high and whenever a community has a lot of retirees, it drags the numbers down.

By: Stephen Higley

Stephen Higley — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:22:56 +0000

I have carefully looked at the Palm Springs data. In fact, in a previous study I even was able to travel behind the gates of many of these country club communities. The reason why they are not found in the Higley 1000 is that most importantly, they are second homes. The wealthy homeowners in The Vintage Club (for example) report they’re income in some other jurisdiction. Secondly, the average age of homeowners that are there permanently skews very old and all retirement places, just don’t register (e.g. Kiawah Island, SC). I don’t know exactly why this is but it is a pattern across the country.

Remember this is income, not wealth. Another point to remember is that the Census uses sampling and there can be a great variance when dealing with small geographic areas. The list isn’t perfect, but it’s the best that can be gleened from the Census data.

I looked over all of the Block Groups of of Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village… only the North Ranch Country Club makes it in Ventura County. Rancho Santa Fe is well represented, it just doesn’t make the top 100. Same for Montecito.

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:26:16 +0000

Why isn’t Isleworth on here. The cheapest house in there starts at about 4 million.

By: Alan Gregg Cohen

Alan Gregg Cohen — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:26:19 +0000

I am surprised not to see some of the most elite Country Clubs in the country, in the Palm Springs, CA area on your list. Clubs such as the Vintage Club and the Reserve in Indian Wells, CA as well as Bighorn G.C. and Stone Eagle G.C. in Palm Desert, CA have initiation fees of over $500,000 alone. In addition, Indian Wells, CA has been listed to have the highest per capita concentration of millioanares in the US. Also, what about Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego and Montecito in Santa Barbara – they must rank up there. All these areas if not in the top 100 must surely be in the top 1000 wealthiest places in the US. Other areas oof considerable wealth I noticed missing are Sherwood Country Club/Hidden Valley in Thousand Oaks, CA, Westlake Trails in Westlake Village, CA.

By: john

john — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:35:26 +0000

colleen,- it did. Indian Hill was #59

By: Jerry Rosen

Jerry Rosen — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:52:25 +0000

The article table shows wealth as earnings defined by median household income. What about wealth defined by total value of all business and residential assets and income? The geographical wealth. That might be interesting to compare to the median household income.