Below is a map of the United States with 15 places of new concentrations of wealth or older one’s that are moving up the ranking tables. A short synopsis of each place is provided by clicking on the map markers.

Why these particular 15? Some are witnessing renewal through teardowns and remodelings. Two of them (Kiawah Island, South Carolina and Spring Lake, New Jersey) represent the trend for summer home places to become first homes where the Census counts income. Similarly, East Hampton, Water Mill, Northwest Harbor, and Southampton on Long Island have seen their rankings of affluence climb due to this trend. These communities did not make the list due to the fact that not enough of the new affluent homeowners have moved to these places to statistically overwhelm the lower income locals engaged in servicing the much larger seasonal population.

Only two on the list of 15 are truly “new”: Darnestown, Maryland, an exurban extension of the Bethesda-Potomac-Travilah corridor, and Del Rio, a country club development found just north of the California’s central valley city of Modesto.

View 15 Up & Coming Places of Affluence in a larger map

Glasgow students on graduation day, courtesy of gumdropgas on Flickr

TABLE ONE:  Graduate Degrees (of the population 0ver the age of 25) by Percentage (American Community Survey 2006-8)

Some observations:

1.  Some places abruptly change rank in the listings. Although Bethesda ranks 31st in mean household income, it was first in the percentage of its residents in graduate degrees (and second in doctorates). It came as no surprise that  Stanford University’s next door neighbor, Palo Alto, jumped from 47th wealthiest to first in doctoral degrees. Los Altos, a close neighbor of Palo Alto in the heart of Silicon Valley was 18th in mean household income, but placed second for graduate degrees of all types.

2. The Connecticut suburbs of New York City rank near the top in wealth, but drop precipitously in the graduate education list. Greenwich was 4th in income and drops to 37th in grad degrees. Westport drops from 3rd in wealth to 19th in degrees. Surprisingly, Darien, number one in household income drops to 20th for grad degrees.

3. As you might expect, places near prominent universities are well represented on the list: Winchester, Massachusetts (9th in grad degrees) is probably on the list because of the multitude of universities in the Boston area. Similarly we find West Windsor Township (Princeton), Lower Merion Township (Penn, Villanova, & Haverford as examples), and Garden City, New York (Adelphi, Hofstra) ranked near the top of the list in graduate degrees.

4. The two places that are near the top of both lists face each other across the Potomac River: McLean, Virginia and Potomac, Maryland. It is important to remember that the Census estimates are only for those places that have over 20,000 inhabitants. Clearly, the adjacent communities (such as Great Falls and Wolf Trap in Virginia, as well as the myriad of Chevy Chases and Travilah in Maryland) would be equal or higher than the noted places, but they are not enumerated in the American Community Survey. The statistics will be available when the economic numbers  for smaller places are published when the American Community Survey are released. The sampling for smaller places will cover the years 2005-2010 and will be released in the years following the current decennial Census now under way.

MAP ONE: The Largest Concentration of High Income and Grad Degrees: Bethesda, Potomac, North Potomac, and McLean.

View Brains and Income in DC in a larger map

Yet another way of looking at the data is too rank the 50 highest income places by the number of residents that have a doctorate. Note that three of the highest income places are not on the list. The reason for their exclusion from the data has to do with the sampling data. They did not have enough MDs and PhDs for Census enumerators to be statistically included. This is a bit of a mystery to me as the three communities are Darien, Connecticut, (#1 in mean household income; Mountain Brook, Alabama (9th); and University Park, Texas, (15th).

TABLE TWO:  Doctoral Degrees (of the population over the age of 25) by percentage. American Community Survey 2006-8

Table Three looks at 10 suburbs in Boston, Washington DC,and Silicon Valley to see how they compare to the highest income places in the country. The results show that the twenty suburbs compare favorably. Mountain View, with its heavy concentration of high tech firms ranks very high in doctorates. Arlington, Virginia also ranks highly and this is remarkable considering this county’s large population (217,483, Census Est. 2009). Boston has many suburbs that just missed the top 50 in income (Lexington, Newton, & Brookline) and the statistics show that they are among the leaders in graduate and doctorate education.

TABLE THREE:  Ten Higher Income Places in Boston, Washington DC, and Silicon Valley with High Percentages of Residents (over 25 years old) with Grad Degrees

Places with the most Ph.D.s

It will come as no surprise that the cities with the highest concentration of doctorates are found in towns dominated by major universities. West Lafayette, Indiana is easily number one in this category. Evidently, the professoriate has overwhelmingly chosen to live in the many pleasant neighborhoods surrounding the campus.

TABLE FOUR: Academic Strongholds of Higher Degrees

African-Americans: Success, but at a Lagging Rate

An analysis of the number of households earning over $200,000 between the 2000 Census and the 2006-8 American Community Survey comes with two large caveats. The first is that the numbers are not inflation adjusted and that the approximate 25% inflation rate between 2000 and 2008 is a strong contributory factor in the large increase in the over $200,000 income category. Secondly, it must be remembered that the American Community Survey’s data was collected at the height of the boom (2006-8), literally at the cusp of the Bush Recession. There is evidence that the real estate bust has disproportionately wreaked havoc on Black neighborhoods, both poor and newly wealthy.

One of the reasons why nouveau riche Black neighborhoods have high foreclosure rates compared to White and Asian-American neighborhoods is the lack of a financial cushion. In the May 2010, a Research and Policy Brief of Brandeis University’s Institute on Assets and Social Policy found that high income Whites have a median wealth of $240,000 (excluding real estate) compared to a meager $18,000 for high income Blacks, (“The Racial Wealth Gap Increases Fourfold” by Shapiro, Meschede, and Sullivan). Having built up significant wealth, White families are much better able to withstand a bad economy than Black families. Even more startling is that the study found that the overall wealth gap between Blacks and Whites has quadrupled over the last 23 years.

In spite of the caveats, the increase in the number of households earning over $200,000 in the United States between 2000 and 2008 is indeed stunning at 88.2%. Furthermore, the differences between the racial categories are vast. African-Americans increased their number of high income households by 48.9%, whereas Asian-Americans increased their representation by  a stunning 181.%%. Although there are 1/3 as many Asian-Americans households as African-American households, the Community Survey found more than twice as many Asian households earning over $200,000.

Table 1: Households Earning Over $200,000, by Race

Washington DC: An Overview

The American Community Survey (2006-8) counted 1,961,388 households in the Washington Metro area. The segregation of the Black and Non-Hispanic White communities has always been historically notable and the newest data illustrates that this pattern is a continuing problem. Prince Georges County, long a haven for the aspiring Black middle class is becoming ever more African-American. Between 2000 and 2008, the percentage of African-Americans in PG has increased from 62.2% of the total households to 66.2%.

In fact, all of the outer counties in the DC area have seen significant increases in all minority groups with the exception of the core communities of the District, Arlington, and Alexandria. The District is certainly headed towards losing it’s Black majority. Between 2000 and 2008, the number of Black households has declined from 55.7% of all households to 51.0%. There were also declines in Alexandria (19.4% to 18.5%) and Arlington (8.6% to 8.2%).

At the same time, the Non-Hispanic White households have decreased throughout the metro area (60.3% to 56.7% of all households) with the exception of the core communities. The district’s White household count increased from 33.6% in the 2000 Census to 37.1% in 2008. Alexandria and Arlington also saw significant increases in the their Non-Hispanic White populations. The root of these changes can generally come under the aegis of gentrification and the expansion of the rent gap in those communities. The term “rent gap” refers to the difference between the value of the existing real estate and what it might go for if developed to it’s “highest use”. The rent gap is particularly noticeable in Alexandria and Arlington because of their  prime geographic locations close to the District and their relatively high socio-economic status. In other words, they are well located and highly desirable, hence extremely attractive to higher income households. This combination forces lower-income people, often minorities, out and replaces them with professionals that can be of any race.

Mean household income change in Alexandria and Arlington bare out my thoughts on racial change. Non-Hispanic Whites saw their median household income leap by +49.7% in Alexandria to $102,857 and by +50.1% in Arlington to$110,421 in the 2006-8 ACS. During the same time African-American households increased by +27.9% to $48,707 in Alexandria and by +38.9% to $55,832 in Arlington. The income gap between Black in White is a startling 2:1 gap.

Table 2: Race in the Washington DC Metro Area

The Highest Income Neighborhoods of the Washington Metro Area

The 68 Higley 1000 neighborhoods are overwhelmingly Non-Hispanic White with strong Asian-American representation. Although Non-Hispanic Whites made-up 60.3% of the Metro area’s households, they made up 87.7% of the Higley 1000 households. The African-American household representation in the wealthiest precincts of metro Washington is negligible at 1.99%.

The highest income neighborhoods are heavily concentrated geographically. Of the 68 Higley 1000 neighborhoods in DC, all but 4 neighborhoods march up both shores of the Potomac River. There are 9 Higley 1000 neighborhoods in the District, 31 in Montgomery County, and 28 in Virginia. All of the Virginian Higley 1000 neighborhoods are found in Fairfax County (26) and Arlington (2).

Map of the Higley 1000 District of Columbia Neighborhoods

View District of Columbia in a larger map

Map of the Higley 1000 Montgomery County Neighborhoods

View Chevy Chase-Bethesda-Potomac in a larger map

Map of the Higley 1000 Arlington-Fairfax County Neighborhoods

View Fairfax County- Potomac River in a larger map

Table 3: The Ten Wealthiest Neighborhoods in Metro Washington

The only four Higley 1000 neighborhoods that are not along the Potomac corridor are all located in Virginia: Old Town in Alexandria, Yacht Haven in Mount Vernon (both found further down the Potomac) as well as two exurban neighborhoods in southern Fairfax: Fountainhead and Ardmore-Brimstone. As any DC resident might expect, McLean neighborhoods dominate the Virginia side of the river and Chevy Chase, Bethesda, and Potomac neighborhoods dominate the Maryland side.

Wealthy African-American Households in Washington D.C.

Although  affluent African-American households make-up a minuscule 2% of the Higley 1000 neighborhoods in the Washington metro area, they are quite prominent in other areas that range from lovely gracious older neighborhoods in the District to the nouveau riche McMansions of Woodmore, Maryland. In fact, the American Community Survey shows that the number of Black households with incomes of over $200,000 in the Washington area are second only to New York City’s metro area and of course, the overall population of the New York’s metro area is three times larger than Washington.

Table 4: African-American Households with Incomes over $200,000 by Metro Area and Central City (ACS 2006-8)

Yet another way to breakdown Black affluence is to look at the counties in United States with the highest number of households with incomes over $200,000 and the undisputed leader is Prince Georges County. PG handily beats outs #2 Los Angeles County— a remarkable fact considering LA County has 10 times as many people!

Table 5: The Thirty-Three Counties in the United States with the Largest Number of Households earning over $200,000

There are three geographic clusters of Black affluence in the Washington metro area. Two are located in Prince Georges County: the Fort Washington area and a cluster of neighborhoods that are located in the Lake Arbor-Woodmore-Bowie area. The most affluent string of neighborhoods with a strong African-American presence is found just to the east of Rock Creek Park in the District of Columbia.

The three clusters together have 20 neighborhoods and are approximately 2/3 African-American and 1/3 Non-Hispanic White. Asians and Hispanics are statistically insignificant in all three clusters. When the twenty neighborhoods are aggregated, the 2000 Census shows that the White population has a small mean household income advantage ($123,870 for Whites vs. $114,080 for Blacks). The highest income neighborhood for African-Americans in the entire metro area is found in Colonial Village ($196,587), a gracious and charming neighborhood featuring lovely commodious homes that were generally built from the 1920s into the 1950s.

Table 6: Three Clusters of African-American Wealth in the Washington Metro Area

Map of the Affluent African-American Neighborhoods in the District of Columbia

View Washington DC - Wealthy Black Neighborhoods in a larger map

Map of the Affluent African-American Neighborhoods in the Fort Washington Area

View Prince George's-Fort Washington in a larger map

Map of the Affluent African-American Neighborhoods in the Lake Arbor-Woodmore-Bowie area

View Woodmore-Bowie-Lake Arbor in a larger map

Although the American Community Survey did not collect racial data, the 2000 Census showed Darien as being 95.6% non-Hispanic White. Darien has three neighborhoods on the Higley 1000: Tokeneke, Long Neck Point-Noroton Neck, and Darien North.

Map of Darien, Connecticut

View Larger Map of Darien CT

The New York City metro area dominate the list with 15 places among the 50 wealthiest. It is followed by San Francisco with 7, and 5 in the Los Angeles area. Chicago, Washington DC, and Boston each have 4 towns on the list. Beverly Hills did not make the list coming in at #52 with a mean household income of $148,758.

The list I have compiled below is for Mean Household Income to capture extremes of wealth. Be sure to read the caveats at the bottom of the list.

I have purposely not included racial statistics as these large entities may have large internal neighborhood disparities making the racial statistics problematic. There is only one place that does not have a  neighborhood represented in the Higley 1000: Montgomery Township, a fast-growing exurban township in southern Somerset County, New Jersey.

Table1:  The 50 Highest Income Places in the United States with a Population over 20,000

Wealthiest Places With Population Over 20,000

1.  The numbers are not adjusted from for inflation since the 2000 Census. The sampling process used by the Census Bureau (to grossly simplify) is within 8-10% of the actual numbers. For a detailed discussion of the sampling process and margins of errors, see the American Community Survey.

2.  The numbers are based on a rolling average over the years 2005-2007.

3.  Remember that the Census Bureau makes it impossible for households to claim much more than approximately $2 million dollars in income in any given year. This statistical policy does prevent the Bill Gates’ and Warren Buffets of this world from distorting income figures, but, it does significantly downplay the highest incomes of the richest places found in the United States

4.  The Towns of New York can be confusing  geographic entities as they may include subordinate villages in their totals. As an example, the Town of Mamaroneck, among the most confusing jurisdictions in the country, is composed of all of the Village of Larchmont, half of the Village of Mamaroneck (the other half is in the Town of Rye) and a geographic remainder that is sometimes referred to as Larchmont North.

When one looks at the list of the 1,000 wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States, the information is so fine grained, that the larger picture can be lost. In order to give my readers a bit of perspective I have totaled up the the number of Higley 1000 households in each city or town within their corporate limits.  With these totals in mind, one can then get the big picture of where to find the greatest geographical concentrations of wealth in the United States.

Many of the Higley 1000 neighborhoods that are near the top of the list (based on mean household income) tend to be very small homogeneous collections of mansions such as Holmby Hills or the Woodley Road neighborhood of New Trier Township just North of Chicago. If there was someway to statistically isolate the 63 Coops and 5 Condominiums that line Fifth Avenue from 60th to 96th, this would be undoubtedly be the wealthiest “neighborhood” in the United States. Alas, Census Geography includes the west side of Madison Avenue. Consequently, it is impossible to isolate this gilded row of Fifth Avenue using Census data.

It may surprise some that central cities dominate the top of the list for total number of households found in the Higley 1000. Not all central cities have seen their wealthiest citizens flee to the suburbs (e.g. Detroit, Hartford, and Cleveland). In fact, five out of the top six places are central cities. Manhattan easily tops the list with 37,429 Higley 1000 households found in six neighborhoods.

The Upper East Side of Manhattan, with over 23,000 households on the Higley 1000 dwarfs the average neighborhood on the list that has approximately 700 households. Throw in 9,500 households from the Upper West Side and it is easy to see why Manhattan is at the top of the list. The total for Manhattan also includes the much smaller Higley 1000 neighborhoods of Sutton Place, Beekman Place, Tribeca, and Midtown.

Table of the City & Towns with the Largest Number of Higley 1000 Neighborhoods

Neighborhoods containing the
Greatest Number of Households

Within the city of Los Angeles there is a string of 23 neighborhoods from the West Hollywood Hills to Castellammare. When the neighborhoods along the flanks of the Santa Monica Mountains are combined, Los Angeles is a close second to Manhattan. Beverly Hills would add an additional 3,000 households to Los Angeles’ total, but it is a separately incorporated city. The Los Angeles total also includes the four neighborhoods in the Hancock Park area (Hancock Park, Windsor Square, Fremont Place, and New Windsor Square) as well as Los Feliz.

Surprisingly, Chicago’s Gold Coast does not figure in the Higley 1000. In fact, in the entire city of Chicago, only one stray Block Group in Lincoln Park had a mean household income high enough to make the list.

Dallas is in third place when totaling the Higley 1000 households within city limits. At 385 square miles, Dallas is similar to Los Angeles (469 square miles) in having the foresight to annex large amounts of land in the path of upscale development. Consequently, Dallas has no less 15 Higley 1000 neighborhoods that stretch from the unique mansions of Preston Hollow on the South to the tract McMansions of Bent Tree North in Collin County.

The annexation of large swathes of land in the direction of upscale development eventually would prove to be a master stroke. When a city’s elite flees to the suburbs, high-end retail, as well as institutions (e.g. churches and synagogues), are soon to follow. Central cities are filled with Church’s in the hands of much poorer folk that have inherited the cathedrals of the rich.

The loss of the upper and upper middle class tax dollars and spending is bad enough for central cities, but without elites, you also lose their input and their involvement in civic affairs. They also have the means to contribute to “good government” candidates and hire lawyers if necessary to keep the city officials on their toes.

Comfortably ensconced in Grosse Pointes of this world… why care about the problems of the Detroits of this world?  It is an all too unfortunate reality in the United States that suburbanites don’t care if the central city struggles as they only care about their small hometown. When race enters the equation, problems between city and suburbs can grow exponentially. My current hometown of Birmingham is a classic example of very little meaningful cooperation between the African-American city and the lily White suburbs.

Homer Hoyt was Right

Homer Hoyt was a urban sociologist at the University of Chicago in the 1930s. He observed the sector and wedge geographical development of American cities and noticed a pronounced pattern where the wealthy move outward from the original elite neighborhoods… usually towards the metro area’s most scenic and desirable geography. Dallas is a perfect example of this pattern (although if you’ve ever seen Plano, the “scenic and desirable” may not apply…)

With the sole exception of the Lakewood neighborhood, all of Dallas’ wealthiest neighborhoods are found along the Dallas North Tollway and Preston Road heading due north from the CBD. The wealthiest neighborhoods of Dallas are bracketed on the south by the separately incorporated Park Cities (Highland Park and University Park) and on the north by the four Higley 1000 neighborhoods in Plano. As the map below shows, the Dallas neighborhoods of the Higley 1000 make an almost perfect North/South axis.

Map of the Dallas Metro Areas’ Higley 1000 Neighborhoods

View Larger Map of Higley 1000 Neighborhoods in Dallas

It will come as no surprise that Greenwich, Connecticut, the land of Hedge Fund operators as well as Social Register Blue Bloods has the largest number of suburban Higley 1000 households (8,065). This number is just over 1/3 of the total Greenwich households. Not only are there a large number of Higley 1000 households in Greenwich, many of the neighborhoods are also near the top of the list. Five of the 25 richest neighborhoods in the country are found in the sylvan confines of Greenwich: Round Hill-North Greenwich (#3 on the Higley 1000); Burning Tree Country Club (#9); Belle Harbor (#11); Stanwich-Conyers Farm (#14); and the Greenwich Country Club comes in at (#23).

Map of Greenwich, Connecticut and the Surrounding Communities

View Larger Map of Higley 1000 Neighborhoods in the Greenwich area

The West Suburban cluster of neighborhoods is centered on Oak Brook and Hinsdale. They are the odd couple of Chicago’s suburbs. Hinsdale (the Felix Unger of the two) is older, gracious and stately. Hinsdale’s lovely tree lined streets have been the site of a teardown demolition derby over the last 20 years with the usual local outcry. The two most elite neighborhoods of Hinsdale are the adjacent neighborhoods of Southeast Section and The Woodlands.

Oak Brook is the Oscar Madison of this duo. Oak Brook is the brain child of Paul Butler, the scion of a family that owned a large amount of land where the suburb sits today. The Butler name graces one of the suburbs many golf courses, an elementary school, and a polo ground, Oak Brook is a collection of gated communities and is the most desirable destination for Asians-Americans in the Chicago area. The gated nouveau riche development dubbed The Midwest Club is 40.1% Asian. The similar development of Trinity Lakes is 37.4% Asian. Both have among the highest concentration of wealthy Asians in the United States. The architecture of these neighborhoods tends to the ostentatious McMansion variety (an appropriate allusion as Oak Brook is the site of McDonald’s Corporate Headquarters and Hamburger University). The entire city of Oak Brook was 20.1% Asian (2000 Census). It is interesting that of Oak Brook’s Asian population, 52.5% are Indian and 20.6% are Chinese. Philippinos make up an additional 10.5% if Oak Brook’s population.

Burr Ridge answers the Question of “Where to Build your McMansion when Oak Brook is Built-out?”

Don’t want to teardown a house in Hinsdale or Clarendon Hills? But still want to build that 10,000 square foot trophy house? Burr Ridge is the place for you! The two neighborhoods of Burr Ridge in the Higley 1000 have relatively large Asian populations. Palisades-Oakridge Estates is 14.6% Asian and Devon-Lakewood is 15.7% Asian.

Map of Burr Ridge

View Larger Map of Palisades-Oak Ridge & Devon-Lakewood Neighborhoods

The appearance that wealthy Asians are attracted to gated developments of new homes in the suburbs provides an interesting future research topic for urban geographers.

The 17 neighborhoods in the West Suburban cluster were 86.2% Non-Hispanic Whites and 10.0% Asian. Black (1.6%) and Hispanic (1.2%) household numbers are insignificant. There were 7,470 households in this cluster or 16.4% of Chicago’s Higley 1000 total households.

Beyond the core Hinsdale-Oak Brook cluster there are several noteworthy West Suburban outliers. One of this author’s favorites is River Forest’s central section, a neighborhood graced by eclectic homes from the early parts of the 20th Century. Formerly the favorite of solid citizens as well as Mafia dons, River Forest’s homes have been lovingly maintained. Many of the homes in River Forest have been remodeled and expanded as the downside of the eclectic architecture of the Twenties are small bathrooms, small closets, and small kitchens.

Map of River Forest and Oak Park’s Frank Lloyd Wright Neighborhood

View Larger Map of River Forest Central and Frank Lloyd Wright Neighborhood

Oak Park: A Frank Lloyd Wright Tour de Force

Another noteworthy neighborhood that just missed the Higley 1000 is the core of a collection of Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes in Oak Park. The Block Group that has the Wright homes had a mean household income of $184,868 in 2000, placing it 1004th in the nation.

One may take a variety of tours sponsored by the Frank Lloyd Wright Association located on the Southern edge of this neighborhood. Although Oak Park has a fairly large African-American population, few are found in the Frank Lloyd Wright neighborhood.

Map of the Concentration of African-Americans in Oak Park, Illinois (Block by Block Basis)

In the late Sixties, Oak Park became the center of controversy when the city began a reverse steering program as realtors were trained to steer newly arriving African-Americans to Non-Hispanic White neighborhoods through the Oak Park Housing Center. In spite of the best efforts of the city, Blacks remain clustered in apartment buildings along the city’s Eastern border with Chicago, Austin Boulevard. Although the city as a whole was 22.4% Black in the 2000 Census, the Frank Lloyd Wright neighborhood had a mere 1.7% African-American households.

South Suburban Chicago

View Larger Map of Higley 1000 neighborhoods in South Suburban Chicago

There are only two Higley 1000 neighborhoods in the southern half of Chicagoland: the area around the Flossmoor Country Club and a subdivision adjacent to the Prestwick Country Club in exurban Frankfort. The households around the Flossmoor Country Club were 17.1% Black in the 2000 Census, the highest percentage in the Chicago area by quite a large degree. The second largest percentage of African-Americans (6.3%) is found in the small West Suburban Oak Brook subdivision of Ginger Creek.

I came across an interesting Chicago Sun-Times article from the archives (August 15, 1972) that listed the status of 200 Chicago suburbs by ranking them on four statistics: percentage college graduates; percentage of families with incomes over $25,000 (that’s not a typo!); median family income; and median years of school. What is striking about the listing is that Olympia Fields, a suburb just south of Flossmoor was ranked 4th and Flossmoor was ranked 7th.

By the 2000 Census, there were no neighborhoods in Olympia Fields in the Higley 1000. The Olympia Fields Country Club neighborhood is 51.9% Black, however with a mean household income of $133,210, it would not be in qualify for the second thousand wealthiest neighborhoods. Graymoor is a small subdivision to the east of the Olympia Fields Country Club and has a mean household income of $169,321. Graymoor’s 143 households were 35.6% Black in the 2000 Census. It is always important to remember that the margin of error in very small neighborhoods is wide. It is also important to remember that the reason I have chosen to make the data base 1,000 neighborhoods strong was to counteract this problem.

Chicago is endowed with a large number of beautiful and expensive downtown neighborhoods, but only one single Block Group in the middle of Lincoln Park has a mean household income that is high enough to make the Higley 1000. Even the Lincoln Park block that was christened the “wealthiest block in Chicago” by Forbes Magazine in August of 2007, does not qualify for the Higley 1000. As the block in question has only recently undergone widespread demolition to make way for the construction of multi-lot pleasure palaces for our new Gilded Age, it will undoubtedly make the list after the 2010 Census.

Forbes may salivate over the nouveau mansions of Lincoln Park, but any self respecting Chicagoan knows that the real center of Chicago’s elite is found in the Gold Coast. The luxurious single block of East Lake Shore Drive, North Lake Shore Drive from Oak Street to North Avenue, and Astor Street are unquestionably the most elite of the city’s neighborhoods. Surprisingly, the Block Group that covers this area does not have a high enough mean household income ($180,093) to qualify for the Higley 1000.

The reason for this relatively “low” mean household income in the Gold Coast is found in the very density and complexity associated with urban neighborhoods. For every condominium tower that features multi-million dollar units in this area, there are massive high rises that bring the mean household income down to more pedestrian levels. For those familiar with Chicago, 1350, 1360, and 1400 Lake Shore Drive are examples of massive rental-turned-condo high rises’ that subvert the mean household incomes of this plush neighborhood.

Racial Integration in Chicago’s Central Neighborhoods

Defining the geographical boundaries of Chicago’s central neighborhoods is a challenge to any Geographer since the city’s rich history of urban sociological research has resulted in many definitions. After much research using Census Tracts and Block Group boundaries, I have settled on the eleven neighborhoods found on the map below.

A Map of Chicago’s Central Neighborhoods

View Larger Map of Higley 1000 Neighborhoods in the City of Chicago

The Racial Makeup of the Neighborhoods

City of Chicago Neighborhoods Racial Makeup

The racial makeup of the City of Chicago households at the time of the 2000 Census was 42.0% Non-Hispanic White, 33.8% African-American, 17.9% Latino, and 4.2% Asian. The eleven wealthy central neighborhoods are radically different in racial makeup: 83.4% White, 5.7% Black, 3.5% Latino, and 5.7% Asian. Although there are significant differences among the elite central city neighborhoods, none of them come close to matching the racial diversity of the rest of the city.

I have rank ordered the neighborhoods by populations starting with the very large Lincoln Park Neighorhood. Lincoln Park has over 40% of all of the households in my sample and although it has many sub-neighborhoods (e.g. Sheffield Neighbors, the Old Town Triangle), I have chosen to lump them in one unit. Lincoln Park is only slightly more integrated than Chicago’s elite suburbs on the North Shore. A mere 2.5% of Lincoln Park’s households are African-American. The only city neighborhood that has a lower percentage is the Gold Coast (2.4% African-American).

It is interesting that the four central city neighborhoods that have the largest percentage of African-American households are relatively “new”. The Dearborn Park neighborhood was 30.1% African-American in 2000. Dearborn Park was built just south of the Loop in two phases (1977 and 1988). Although the percentage of African-Americans is high compared to other central city neighborhoods, it is important to remember that this neighborhood is quite small.

River West (13.4% Black) and River North (12.1%) are new loft neighborhoods that have been created out old factories and and office buildings as well as new high rise construction. The neighborhood that is sometimes referred to as Lake Shore East consists solely of high rises, most of which have been built within the last 20 years.

Two neighborhoods that have a significant number of Asian households are Streeterville, a high rise neighborhood along the lake, East of Michigan Avenue (13.4% Asian) as well as the aforementioned “new” loft neighborhood of River West (10.3%).

The only neighborhood with a significant Latino presence is the Loop (9.5%). At the time of the 2000 Census, there were few households in Chicago’s central business district as only 1,025 were counted. Since the last Census, office conversions and new construction have changed the face of the Loop with a much wider array of housing choices.

As to whether all of the new high rises. lofts, and townhouses will significantly alter the racial makeup of Chicago’s central neighborhoods will be of great interest. Virtually all of the new construction is at the high end of the market, most notably the 1,200 unit, 2,000 foot Chicago Spire under construction in Streeterville. The Higley1000 sends its condolences to the real estate agents trying to sell 1,200 units that run up to $45 million in this market! Where are those Russian Oligarchs when you need them?

One could almost consider the Barrington Area as an annex to the North Shore. New upscale development was blocked to the north along the lakefront by downscale North Chicago and Waukegan, therefore it moved west. The Barrington area (as I have defined it) stretches from Long Grove on the east to Barrington Hills in the west and is located primarily on the rolling meadows and forests of southern Lake County. This area, with a few exceptions, is nouveau riche and filled with upscale subdivisions of McMansions.

The Barrington name has cache and has proliferated across the landscape in a series of separately incorporated suburbs: North Barrington, South Barrington, Lake Barrington, Barrington Hills, and the original little farming community that started it all, Barrington itself. The lower-middle class suburb of Hoffman Estates even briefly entertained renaming itself East Barrington at one point to gain some illusory prestige.

Although the wealthiest neighborhood in the Barrington area is the gated Wynstone Golf Course community, the reigning dowager of wealth and old money is Barrington Hills. Wynstone consists of huge new homes built around a Jack Nicklaus designed golf course in the village of North Barrington. The fact that Wynstone has a significantly higher mean household income than Barrington Hills, is yet another example of how parvenu homogeneity can trump old money diversity in the Higley 1000.

If Wynstone’s passion is golf, Barrington Hills is equestrian paradise. The suburb is huge and its 28 square miles covers four counties. The population is only 4,000 due to extensive public park lands and five acre zoning throughout the village. The Riding Club of Barrington Hills and the Fox River Valley Pony Club are local institutions and horses are the focal point of many of the residents lives. It is quite amazing that there is no country club in the corporate limits of Barrington Hills.

View Larger Map of Barrington Hills neighborhood

There are 11 Higley 1000 neighborhoods in the Barrington area with 21.1% of the suburban Chicago households. Similarly to the North Shore, the population is overwhelmingly Non-Hispanic White (93.1%). The only suburb in the Barrington area that has any racial diversity at all is South Barrington. This suburb, which seems to be a favorite of sports stars, has a relatively large percentage of Asian households (14.4%), however the 11 neighborhoods together have only 4.3% Asian householders. Like the North Shore, the number of Blacks and Hispanics is statistically insignificant.

In the late 1860s, Alexander T. Stewart, a wealthy New York merchant, won a bidding war with another local businessman and purchased the plains of the future Garden City for $55 an acre, a whopping sum at the time. Stewart was one of the early pioneers of planned communities and he installed 28 miles of picket fences and even transplanted 6,500 sugar maples to his new development (Lisa Bruno, Big Houses Take Root on the Prairie, Newsday 1/27/2003)

The village was slow to grow. Perhaps it was because home owners could only lease space and not actually buy their land. The bad timing of the Panic of 1873 for Stewart might also have had something to do with the lots of Garden City languishing. Stewart tried all kinds of civic improvements to lure leaseholders, but he was only marginally successful and with his death in 1876, he did not live to see his dream fulfilled. The village began to grow when the leasehold system was abandoned after his widow’s death in 1886. Today, Stewart would be proud of his creation as Garden City has grown to about 22,000 residents and is still a very fashionable place to live with an excellent school system and beautiful homes. Garden City has a wide array of housing styles due to the century long build out.

The city is aesthetically centered on the spectacular Episcopalian Cathedral of the Incarnation (the seat of the Long Island Diocese) and the third incarnation of the Garden City Hotel. The hotel has 280 rooms and is a 4 star operation with large conference facilities. The formerly posh shopping venue of Franklin Avenue was unfortunately drained of some of it’s larger and tonier retailers with the opening of the Roosevelt Field Mall on the eastern border of Garden City on a former airfield. The mall has 2.2 million square feet of shopping and is the largest in the state of New York.

Geographically Garden City is an island of affluence. It is surrounded on all sides by residential areas that range from solid lower-middle class suburbia to the large, troubled, and densely populated village of Hempstead . There are 3,245 Higley 1000 households in Garden City spread over 4 neighborhoods. Garden City has no racial minorities of any significant size and is 96.9% Non-Hispanic White in the Higley 1000 neighborhoods. Approximately half of Garden City’s residents live in the four Higley 1000 neighborhoods.

TABLE of the TOP 5% MEAN HOUSEHOLD INCOMES PLACES

The Elite 5% in America’s Highest Income Places

1  American Community Survey 2006-8

2 American Community Survey 2005-7

The newest survey of the top 5% has similar methodology problems compared to looking at all households. The first irksome problem for either table is that the Census Bureau does not let any household claim an income of over $2,000.000 for statistical reasons. Statistically speaking there is good reason to limit the amount a household can claim as income. After all, Bill Gates would surely blow out Medina, Washington’s mean household income!  However, $2 million seems like an arbitrarily low amount and it will not change for the 2010 Census.

Secondly, because of the use of sampling, variances are very large and although there are real differences, one shouldn’t get hung up on whether a community is 3rd or 4th on the list.

Another problem in looking at the wealthiest places is the population cut-off of 20,000. This leaves some of the wealthiest places in America that are so familiar to Americans, off the list (e.g. Scarsdale, Millburn Township aka Short Hills, Winnetka, Hillsborough, and Palm Beach).

The one problem with the data in high income suburbs that is cleared up by looking at just the top 5% of households is the Servant Problem (as I call it). Servants that have their own  housekeeping  facilities such as kitchens are considered separate households. Naturally their incomes pull down mean household income statistics for any community with particularly large houses that require live-in staff. Greenwich, Connecticut would be a good example of this kind of place.

Climbers: Even Wealthy Places have Stratification

When one compares the mean income for all households to that of the top 5% there are some statistical surprises. Even places that are generally considered to be “wealthy” by any conventional definition can be highly stratified.

Laguna Beach makes the most jarring leap in the standings from 44th for all households compared to 8th place for mean household income ($1,170,959).  The stratification of this beautiful beach town is obviously the spectacular ocean front  mansions vs. more modest homes and apartments near the center of town.

Beverly Hills climbs from 57nd to 23rd. This is no surprise as the wealth associated with north of Santa Monica Boulevard vs. the tracts south of that major road are from two different strata entirely. The wealthy precincts north of Santa Monica (aka 90210) makes up less than a third of all of Beverly Hills households. The lower 2/3 of the city has a surprisingly low mean household income considering the astronomical real estate prices. Let’s face it, living in Beverly Hills means you’ve made it in America!

Although including Manhattan is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, I couldn’t help but add it to the chart as the borough is well known for it’s extreme social segmentation. The size and number of extremely wealthy neighborhoods are familiar to most (the Upper East Side, Sutton Place, Greenwich Village and Tribeca). The mean household income of Manhattan’s top 5% comes in 42nd on the list at $816,029. Three other highly stratified central cities did not make the top 50 list: San Francisco ($506,233); Atlanta ($506,096); and Washington DC ($487,133).

Southampton to East Hampton: Serious Stratification even in the “off  season”.

Household income is always counted at one’s primary residence so many of the most elite vacation spots have relatively low mean household income due to year round service people statistically overwhelming the relatively few very wealthy  permanent residents. The income data from the Towns of East Hampton and Southhampton capture this dichotomy of wealth. However, those wealthy households that due claim the two towns as their “first homes” for personal reasons ensures the Hamptons’ representation among the 50 wealthiest communities of the top 5%.

It is safe to assume that the lions share of the top 5% of incomes are located in the high income core of the Hamptons displayed below.

The Southampton and East Hampton Core Communities Map


View Southampton-East Hampton in a larger map

Places that are less Segmented and more Homogeneous

Just as there are places that are more stratified, there are some notable places that have a much higher degree of homogeneous income. A couple of the most extraordinary examples of this pattern of income are two Fort Worth suburbs. Both are collections  of  monotonously nouveaux riche subdivisions filled with endless McMansions. They exhibit little demographic or architectural difference. Southlake falls from 8th in rank for all households to  35th for the top 5%. Colleyville falls off the top 50 list from 14th to 55th.

New Jersey’s Montgomery Township falls from 21st to 47th. It is an illustration of  an East Coast homogeneous nouveau riche community.

An example of an older planned community that exhibits less stratification is the gracious Long Island community of Garden City. Although 12th in the nation for all household incomes, it falls to 36th for the top 5% of earners.

Map of Garden City, New York’s Higley 1000 Neighborhoods

View Garden City in a larger map