East/west divide seems to be a thing in most western cities (but not US)

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

city-data.com

I also never noticed the shape of St. Louis before lol. It's kind of shaped like a... nevermind.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Do you know to what degree this was a conscious decision by st. Louis business leaders based on prevailing winds? or like Chicago, was it more just dumb luck that the area just over the nearby stateline with giant available tracts of land for heavy industries like steel and oil refining also just happened to be downwind of the city in a pleasant coincidence?

i think both - plus companies could do just about whatever they wanted when they owned their own town (ex, Monsanto built a town called Monsanto, IL now which is still kind of an industrial (and strip club) haven. The City of St. Louis actually started having ordinances on the books surrounding pollution, etc.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I also never noticed the shape of St. Louis before lol. It's kind of shaped like a... nevermind.

The Arch welcomes you to the Gateway City.

[Docere]

NYC seems to come closest to the concentric ring model with no real "favored direction." Generally affluent Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn, then lower income working class outer boroughs and industrial cities of NJ and Yonkers/Mount Vernon, then generally affluent suburbs.

[ColDayMan]

Columbus doesn't really follow the East/West divide (or favored quarter) as Cincinnati or Cleveland. It's essentially North/South/East/West due to geographic reasons and the North is by far the favored quarter with all the higher-end suburbs (except for the aforementioned Bexley) on the northside and also the city's Yuppie Quarter extending north from downtown to Worthington. New Albany, the metro's most expensive city, would traditionally be considered northside, even though it is technically northeast. The Eastside of the city/metro has been traditionally AA/African and more increasingly Asian; Westside being AA/Appalachian/Latino; Southside being Appalachian/African. Columbus, like Cleveland, is tricky in which the northeast side of the city is the most dangerous but beyond that section it gets sharply affluent (not quite Detroit/Grosse Pointes but similar idea). The north-central and northwest sides of Columbus are generally upper-middle whites and Asians.

Cincinnati is more straight-forward, like St. Louis, in having a clear path from their downtown and going a direction with few dereliction way out to estate country.

Cleveland is more like Columbus where the city can be downright hostile in a certain direction (East) but cross a street/go up a hill and you may as well be in a North Shore Long Island suburb.

Geography of Cincinnati and Cleveland clearly reinforced an East/West divide. Columbus has no natural barriers like the Mill Creek Valley or the Cuyahoga Valley to have strong East/West "rivalries." It's all North for Columbus, essentially. I'd argue the same for Indianapolis, Atlanta, Oklahoma City, and Raleigh. Maybe it's a state capital thing? But then again, there's Denver's South quarter...

[wwmiv]

Austin fits every single one of these models really well:

East/West: generally upper or upper middle class west of I-35 and middle or lower class east of I-35. This dynamic exists regional-wide, Austin, Round Rock, San Marcos all have the same dynamic.

Bombed-Out Core: Austin exhibited a phase of a lower-income core area, which later…

Gentrified Core: the boundary of poverty has consistently been pushed east and most of central Austin is now upper middle to upper class with only some pockets remaining of lower or lower middle income.

Doughnut of Poverty: because of the shift in the middle of the city in where the east/west boundary is, there now exists a partial eastside “doughnut” of poverty around a gentrified core in the 71 and 183 corridors.

Suburban Middle: middle class residents have been shifted into the suburbs, but upper middle class residents tend to be west of I-35 and lower middle class tend to be east.

Favored Quarter: anything upriver from downtown that has river access or has river or panoramic views and is near the river is upper class. There are pockets of upper middle class, and it is flanked on all sides by upper middle class, but it is a highly favored quarter.

Tradewinds: almost all industrial development in Austin metro has been recent and during a time period where industry is deliberately placed downwind from population centers and such is the case in Austin, where largescale industry is being developer far enough away from Austin proper that it won’t affect either existing metro residents’ air quality nor much of the new residential development since there is open land to develop upwind from industry. Considering pollution and wind direction and waterflow has been a feature of Austin’s city planning since 1929 (yes, the racist plan).

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by Docere

NYC seems to come closest to the concentric ring model with no real "favored direction." Generally affluent Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn, then lower income working class outer boroughs and industrial cities of NJ and Yonkers/Mount Vernon, then generally affluent suburbs.

I don't agree with this. Yes, the suburbs are generally affluent in the NYC area, but the favored suburbs are north and west of the city. Always have been always will be. I'm thinking Bergen County, Westchester, Fairfield.

Sure there are swathes of Long Island that are very pretty and prosperous but most of its history its been pretty middling except for right on the water. It's only changed because of continued population growth and the extreme wealth in NYC.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I don't agree with this. Yes, the suburbs are generally affluent in the NYC area, but the favored suburbs are north and west of the city. Always have been always will be. I'm thinking Bergen County, Westchester, Fairfield.

Sure there are swathes of Long Island that are very pretty and prosperous but most of its history its been pretty middling except for right on the water. It's only changed because of continued population growth and the extreme wealth in NYC.

There's not really that much economic variation in the suburbs going west, north, and east of NYC. There is a large pocket of super wealthy in the northern suburbs, but regular old middle and upper middle classes have gone in all directions. And even the super wealthy seem to be going east more now than north (all the way to the east end of Long Island). In fact, Nassau is the most expensive to buy a home of the three suburban counties bordering NYC + Fairfield County:

Median home prices as of Dec 2023
Nassau: $775k (listing), $715k (sold)
Bergen: $709k (listing), $650k (sold)
Westchester: $635k (listing), $712k (sold)
Fairfield: $708k (listing), $572k (sold)

However, south of NYC is definitely less affluent than any other direction.

[Docere]

Westchester vs Nassau seems to be more of a cultural difference (establishmentarian liberal vs. more conservative New Yawker) than a socioeconomic one.

It's not really like say Oakland vs Macomb or North Shore vs. SW suburbs of Chicago or Main Line vs. South Jersey.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

There's not really that much economic variation in the suburbs going west, north, and east of NYC. There is a large pocket of super wealthy in the northern suburbs, but regular old middle and upper middle classes have gone in all directions. And even the super wealthy seem to be going east more now than north (all the way to the east end of Long Island). In fact, Nassau is the most expensive to buy a home of the three suburban counties bordering NYC + Fairfield County:

Median home prices as of Dec 2023
Nassau: $775k (listing), $715k (sold)
Bergen: $709k (listing), $650k (sold)
Westchester: $635k (listing), $712k (sold)
Fairfield: $708k (listing), $572k (sold)

However, south of NYC is definitely less affluent than any other direction.

3 of these 4 counties border NYC. So what this says is the closer-in suburbs are more desirable than the further flung ones, generally speaking.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Docere

Westchester vs Nassau seems to be more of a cultural difference (establishmentarian liberal vs. more conservative New Yawker) than a socioeconomic one.

It's not really like say Oakland vs Macomb or North Shore vs. SW suburbs of Chicago or Main Line vs. South Jersey.

Yes, exactly. Macomb was the well known home of the working class Reagan Democrat, but less often stated is that Oakland was home of the professional class Romney Republican.

There's not quite as stark as a class divide in the suburban NY counties. The middle class and professional classes working in Manhattan choose their suburb based on the train station located closest to their office. Media and Madison Avenue has generally preferred the northern suburbs because of proximity to Grand Central. Hedge funds also skew to the east side of Manhattan, with Grand Central being the nearest station. A few of the larger consulting firms have been located west so the upper level managers skew more towards New Jersey suburbs.

Originally Posted by Docere

3 of these 4 counties border NYC. So what this says is the closer-in suburbs are more desirable than the further flung ones, generally speaking.

Not necessarily. Bergen is the only one of those counties that borders Manhattan. But Nassau probably has better transit access to Manhattan.

[Docere]

Right, but I don't really see whatever differences there are between Bergen and Nassau as differences in kind. They're both affluent inner suburbs. There's no Oakland/Macomb type split in the NYC metro area.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I don't agree with this. Yes, the suburbs are generally affluent in the NYC area, but the favored suburbs are north and west of the city. Always have been always will be. I'm thinking Bergen County, Westchester, Fairfield.

Not if you look at median household income, college attainment, median home price, and other common variables. The tri-state is almost certainly the least favored-quarter oriented metro in North America.

And Bergen isn't even the most favored area in NJ. The Short Hills area, headed west, out to hunt country, will generally have the highest concentration of HNWI. This corridor spans portions of Essex, Morris and Somerset. This corridor has the most expensive home sales, the fanciest mall in the tri-state, and the largest share of NJ corporate HQ and law firms.

Bergen has wealthy towns here and there, and is almost completely middle class or higher, but the only really expensive towns are right over the GW Bridge, around Alpine, and that's almost purely a "closest leafy suburb to Manhattan" play, like North Arlington to DC. Most of Bergen is just solidly UMC, with places like Ridgewood and Westwood.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

3 of these 4 counties border NYC. So what this says is the closer-in suburbs are more desirable than the further flung ones, generally speaking.

Right, this is the major tri-state distinction. The median income data will be fuzzy, even sometimes counterintuitive, bc inner suburbs have lots of subsidized housing and affordable co-ops, meaning lots of singles, elderly, immigrants, and some poor, and outer suburbs are almost exclusively SFH, but inner suburbs are typically much more expensive and desirable than outer suburbs.

More accurately, it's access to Manhattan, not really geographic distance. So coastal Fairfield County, while pretty far from Midtown, has the most frequent and fastest rail access of any directional, so it has traditionally functioned as "close in" even if far out. But there are corners of NJ and Rockland County that have poor access to the core, so function as "far out" even if close in. Fairfield, CT is about as far out as you can get and still have a very pricey, highly desirable commuter town. Beyond that everything has a steep discount.

[Docere]

Even Paris, which people associate with rich city/poor suburbs* has a favored direction to the west. Of the petit couronnes, Hauts de Siene is quite wealthy and the wealthy suburbs (including Versailles) are in Yveslines department.

NYC is more concentric ring than Paris is.

London too of course has a favored west

* Of course the petit couronne "suburbs" are really more akin to the outer boroughs, as city of Paris has had the same boundaries since the mid-19th century.

[Docere]

From a post about a year ago, I have not updated the figures.

College degree

Somerset 58.2%
Morris 57%
Westchester 54.4%
Hunterdon 54.3%
Bergen 53%
Fairfield 50.5%
Monmouth 50.2%
Nassau 49.7%
Putnam 47.4%
Middlesex 45.1%
Rockland 42.3%
Dutchess 42.1%
Suffolk 40.6%
Ocean 32.4%

[Crawford]

Wow, Ocean really is an education laggard. Some factors might depress the numbers - Lakewood, which has rapid growth and low ed attainment (Orthodox Jewish) and that part of the Shore is very popular with the same kind of solid income but not particularly educated types as the South Shore of LI (contractors, tradespeople, cops/firefighters, small business owners). Also inland Ocean County has a lot of cheapish sprawl.

The rich Jersey Shore towns, like Spring Lake and Sea Girt, are closer in, in Monmouth County. And again, on the railroad, which prolly doesn't matter as much as in 1920, but still matters to some extent.

[Docere]

Point is you have college educated-majority suburban counties in all directions. It's not like they heavily skew to one side.

[Docere]

This is ca. 2015 (StatisticalAtlas is much faster than Census Bureau website) but here's a more narrow measure: professional school degrees (JD, MD, DDS etc.) and doctoral degrees.

Professional or doctoral degree

Westchester 7.6%
Hunterdon 6%
Morris 5.8%
Nassau 5.8%
Fairfield 5.5%
Bergen 5.2%
Monmouth 4.7%
Rockland 4.6%
Middlesex 4%
Suffolk 3.9%
Dutchess 3.6%
Putnam 3.6%
Ocean 1.9%

[Docere]

Yeah, Ocean County is very "Metro New York" with its large Orthodox Jewish population and large Italian American trades/small business demos.