Your city's "favoured quarter"

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Crawford

And St. Louis, too, has a pretty big gap. I don't think the neighborhoods between Downtown and Central West End are all that wealthy/desirable. In that respect, St. Louis might be closer to a Detroit-style regional wealth arrangement, except the nice parts start within city limits.

the urbanism is pockmarked, but there are lots of rehabs between jefferson and grand, and even some solid streetwalls. its absolutely an area that is within the orbit of the central corridor, and isn't seen as a real estate basketcase. i've walked it many times (as well as midtown detroit), and while rather empty, is shotgunned with breweries and restaurants, etc. its been somewhat mangled due to creeping industrialism since the 19th century, as well as urban renewal. there is a ton of 1910s/1920s auto showroom and manufacturing stuff that replaced residential a century ago. st. louis was a quasi-detroit during the early days of automobile manufacturing.

examples:


locust st https://goo.gl/maps/6PkCZdFRJCR2

washington ave https://goo.gl/maps/CxeUEXYPxoH2

olive https://goo.gl/maps/5kXuELjpRx32

https://goo.gl/maps/a33UUS9btTw

the deco tower is actually midtown in the distance on those.

the area in between downtown and midtown st. louis actually looks a bit like midtown detroit (midtown st. louis doesnt look like midtown detroit), with breweries, etc.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

the urbanism is pockmarked, but there are lots of rehabs between jefferson and grand, and even some solid streetwalls. its absolutely an area that is within the orbit of the central corridor, and isn't seen as a real estate basketcase.

I agree with all this, and I'm not saying it's exactly analogous to Detroit in terms of demand/redevelopment potential. Certainly St. Louis has more gentrification and the corridor is more intact.

I'm just saying that the parts of St. Louis between downtown and CWE are definitely not wealthy/top tier; there isn't an unbroken "wealth belt". Same goes for Chicago, for that matter. No way are Uptown and Rogers Park remotely "wealthy". Parts are actually pretty shady.

In contrast, Toronto appears to have a pretty solid wealth belt everywhere along Yonge, probably to the 401. If anything, Toronto seems inverted, where the greatest wealth is in the inner part of the corridor, while the outer parts (North York) seem a lot less nice; a lot more "average".

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I would say that the most "prime" parts of Chicago's Northside end around Belmont Ave., and the less prime, but still desirable parts end around Irving Park Rd.

i would say that andersonville, ravenswood, and lincoln square are desireable, and they're all north of irving.

hell, i live in edgewater glen (central edgewater) and single family homes in my hood typically go for $600,000 - $1,000,000, which is comparable to the neighborhood i grew up in in wilmette. the far northside is certainly not "regionally dominant wealthy", but much of it is still desireable, even if it's nowhere near as prime as gold coast or LP.

one of the reasons why prices are not as out of control up here as lakefront hoods further south is that there's still a good amount of racial/ethnic/income diversity on the far northside and the gentrification path of these hoods has been extremely slow-track, taking place very gradually over the course of many decades.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i would say that andersonville, ravenswood, and lincoln square are desireable, and they're all north of irving.

OK, but "desirable" isn't necessarily "wealth belt" or "favored quarter". It isn't "is this area nice", it's "is this the absolute top tier part of the metro".

Most of Chicagoland is reasonably "desirable", but there are very few places similar to Gold Coast, Winnetka and the like. Certainly nothing between North Evanston and Lakeview has prices/demand similar to points north/south.

And there are some troubled/high crime neighborhoods, like around the Wilson station in Uptown, or the Howard station in Rogers Park. The Toronto/DC examples are very different, with no such areas. There's no "hood" along Yonge or in far NW DC; only upper class neighborhoods.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

OK, but "desirable" isn't necessarily "wealth belt" or "favored quarter". It isn't "is this area nice", it's "is this the absolute top tier part of the metro".

correct, the far northside is not top tier wealth, and i never claimed that it was, but much of it is still desirable. there are many desirable neighborhoods north of irving. that's all i was trying to correct.

Originally Posted by Crawford

Certainly nothing between North Evanston and Lakeview has prices/demand similar to points north/south.

that's not really true. as i said in my last post, in my neighborhood of edegwater glen, SFH's routinely sell for $600,000 - $1,000,000, which is quite comparable to the prices of SFH's in the neighborhood i grew up in in southeast wilmette.

the big difference with my neighborhood compared to wilmette is that there are also a shit-ton of condo and apartment buildings which makes the neighborhood more affordable to people who can't take on a $600,000+ mortgage.

Originally Posted by Crawford

And there are some troubled/high crime neighborhoods, like around the Wilson station in Uptown, or the Howard station in Rogers Park.

the "hood" along howard on the northern edge of rogers park is greatly exaggerated. i've ridden my bike DIRECTLY through that pocket twice a day, everyday, for the last 10 years. is there gang activity in that area? yes. are there occasional gang shootings? yes. is it like austin or englewood? fuck no.

the far northside of chicago is certainly not an area of "regionally dominant wealth", but much of it is easily one of the better parts of chicagoland to live in.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that's not really true. as i said in my last post, in my neighborhood of edegwater glen, SFH's routinely sell for $600,000 - $1,000,000, which is quite comparable to the prices of SFH's in the neighborhood i grew up in in southeast wilmette.

I don't know Edgewater Glen, but I doubt there are 600k SFH in the prime lakefront parts of the North Shore. $1 million is probably a minimal starting point, for an OK house in decent condition, not right on the lake, but walking distance. I don't think Edgewater is similar, where you need $1 million to get something decent/livable.

Or to put another way- if I were to survey the BigLaw partners and corporate execs of Chicagoland, I would bet an absolute crapload live along the North Shore (Wilmette north) and in and around Gold Coast/LP/Lakeview (and in/around Hinsdale). Very few would list addresses north of Irving park and south of the Bahai Temple. Heck, probably few list addresses north of Diversey and south of Kenilworth.

In contrast, in DC and Toronto, those midtier neighborhoods are some of the richest/most desirable in the metro. If Chicago's wealth was like Toronto then Uptown would be Winnetka, basically (and the North Shore wouldn't be desirable).

The richest SFH neighborhoods in Toronto are in-town, because Toronto was so small back in the pre WW2 era. Chicago was already enormous, so it's analagous neighborhoods are way out. The Chicago versions of Rosedale, Forest Hill and Bridal Path, are in the burbs.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't know Edgewater Glen, but I doubt there are 600k SFH in the prime lakefront parts of the North Shore. $1 million is probably a minimal starting point, for an OK house in decent condition, not right on the lake, but walking distance.

here is a house in southeast wilmette across the street from the house i grew up in. it's listing for $579,000.

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale...t/18_zm/0_mmm/




and here's a house in edgewater glen two streets over from where i currently live. it's listing for $730,000.

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale...t/17_zm/0_mmm/



and both of those examples are a 3/4 mile walk to the nearest beach.

comparable.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Docere

Does your city have "favored quarter" - i.e. a wedge running from the core towards affluent suburbs. Thinking for example of Chicago's North Side lakefront to North Shore for example.

No, Los Angeles does not have a "favored quarter" as you've described it, namely, "a wedge running from the core towards the affluent suburbs."

This is like another lets-pretend-all-cities-are-apples-and-do-an-apples-to-apples-comparison exercise.

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

For Los Angeles it would be everything North of the 10 and West of downtown.

I disagree. The Pico-Union neighborhood, for example, is north of the 10 and west of downtown, but is not a favorable or desirable neighborhood. Plenty of other areas north of the 10 and west of downtown that also are not favorable or desirable.

[MonkeyRonin]

Income map of Toronto:




As discussed already, the biggest regional concentration of wealth runs from downtown north, but there's another big one in the west. In the suburbs however, while the wealth continues north, the main corridor is along the western lakeshore:

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Within the city, the favored quarter is clearly the East End. The East End has been the playground for the city's wealthy since around 1900 when Allegheny City (now the City's north side) was largely abandoned in favor of the East End's streetcar suburbia. City neighborhoods like Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, and Point Breeze never went into any decline to speak of, mostly maintained a "good feeder zone," and continue to house some of the wealthiest residents in the metropolitan area.

Is Pittsburgh possibly the only old, industrial city where the wealth has traditionally gravitated to the east?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Is Pittsburgh possibly the only old, industrial city where the wealth has traditionally gravitated to the east?

Cleveland's wealthiest suburbs are all due east.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Crawford

In contrast, Toronto appears to have a pretty solid wealth belt everywhere along Yonge, probably to the 401. If anything, Toronto seems inverted, where the greatest wealth is in the inner part of the corridor, while the outer parts (North York) seem a lot less nice; a lot more "average".

There's a bit of a "DC" pattern - if you think of Yonge St. as Wisconsin Ave. and the 495 as the 401.

Here's some income maps for the City of Toronto and Toronto CMA (with the old city of Toronto boundaries marked).

http://neighbourhoodchange.ca/docume...-cmas-2012.pdf

Most law firm partners etc. would live in this broad blue swath north of downtown.

The North York area around Bayview and York Mills is very desirable - probably like Potomac or something.

Looking at the metro as a whole, you can see clusters running west, northwest, north and east of the core. Northwest and east are the most working class; north is most desirable, though there's a secondary wealth cluster to the west.

ETA: Looks like Monkey Ronin posted ahead of me (and conveniently pasted the images here rather than having to follow a link!)

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Is Pittsburgh possibly the only old, industrial city where the wealth has traditionally gravitated to the east?

I've heard this is also true for Cincinnati. Seems to be the case:



Keep in mind that many major cities have either a body of water to their east (Boston, San Francisco, Chicago) or else are at a state line (Philly, Saint Louis). Baltimore and Detroit didn't have much room for an east side either for that matter.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Once you get outside city limits almost all the metro-area wealth is within a few miles of Woodward, so I do feel it's a bit bizzaroworld Toronto, as the wealth in Toronto clings to either side of Yonge once you hit the older suburban neighborhoods north of Yorkville.

I don't think this is true. Yes, the upper Woodward corridor has the biggest cluster of upper and upper-middle class suburban communities, but it's not hardly "almost all" of it.

The "money" took three distinct routes out of Detroit: Woodward Avenue to the north Woodward corridor, Jefferson Avenue to the Pointes, and Grand River Avenue to south and western Oakland County. It's not a coincidence that every single one of the historic mansion neighborhoods in the city proper touches at least one of those three avenues.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't think this is true. Yes, the upper Woodward corridor has the biggest cluster of upper and upper-middle class suburban communities, but it's not hardly "almost all" of it.

The "money" took three distinct routes out of Detroit: Woodward Avenue to the north Woodward corridor, Jefferson Avenue to the Pointes, and Grand River Avenue to south and western Oakland County. It's not a coincidence that every single one of the historic mansion neighborhoods in the city proper touches at least one of those three avenues.

I don't think this is true. The vast majority of Detroit metro-area wealth follows the Woodward corridor. The highest income zip codes, the most million dollar home sales, are all along the Woodward corridor.

Jefferson and Grand River aren't historically wealthy streets, and their corresponding suburban areas aren't as wealthy as along Woodward. There are, of course, affluent suburban areas outside of the Woodward corridor (Northville, the Pointes) but they don't compare to the Bloomfield-Birmingham area along Woodward.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

There's a bit of a "DC" pattern - if you think of Yonge St. as Wisconsin Ave. and the 495 as the 401.

Here's some income maps for the City of Toronto and Toronto CMA (with the old city of Toronto boundaries marked).

http://neighbourhoodchange.ca/docume...-cmas-2012.pdf

Most law firm partners etc. would live in this broad blue swath north of downtown.

The North York area around Bayview and York Mills is very desirable - probably like Potomac or something.

Yeah, I think the Wisconsin Ave. analogy makes sense.

Re. North York, I was referring to the areas north of the 401. That corridor, with all the modern glassy highrises, doesn't appear to be super affluent. It struck me as more striving immigrant (seemed to be very Asian immigrant, with condo towers and little suburban bungalows).

[volguus zildrohar]

Originally Posted by Don't Be That Guy

I'm not a Philly native so let me know if I'm completely off base here, but from the casual eye, I'd say that you could very roughly define a favoured quarter for the area. If you were to radiate out from Center City, an area encompassing the Main Line with just south of Route 30 as the southern border and a northern border vaguely defined by Ridge Ave, Lincoln Ave. and Germantown Ave at Chestnut Hill would encompass the obviously affluent parts of the metro.

One could argue that but per the OP's question the wedge doesn't come anywhere near the core of the region. I've roughly outlined the well to do areas in and around Center City in blue and then the Main Line and nearby well-off Montgomery County areas and 'desirable' parts of Northwest Philadelphia. There is a wedge but pretty much all of West Philadelphia cuts in between economically.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and both of those examples are a 3/4 mile walk to the nearest beach.

comparable.

You can't make generalizations based on two random home asking prices. Median income in Edgewater is around 43k, median income in Wilmette is around 130k (and Wilmette isn't close to the wealthiest part of North Shore).

The fact is that the far Northside of Chicago isn't affluent, and doesn't have comparable wealth as the regional core or the North Shore. There's a large gap. There's no gap whatsoever in DC or Toronto, where wealth is more centralized, probably because the cities were much smaller back before WW2 (basically the new sprawl is a higher % of region in DC and Toronto, so old rich areas are closer-in).

It's more that the city of Chicago has a favored quarter. The overall region doesn't have a consistent "slice" of wealth analogous to DC or Toronto.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think this is true. The vast majority of Detroit metro-area wealth follows the Woodward corridor. The highest income zip codes, the most million dollar home sales, are all along the Woodward corridor.

Jefferson and Grand River aren't historically wealthy streets, and their corresponding suburban areas aren't as wealthy as along Woodward. There are, of course, affluent suburban areas outside of the Woodward corridor (Northville, the Pointes) but they don't compare to the Bloomfield-Birmingham area along Woodward.

There are enough affluent areas in southeast Michigan outside of north Woodward that I think would make it a stretch to say that all of the wealth is there. "Most" is not the same as "the vast majority." If anything, like many other things in Detroit, the affluent areas are unusually decentralized.

Also, just so that we're clear, I consider West Bloomfield (and Orchard Lake) to be part of the Grand River corridor instead of Woodward, even though it is a Bloomfield in name which is arbitrary... Southfield was a Bloomfield too. But I say that because much of it developed along with the northwest flight trajectory away from Detroit (Grand River/Lodge/Northwestern Highway). West Bloomfield is more Twelve Oaks than Somerset.

Anyway, I found a cool map that shows where the 25 most affluent zip codes are clustered in Michigan. As I thought, the clusters around Detroit are north Woodward, the Pointes, western Oakland, southern Oakland/northwestern Wayne, and Ann Arbor.

http://www.zipdatamaps.com/top-25-we...n-michigan.php

[Crawford]

So for Metro Detroit, there were 217 homes sold at 1 million+ in 2014, and of those, 151 were sold in Birmingham-Bloomfield.

This means that 70% of metro-area million dollar home sales were in two small communities along Woodward. Even putting aside all the other wealthy communities along the corridor (Franklin, Bingham Farms, West Bloomfield, Orchard Lake, Huntington Woods, parts of Troy) I think this pretty clearly shows that wealth is overwhelmingly concentrated along one metro-area corridor.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...rket-sees-best

Of course there are other locations for million dollar homes- parts of the Pointes, Northville, Rochester Hills, Novi and the like. But we're talking a handful of annual sales. Metro Detroit has highly concentrated wealth, IMO.