Richest cities in the world: New York dominates

[10023]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

That's not remotely surprising. London's status as a global financial center has plunged. London is now what Vienna has been for a long time: a gorgeous, formerly important city that's currently not important at all.

Brexit has boosted Paris' status significantly because it's now the most important European city.

I don’t think London will fall quite that far. It’s a much bigger city and the UK (even without its empire) is much bigger than the rump Austria of which Vienna is capital (there are more people in London proper than in Austria).

But it can no longer be “the New York of Europe” and the people (largely Boomers) who voted for Brexit have squandered the UK’s main global competitive advantage as the English-speaking global in Europe.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Does WealthX give any explanation or back up of where they get their information? It does seem unlikely that this is accurate beyond the obvious: NYC has a lot of HNW people.

I’d have to look back at emails and notes. But they work largely with global wealth managers (who are also clients) to accumulate data on where their wealthy clients live. I guess it’s similar to the way that Nielsen gathers data on consumer product sales from manufacturers/retailers, aggregates and anonymizes that data, and then sells it back to them as market intelligence.

So it’s not going to be completely bogus, but there are obvious issues (like whether UBS really knows where its clients “live”). And I suspect the UHNW data (for >$30m in assets) is better because these people will all have professional advisors. I suspect there are multiple forumers here with >$1m in assets and they might not be captured because they self-manage their assets.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

Palo Alto and Greenwich are about the same distance from SF and Manhattan, but PA is much denser than Greenwich. The houses aren't nearly as big as Greenwich's, and the plots are a fraction of the size. While they're both very rich suburbs, Greenwich is much nicer.

Greenwich is not nicer per se. It has larger homes on huge lots of land, for sure, but nicer to me means better amenities like restaurants, shopping, recreation, the arts, etc. and in that regard, Palo Alto wins on all fronts.

Palo Alto has Michelin star rated restaurants, has many more exclusive boutiques because of Stanford Shopping Center, the academic and intellectual community of not only Stanford, but by extension, the beating heart of the global tech industry AND venture capital. Downtown Palo Alto is more bustling, the city is more youthful due to a huge university in town. And then there's the mediterranean climate, the thousands of acres of rugged parkland, nearby mountains, etc.

Greenwich is very posh, very WASPy, has big mansions on acerage, if that's how you define 'nicer', okay, more power to you, but I prefer west coast posh way more, which is fine because we are all entitled to our opinions.

Interestingly, PA property is about the same price per square foot as SF. Both are far less expensive than Manhattan, but more expensive than the NY burbs (at least the ones not on the LI Sound).

Yeah but this is not new. The Bay Area as a metro area has been more expensive per sq ft and by median price than any metro in the country for several years. I wish this wasnt the case.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

DC has 690k residents. NY has 8.9m. A more interesting ratio would be Manhattan, where virtually all those HNW residents live, to DC.

Literally where do you outsiders come up with these assumptions?

We don't even know if the denominator in this stat is the city proper versus the entire metro.

It's assuredly the entire metro. There's no way 44% of the residents of DC are millionaires.

New York's millionaires are probably pretty equally distributed between Manhattan, Brooklyn, Nassau County (Long Island), West Chester County NY, North Jersey, and Fairfield County CT.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Greenwich is not nicer per se. It has larger homes on huge lots of land, for sure, but nicer to me means better amenities like restaurants, shopping, recreation, the arts, etc. and in that regard, Palo Alto wins on all fronts.

Completely disagree. There's no point to living in Palo Alto unless affiliated with Stanford and not constrained by housing costs. It isn't even a great college town. The downtown and housing stock are unremarkable. Berkeley is a great college town, not Palo Alto.

In contrast, Greenwich might be the best suburb in the U.S. Something like a dozen town centers, four train stations, beaches, deep woods, fantastic residential of all types, and one of the best downtown retail centers in the U.S.

But it's kind of a silly comparison. Greenwich is a railroad commuter suburb, Palo Alto is a university town/VC enclave. A rough Bay Area equivalent would be somewhere like Burlingame. I guess Princeton would sorta be like Palo Alto, but Princeton's core is much better.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Completely disagree. There's no point to living in Palo Alto unless affiliated with Stanford and not constrained by housing costs. It isn't even a great college town. The downtown and housing stock are unremarkable. Berkeley is a great college town, not Palo Alto.

In contrast, Greenwich might be the best suburb in the U.S. Something like a dozen town centers, four train stations, beaches, deep woods, fantastic residential of all types, and one of the best downtown retail centers in the U.S.

But it's kind of a silly comparison. Greenwich is a railroad commuter suburb, Palo Alto is a university town/VC enclave. A rough Bay Area equivalent would be somewhere like Burlingame. I guess Princeton would sorta be like Palo Alto, but Princeton's core is much better.

Virtually all Stanford undergrads live on campus as well as the majority of graduate students (and the ones who don't won't be able to afford to live in Palo Alto). A growing number of faculty also live on campus because even faculty can't really afford to live in Palo Alto anymore. So yes, PA is not a great college town, but it's hardly a college town at all in the classic sense. Stanford is essentially a bubble and the average student spends remarkably little time in PA proper.

[JMKeynes]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Greenwich is not nicer per se. It has larger homes on huge lots of land, for sure, but nicer to me means better amenities like restaurants, shopping, recreation, the arts, etc. and in that regard, Palo Alto wins on all fronts.

Palo Alto has Michelin star rated restaurants, has many more exclusive boutiques because of Stanford Shopping Center, the academic and intellectual community of not only Stanford, but by extension, the beating heart of the global tech industry AND venture capital. Downtown Palo Alto is more bustling, the city is more youthful due to a huge university in town. And then there's the mediterranean climate, the thousands of acres of rugged parkland, nearby mountains, etc.

Greenwich is very posh, very WASPy, has big mansions on acerage, if that's how you define 'nicer', okay, more power to you, but I prefer west coast posh way more, which is fine because we are all entitled to our opinions.


Yeah but this is not new. The Bay Area as a metro area has been more expensive per sq ft and by median price than any metro in the country for several years. I wish this wasnt the case.

At least SF has the advantage of being way less expensive than Manhattan per square foot. You get a lot more for $2,000/sf is SF than you do in Manhattan.

Also, Greenwich Avenue is lined with expensive shops like Tiffany, Saks, etc.

[homebucket]

Palo Alto actually has some really nice houses. I'll try to make my way over one of these days and put together a photo thread. Most of the houses are down on the flat lands, but once you get up to the foothills, there's a lot of bigger homes with lots of land too. It's got a couple of downtowns. One main one on University, and another mini one on California, as well as three Caltrain stations. The main one (Palo Alto) is the 2nd busiest Caltrain station. It's got one of the top universities in the world obviously, as well as one of the best hospitals in the US along with it. Multiple open space preserves within 10 minutes of downtown. An excellent dining scene as well that punches far above its weight. It's not hard to see why it's one of the more expensive suburbs in the area.

[JMKeynes]

Palo Alto has very nice homes. Just not as nice as Greenwich.

Anyway, at $1k-$2k/sf, PA, like SF, is a bargain compared to Manhattan.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...6_M21830-08022

[10023]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

Palo Alto has very nice homes. Just not as nice as Greenwich.

Anyway, at $1k-$2k/sf, PA, like SF, is a bargain compared to Manhattan.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...6_M21830-08022

You keep using “nice” when you mean “large” or “more suburban”.

But that link is not a nice house. Architecturally and furnishings look like garbage.

[JMKeynes]

Originally Posted by 10023

You keep using “nice” when you mean “large” or “more suburban”.

But that link is not a nice house. Architecturally and furnishings look like garbage.

Nice enough. Palo Alto doesn’t offer the quality that NY does.

[10023]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

Nice enough. Palo Alto doesn’t offer the quality that NY does.

Well it needs to be properly done and probably modernist, because that’s when California boomed. It won’t have the 19th century housing stock of the East Coast.

But that looks like a McWhatever with cheap flooring, cheap windows, things like light fixtures and railings bought on sale at Lowe’s, and no attempt at creating a style with the furniture. The kitchen, the fireplace… I’m sure it’s not particularly cheap but man they have poor taste.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by 10023

You keep using “nice” when you mean “large” or “more suburban”.

But that link is not a nice house. Architecturally and furnishings look like garbage.

I mean, that house could just as easily be in Surprise AZ and cost $185K.

There's not one custom element in the entire place.

[3rd&Brown]

I don't know that much about the Bay Area but I was always under the impression that the most monied towns were the likes of Atherton and Tiburon?

If that's the case, wouldn't they be the only antecedants to Greenwich?

The only NY metro town that is even eligible for a comparison to PA I would think is Princeton. I don't know anything about PA but for sure the worst bungalow in all of Princeton borough has more charm than that 2.2MM house in PA. (And would be much cheaper as well).

Not to mention there is block after block of beautiful, lushly landscaped homes in Princeton.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I don't know that much about the Bay Area but I was always under the impression that the most monied towns were the likes of Atherton and Tiburon?

If that's the case, wouldn't they be the only antecedants to Greenwich?

The only NY metro town that is even eligible for a comparison to PA I would think is Princeton. I don't know anything about PA but for sure the worst bungalow in all of Princeton borough has more charm than that 2.2MM house in PA. (And would be much cheaper as well).

Not to mention there is block after block of beautiful, lushly landscaped homes in Princeton.

There's money crawling all over this area so it's really hard to pinpoint just a couple of towns.

In general, these suburbs are where the elite are: Los Gatos, Saratoga, Los Altos Hills, Los Altos, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside, Portola Valley, Hillsborough, Belvedere, Tiburon, Piedmont, Orinda, Danville, Blackhawk.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Palo Alto actually has some really nice houses. I'll try to make my way over one of these days and put together a photo thread. Most of the houses are down on the flat lands, but once you get up to the foothills, there's a lot of bigger homes with lots of land too. It's got a couple of downtowns. One main one on University, and another mini one on California, as well as three Caltrain stations. The main one (Palo Alto) is the 2nd busiest Caltrain station. It's got one of the top universities in the world obviously, as well as one of the best hospitals in the US along with it. Multiple open space preserves within 10 minutes of downtown. An excellent dining scene as well that punches far above its weight. It's not hard to see why it's one of the more expensive suburbs in the area.

The issue is that PA didn't always use to be a super rich place (like Atherton), even though it is now, so the older houses aren't as nice (Palo Alto Hills is a bit different). It has multiple downtowns/Caltrain stations because California Ave used to be the town of Mayfield . I believe the "Stanford" station is only used during Stanford Football games (it's next to Paly and the stadium).

[Chisouthside]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

The issue is that PA didn't always use to be a super rich place (like Atherton), even though it is now, so the older houses aren't as nice (Palo Alto Hills is a bit different). It has multiple downtowns/Caltrain stations because California Ave used to be the town of Mayfield . I believe the "Stanford" station is only used during Stanford Football games (it's next to Paly and the stadium).

Yeah alot of the housing stock in the super well off areas of the penninsula and southbay is trash. My former coworker, who was from St Petersburg, Russia referred to houses in the in her sunnyvale neighborhood as cardboard houses.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by 10023

You keep using “nice” when you mean “large” or “more suburban”.

But that link is not a nice house. Architecturally and furnishings look like garbage.

You obviously don't own a home. Most people don't update all at once or with the top shelf furnishings, they do go to Lowe's. The kitchen also looks like it was remodeled at least 10 years ago; stained cabinets and granite countertops. It is a nice typical suburban house ...apart from the $2 million asking price.

[Nomayoplease]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Ive referred to WealthX quite a bit over the past decade.

wow surprised to se Naples FL there....I new it was a rich city but damn...

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

Palo Alto has very nice homes. Just not as nice as Greenwich.

https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...6_M21830-08022

Excuse me, I prefer that to this is crap.
https://www.estately.com/listings/in...rwood-place--6