Any US cities where core is wealthier than suburbs?

[Docere]

Westchester has a few dozen school districts, and certain districts (i.e. Scarsdale) are highly desirable.

[tech12]

Regardless of how you measure the "core" of the Bay Area, it includes some of the Bay's wealthiest areas (like Pacific Heights, Nob Hill, Sea Cliff, Piedmont, Palo Alto, etc), as well as some of the Bay's poorest areas (the Tenderloin, Chinatown, east Oakland, west Oakland, various shanty towns/tent cities, public housing, etc).

On the other hand, some of the wealthiest parts of the Bay Area are extra suburban, and on the edge of the urbanized area (places like Woodside, Walnut Creek, Hillsborough, etc), and there are also some pretty poor people living out there too (in cheaper parts of say, Santa Rosa, or Antioch, or a trailer park, etc).

edit:

Here's a map to help illustrate, using 2019 ACS census tract data. Darker blue = larger amount of low income households:



And here's a zoomed-in income map from 2015:

[JManc]

Originally Posted by memph

But the lowest income areas area also fairly close in.

610 loop is pretty evenly split between quite wealthy and quite poor, with relatively few middle income neighbourhoods. Between 610 and SHT the low income neighbourhoods probably outnumber the high income ones 3 to 1. The neighbourhoods a bit beyond SHT like around Hwy 6/1960 are pretty even split, and then the outermost ring is mostly upper-middle class.

So although the wealthiest neighbourhoods are in the more close in areas, in terms of the average income of the entirety of each ring, I'd say Houston is

Outer Ring > Core > Inner Ring

No. Plenty of poverty in the outer ring but unlike the inner ring, it lacks the extreme wealth to offset it. Houston has poverty everywhere. Some of the most crime ridden areas are just outside the Houston city limits.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

Westchester has a few dozen school districts, and certain districts (i.e. Scarsdale) are highly desirable.

Right. For the parents who prioritize such things, there's no comparison between a high-performing Westchester district and an equivalent in a sprawly outer county. The Westchester district will likely be an Ivy feeder and have a wealth of extracurriculars not available in, say, Hunterdon County. And there are prestigious private schools, as well as private schools geared towards expats (German, French, Japanese national curriculum schools and the like).

But Westchester (and Fairfield, and some parts of NJ and LI) just attract a different demographic. Older establishment suburbia. Old homes on leafy streets, country, equestrian and yacht clubs, railroad-oriented town centers, etc. Lots of people in law, finance, publishing and the arts.

Newer suburbia is more for upper middle class immigrants and successful entrepreneurs and tradespeople who want a big, new house.

[iheartthed]

Is there any major city with an intact dense core that doesn't have at least one the richest neighborhoods in the region located in the core? I think this is true of the 5 densest major U.S. cities ( NYC, SF, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia).

[Prahaboheme]

Not already mentioned -- New Orleans.

French Quarter, Garden District and Audubon

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Is there any major city with an intact dense core that doesn't have at least one the richest neighborhoods in the region located in the core? I think this is true of the 5 densest major U.S. cities ( NYC, SF, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia).

Los Angeles also has rich neighbourhoods and suburbs relatively close to the core.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Los Angeles also has rich neighbourhoods and suburbs relatively close to the core.

Yes, but L.A. has a lot of suburban areas inside the city limits. Most/all of L.A.'s affluent areas are car oriented and low density.

[Crawford]

LA doesn't really have rich neighborhoods in close proximity to the traditional downtown, however. There's some gentrification right downtown, but most of those neighborhoods are rather poor. I think Hancock Park is probably the closest rich neighborhood to downtown LA, and that's more like the easternmost Westside neighborhood, given proximity to the Grove, Hollywood and all that.

And Hancock Park is suburban. It just happens to be intown given the nature of U.S. Sunbelt metros.

[Yuri]

Is it possible for Downtown LA to attract really rich people from the region, or it will be always a young upper-middle class thing?

Also suburban, but Dallas has Highland Park, which is relatively close to the core.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Is it possible for Downtown LA to attract really rich people from the region, or it will be always a young upper-middle class thing?

Of course it's possible. Much of Manhattan's far west side was post-industrial wasteland until the past 20-30 years (TriBeCa, Meatpacking District, Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, etc). Now most of those areas require a million dollar net worth just to get your foot in the door.

[Obadno]

It depends on how you define "core" Most cities if you limit the "core" to literally the few blocks of true downtown are typically some of the most expensive places to live, then you typically have a poor ring around hat, followed by the sprawl of the general working/Middle class with wealthy neighborhoods usually existing in a wedge from center-Edge

Also yo tend to see clusters of high wealth Exhurbs.

[Doady]

Definition of "core" is a good point to bring up, because if we are talking about the older, pre-war parts of the city, then Toronto's "core" is very small, like that of a Sunbelt city, so the low-income neighbourhoods have no choice but to spread out beyond that into the suburbs. Even the city proper of Toronto itself is mostly post-war suburbia and can't really be compared to cities like New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, Baltimore, etc.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Obadno

It depends on how you define "core" Most cities if you limit the "core" to literally the few blocks of true downtown are typically some of the most expensive places to live, then you typically have a poor ring around hat, followed by the sprawl of the general working/Middle class with wealthy neighborhoods usually existing in a wedge from center-Edge

Also yo tend to see clusters of high wealth Exhurbs.

Usually when talking about income distribution in the city vs suburbs, we're talking about "donuts" - a core, inner suburbs, and outer suburbs.

Ex with Paris, the City of Paris is the core, with around 18% of the population of Ile de France, there's the inner departments or "Petite Couronne" (French for "small ring"), whose suburbs are home to 38% of the population, and then the outer departments of "Grand Couronne ("large ring"), whose suburbs are home to 44% of Ile de France's population.

Loosely speaking, with Paris, the core is affluent, middle ring is lower income and outer ring is more middle class. It's not a perfect pattern due to favored quarters (the West side) with Hauts de Seine being high income despite being inner ring, but on average, it fits.

So to apply this to other cities, you could round things off to 20/40/40. The core inner 20% of the metro area's population, a surrounding ring with 40% of the population, and an outer ring with also about 40%. I would say that on average, American cities have about 20% of the metro area's population as well.

For Toronto, that would be around 1.2-1.3 million people in the inner core, and the 2.4-2.5 million in each the inner and outer ring.

Everything outside the biggest circle would be the "outer ring" (except the parts that aren't part of the metro like Oshawa). Brampton is the main lower-middle income area, while Aurora, King and Oakville are upper-middle income. Brampton's population is larger than those more affluent suburbs, but it's also closer to the average income, so overall, the average income of the outer ring should be pretty close to average.


The inner ring is clearly the least affluent, taking in most of Scarborough, southern Markham, north Etobicoke, older parts of Mississauga, Jane & Finch, Downsview, Weston and Bathurst & Finch, all of which are lower income. There are still a fair bit of middle income areas, as well as a bit of higher income areas, mainly in central Etobicoke, but also in southern Mississauga and the outer edge of the northern favorite quarter (ex York Mills).

Then there's two small circles. The smallest is a bit too restrictive for the 20/40/40 definition, as it has only about 800,000 people living in it (around 13% of the MSA). Still, that's a pretty big area considering it has hardly any low income census tracts - with something like 10% of its population living in lower income CTs, 40% in middle income CTs, and 50% in high income CTs. The larger circle, that has more like 20% of the MSA's population, does start taking in more lower income areas, including Flemingdon Park, Crescent Town and York/Eglinton West. However, those are still outnumbered by the inclusion of most of the north Toronto high income cluster, the High Park area, the Beaches, Riverdale, and some more affluent downtown condo neighbourhoods near the lake.

[Docere]

Per Capita Income

Manhattan $78,771

Affluent suburbs:

Morris $58,981
Fairfield $58,851
Hunterdon $58,795
Somerset $58,021
Westchester $57,953
Monmouth $53,886
Nassau $53,363
Bergen $52,800

[memph]

Originally Posted by Docere

Per Capita Income

Manhattan $78,771

Affluent suburbs:

Morris $58,981
Fairfield $58,851
Hunterdon $58,795
Somerset $58,021
Westchester $57,953
Nassau $53,363
Bergen $52,800

For NYC, 20% of the metro area population would be around 4 million, so Manhattan plus Hoboken & Jersey East of I-78, plus inner Queens and Brooklyn or something like that? What are the incomes of Hudson Co, Queens & Brooklyn?

[Docere]

Per Capita Income

Manhattan $78,771
Staten Island $38,096
Brooklyn $36,295
Queens $33,626
Bronx $22,749

NYC $41,625
Hudson (aka 6th borough) $42,822

[eschaton]

What if you look at household income rather than per capita?

Manhattan has a very low number of children, meaning small households, meaning relatively few non-income generating household members.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Is there any major city with an intact dense core that doesn't have at least one the richest neighborhoods in the region located in the core? I think this is true of the 5 densest major U.S. cities ( NYC, SF, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia).

You can include LA as well with Hancock Park, Windsor Square etc

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Is it possible for Downtown LA to attract really rich people from the region, or it will be always a young upper-middle class thing?

Also suburban, but Dallas has Highland Park, which is relatively close to the core.

There are three areas of Downtown LA that are or will attract wealthy individuals. South Park, which is near Crypto.com has a ton of new residential high rise construction (and plenty more coming) with condos selling for $600 - $1200 a sq ft. The Arts district also has more expensive units and certainly more coming and lastly, upper Grand in the Music Center / Disney Hall area, especially with the new Grand project, although its mostly rentals in that area