Any US cities where core is wealthier than suburbs?

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Docere

"Per capita income in past 12 months (in 2020 dollars)"

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fa...e/US/INC910220

Nope, well, more like they aren't saying exactly what they mean.

Originally Posted by US Census Bureau

Per capita income is the mean income computed for every man, woman, and child in a particular group including those living in group quarters. It is derived by dividing the aggregate income of a particular group by the total population in that group. This measure is rounded to the nearest whole dollar. For the complete definition, go to ACS subject definitions "Income in the Past 12 Months, Per Capita Income."

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fa...20that%20group.

In other words, people who are grouped into some sort of living arrangement. i.e. 'household', I suppose they do non-households do, but it is NOT really based on every 'man, woman, and child INDIVIDUALLY.

The Census doesn't even compute aggregate personal income, only aggregate income for certain groups like households, families, non households.

Why would per capita HH income be lower than per capita personal income?

BEA is the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Commerce Department and their Per Capita Personal Income data literally measures every man, woman, and child regardless as to what their living arrangement is.

I hope that helps.

[eschaton]

Most non-householders wouldn't have appreciable income, as it basically means people who are in '"group quarters." This includes:

• College/grad students living in dorms
• Residents of nursing homes
• Prisoners
• Most people on military bases
• Homeless (and others) in shelters

[homebucket]

SF is probably one of those places where the core and suburb don't differ substantially in terms of wealth. There's a lot of high end neighborhoods in SF (Pac Heights, Presidio Heights, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Telegraph Hill, Sea Cliff, the Marina, St. Francis Wood, and now SoMa with the recent construction of luxury highrises). But there's also a ton of high end suburbs as well in the Peninsula (Hillsborough, Burlingame, Atherton, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Gatos) and Marin County (Sausalito, Belvedere, Tiburon, Mill Valley) and the East Bay (Piedmont, Orinda, Moraga, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Alamo, Danville). Even regular looking suburbs like Sunnyvale, Fremont, Pleasanton, Mountain View, Redwood City, San Carlos, Belmont, and pockets of San Jose have tons of wealth. Don't let the humble homes mislead you.

[Docere]

Yeah, most US cities with desirable cores also have very affluent suburbs - Boston, DC, SF etc.

Seattle seems to come closer to the "Canadian" pattern. The core is desirable, and in spite of a few wealthy suburbs (Mercer Island and especially tiny Medina), the suburbs don't seem especially affluent.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Docere

Yeah, most US cities with desirable cores also have very affluent suburbs - Boston, DC, SF etc.

Seattle seems to come closer to the "Canadian" pattern. The core is desirable, and in spite of a few wealthy suburbs (Mercer Island and especially tiny Medina), the suburbs don't seem especially affluent.

My sister-in-law grew up in Federal Way, and my brother stayed out there for extended periods of time during COVID. We often hear that Seattle and Boston can have somewhat similar vibes, but the differences in the suburbs is apparently stark in places. We're from Norfolk County, which I'm surprised to see makes the previous page's wealthiest counties in America list. It looks like Middlesex, Essex, and Plymouth counties all make the extended list too. Meaning, suburban Boston is overall pretty wealthy. My brother describes the southern Seattle burbs like Federal Way as "worse than the trashiest parts of Rhode Island or New Hampshire" and having "heard gun shots daily" (sometimes kids shooting at street signs from pickups, which he regularly saw, and sometimes not). I guess there's a serious prescription drug abuse situation in some of these places.

[Docere]

Seattle does have its more affluent Eastside suburbs, but yeah, Seattle's suburbs seem a lot more working class than the Bay Area or Boston.

[Docere]

Per Capita Income (2019)

San Jose $61,400
San Francisco $60,223
Washington $51,437
Boston $50,421
Seattle $49,184
New York $46,006
Denver $44,806
Baltimore $43,139
Minneapolis-St. Paul $42,681
Austin $41,957
Philadelphia $40,930
Portland $40,526
San Diego $40,389
Raleigh $40,209
Chicago $40,144
Pittsburgh $38,400

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...capita-income/

[Docere]

City proper (vs. MSA):

Seattle $63,610 1.29
San Francisco $72,041 1.20
Washington $58,659 1.14
Portland $43,811 1.08
Austin $44,829 1.07
San Diego $43,090 1.07
Denver $45,636 1.02
Raleigh $40,520 --
Chicago $39,068 0.97
Minneapolis $40,368 0.95
Boston $46,845 0.93
Pittsburgh $35,093 0.91
New York $41,625 0.90
(Manhattan $78,771 1.71)
Baltimore $32,699 0.76
Philadelphia $29,644 0.72

[edale]

New Orleans is probably the city that best fits the pattern of wealth concentrated in the city rather than the suburbs. It's a strange metro area in that there really aren't many suburbs...just a handful of burgs surrounding the city, and they tend to be pretty middle class to working class. The money is concentrated in areas that historically have been most resilient in disasters- French Quarter, Audubon, Garden District, etc.- which are almost all within city limits. No one is going to mistake the Garden District for Brooklyn, but it's still fairly urban, walkable, served by the streetcar, and part of what I'd call core NOLA.

[Docere]

Inner Toronto (Toronto/East York Community Council wards) $75,971
City of Toronto $62,050
Toronto Metropolitan Area $59,250

[Docere]

The only municipalities with higher per capita incomes than Inner Toronto are Oakville (the closest Toronto gets to a railroad suburb, home to a lot of executives and bankers, very "WASP") and the wealthy exurb of King Township (country estates and McMansions, about 1/3 Italian Canadian).

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Docere

The only municipalities with higher per capita incomes than Inner Toronto are Oakville (the closest Toronto gets to a railroad suburb, home to a lot of executives and bankers, very "WASP") and the wealthy exurb of King Township (country estates and McMansions, about 1/3 Italian Canadian).

Italian Canadians...

Fuggetaboutit, eh!?

[Crawford]

Philly always seems like a standout in the city-suburban wealth comparisons.

It's the one older city with a vibrant core though huge wealth gap.

[Steely Dan]

^ yeah, I would've expected Philly to be more like Chicago (nearly 1:1) in terms of the city vs. suburb per capita income gap.

If the data docere posted is correct, then I'm also quite surprised that Chicago's city vs. suburb per capita income gap is actually smaller than those of New York and Boston. That doesn't seem right on the surface of it, but maybe Chicagoland doesn't have as much very high income suburbia, relatively speaking.

[Crawford]

I think it's plausible. NY and Boston propers both have a huge share of public and nonmarket housing, higher than Chicago. I'm pretty sure Manhattan alone has more public housing than all of Chicago. And a lot of Chicago public housing residents now have Sec 8 vouchers and live in the burbs. One in fifteen NYC residents lives in public housing.

Also, while all three metros have wealthy suburbs, NY and Boston have somewhat higher median incomes. And Chicago's South/Southwestern suburbs are generally pretty working class, probably not more affluent than adjacent city neighborhoods. There isn't really a directional in NY or Boston suburbia that's equivalent to South/Southwest Chicagoland suburbs.

Also, NY has a much higher share of immigrants, who tend to be low income in the first generation. I don't think Boston's immigrant share is much higher than Chicago, though.

[Docere]

It's because NYC has higher income suburbia. NYC metro is around 15% higher than Chicago. NYC still higher than Chicago proper.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ yeah, I would've expected Philly to be more like Chicago (nearly 1:1) in terms of the city vs. suburb per capita income gap.

If the data docere posted is correct, then I'm also quite surprised that Chicago's city vs. suburb per capita income gap is actually smaller than those of New York and Boston. That doesn't seem right on the surface of it, but maybe Chicagoland doesn't have as much very high income suburbia, relatively speaking.

Different estimates?

Rob Paral is a very reliable source for Chicago demographic info.

Per capita vs household income makes comparisons weird.



https://robparal.com/chicago-data/

[Crawford]

Chicago city proper has seen its black neighborhoods empty out in the last 20 years. NY and Boston black neighborhood populations are more stable. It could just be that.

Also, a lot of Chicago late 20th century growth was due to Mexican inmigration. Obviously that inmigration, at its peak, would have put downward pressure on income medians. That was apparent in Queens and Southern Brooklyn, as incomes in certain neighborhoods actually plummeted as the neighborhoods were revitalized (aging white ethnics being replaced by new, temporarily very poor immigrant families).

You'd see this in Besonhurst, as secular Jews and Italian-Americans moved or passed on, and were replaced by Chinese, Latinos and Hasidics.

[TWAK]

There are no suburbs here (poorest county in CA), so I pick Sacramento. Dixon counts as "bay area" since it's in Solano County.

The map below shows median household income in Sacramento by area. Areas in the top 1% of earnings are in purple, high-earning areas are in green, and low-earning areas are in red.

source

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

Different estimates?

Rob Paral is a very reliable source for Chicago demographic info.

Per capita vs household income makes comparisons weird.



https://robparal.com/chicago-data/

Ok, that makes A LOT more sense than what those per capita figures were showing.

On the measure of the income of a typical household, Chicago still trails the burbs by quite a bit.

Thanks for posting that.