Richest cities in the world: New York dominates

[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.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

The Bay Area is very impressive too.

Personally, I think that all of the yahoos who think that SF will collapse and that the tech industry will flee are delusional. If I were rich, I'd much rather live in SF than in Austin or Raleigh.

Well, the San Francisco Peninsula was already one of the wealthiest areas of the country long before tech, due to banking and finance, trade, real estate, a lot of multigenerational wealth etc.(west coast old money) Tech just catapulted the region into the stratosphere and spread the money outside of the established upper class and into the hands of a whole new, massive class of workers.

This has created a lot of wealth, but it has also created a lot of problems with respect to affordable housing. I just wish locals werent so antagonistic when it came to large scale, transit oriented, high density housing development in suburbs.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by JManc

Dumb question but how do they know how to count these people and how much they are worth to include them. There is no way of knowing my 'net worth' without me telling you.

Yeah, that's my question too. Maybe it's based on polling?

[10023]

Presumably this is by liquid assets? Because there are probably more than that many houses in London worth >$1m (even subtracting mortgage debt).

Residency definitions will also muddy the waters a bit I would think.

I have actually used Wealth-X as a source for a work project (because there just wasn’t anything else) but it’s very suspect data.

[edale]

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.

oh please

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by 10023

Presumably this is by liquid assets? Because there are probably more than that many houses in London worth >$1m (even subtracting mortgage debt).

Residency definitions will also muddy the waters a bit I would think.

I have actually used Wealth-X as a source for a work project (because there just wasn’t anything else) but it’s very suspect data.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's liquid assets. It doesn't really make sense to do by including primary homes, as that would include nearly half of the homeowners in NYC.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by 10023

Presumably this is by liquid assets? Because there are probably more than that many houses in London worth >$1m (even subtracting mortgage debt).

Residency definitions will also muddy the waters a bit I would think.

I have actually used Wealth-X as a source for a work project (because there just wasn’t anything else) but it’s very suspect data.

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.

[Pedestrian]

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.

I don't think that's true. More and more of them live in Brooklyn these days.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

That said, the distribution of HNW people in NY Metro is probably far more biased to the city than it is in other U.S. metros. I would guess that at least half of the region's HNW individuals live in NYC, while in D.C. almost all probably live in the suburbs.

I don't think that's true either as a drive through Northwest, west of Rock Creek Park, will demonstrate.

I'm still unclear on the data here because I don't want to give them my information to download the entire report. So are we taking about cities or metros? Net worth or income?

If we are talking about net worth and cities, the density of millionaires in SF should be way near if not at the top of the pack. If it's the metros, the poorer areas of the East Bay dilutes the density of HNW folks a lot. But if the entire Bay Area were one metro, as it economically is, the wealth in Silicon Valley would boost us near the top again. Looking at cities only, SF and DC stand out as being far smaller than the others on these lists. That they are even in contention means they standout in terms of density.

[isaidso]

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.

One can't draw a straight line like that. There are myriad things that contribute to a city's global standing, or as you put it, importance. Having lots of HNWI is just one. The number of Ultra HNWi in Greenwich, CT is higher than that of Seattle. Are we really going to then conclude that Greenwich is the more important city? There are likely 500 cities around the world more consequential than Greenwich.

[Crawford]

Greenwich is a suburb, so it's a silly comparison.

The Greenwich area is part of a larger metro. It just happens that Greenwich is a very desirable location for those working in finance.

[JMKeynes]

Originally Posted by isaidso

One can't draw a straight line like that. There are myriad things that contribute to a city's global standing, or as you put it, importance. Having lots of HNWI is just one. The number of Ultra HNWi in Greenwich, CT is higher than that of Seattle. Are we really going to then conclude that Greenwich is the more important city? There are likely 500 cities around the world more consequential than Greenwich.

The only point is that a tiny suburb of NYC has almost as many HNWIs as major cities that have 10 to 30 times it’s population. The NY area is in a league of its own.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by isaidso

One can't draw a straight line like that. There are myriad things that contribute to a city's global standing, or as you put it, importance. Having lots of HNWI is just one. The number of Ultra HNWi in Greenwich, CT is higher than that of Seattle. Are we really going to then conclude that Greenwich is the more important city? There are likely 500 cities around the world more consequential than Greenwich.

Greenwich's population is 61,000 (not a tiny village like Palo Alto), and the per capita income is pretty gigantic. Ideally these rankings would fold the Greenwiches of the world into the New York urban area, rather than use city limits populations.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Greenwich's population is 61,000 (not a tiny village like Palo Alto), and the per capita income is pretty gigantic. Ideally these rankings would fold the Greenwiches of the world into the New York urban area, rather than use city limits populations.

Palo Alto's population is 66k! (and does not include Stanford).

[SFBruin]

I was going to say, Palo Alto is a fairly normally-sized suburb lol.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

I was going to say, Palo Alto is a fairly normally-sized suburb lol.

Yeah... tiny village isn't the first description I think of when it comes to Palo Alto. Regular sized suburb probably. A tiny village would be something like Pescadero, Boulder Creek, Felton, etc.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Greenwich's population is 61,000 (not a tiny village like Palo Alto)

Haha Greenwich feels like a tiny village compared to Palo Alto.

[JMKeynes]

New York is just amazing! To a lesser degree, the Bay Area is too. Miami, Seattle, DC, Dallas, and Chicago also are impressive.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

I've lived in Zurich and have been to Geneva umpteen times, and people there are so well put together, and so chic looking, all the time, whereas the Bay Area is just nothing like that for the most part-oh well, that's life.

When I was growing up, my dad's best friend was a prominent orthopedic surgeon with a high income for the time. The 2 of them used to spend most weekends on the friend's boat, either working on it or fishing or otherwise doing things where one does not usually look "chic". They both used to enjoy the reaction of people in restaurants, shops etc when they came in, sometimes smelling of fish bait or looking oil stained. The doctor in particular thought that using his professional title would get him overcharged and liked the fact that people judged him by appearances as a bum.

We all know the Silicon Valley ethos is to make a fetish of "casual". But there is a uniform based on American-made (or certain European brands) clothes using "sustainable" fibers and so on. Also, there's a hint of affluence when you step out of your Model S or Cayman or Audi SUV.

Americans just have different values.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

When I was growing up, my dad's best friend was a prominent orthopedic surgeon with a high income for the time. The 2 of them used to spend most weekends on the friend's boat, either working on it or fishing or otherwise doing things where one does not usually look "chic". They both used to enjoy the reaction of people in restaurants, shops etc when they came in, sometimes smelling of fish bait or looking oil stained. The doctor in particular thought that using his professional title would get him overcharged and liked the fact that people judged him by appearances as a bum.

We all know the Silicon Valley ethos is to make a fetish of "casual". But there is a uniform based on American-made (or certain European brands) clothes using "sustainable" fibers and so on. Also, there's a hint of affluence when you step out of your Model S or Cayman or Audi SUV.

Americans just have different values.

And that's really my point, as I eluded to earlier: People here arent as fussy/pretentious about that particular sort of thing, otoh far more people in places like Geneva & Zurich tend to pay a bit more attention to dressing up imho.

I dont equate that with being more sophisticated, because theyre really not, just different.

[JMKeynes]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Haha Greenwich feels like a tiny village compared to Palo Alto.

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.

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).