Is there any city where the inner city/urban area is rich and the suburbs poor? (crime rates, live)

[Stumbler.]

Or is this just a pattern you'll never find in any US city (as far as I can think of, I can't imagine an example that really exists)?

Maybe in other countries this pattern exists (or so I've heard) but I don't think there is an American real-life example.

[Natural510]

I think there are several metros which are mixed.
In the Bay Area, there are many suburbs equally or more affluent than the cities, but also more which are becoming poorer. An example would be East Bay suburbs Pittsburg & Antioch, which are becoming low-cost destination from those moving out of Oakland & SF due to increased COL (and are seeing their crime rates rise as a result). However, other EB suburbs such as Danville, Orinda & Moraga continue to be exclusive & affluent.

[Ben Around]

The only one I can think of is San Francisco. But as the other poster said, there are rich suburbs and poor suburbs in the bay area. The city, however, is overall considerably rich, unlike most other US cities.

[peninsular]

As far as I know, Portland, OR, comes the closest in the US to fitting this pattern. West Hills, which are very close to downtown, is the wealthiest area of the entire metro.

[pwright1]

Seattle. Besides parts of the eastside suburbs Seattle has the suburbs beat.

[SBCA]

I might actually say Dallas, since there are plenty of rich people within the city limits, and the suburbs on average are not all that rich.

Seattle is also a good choice, but there are certainly some rich Puget Sound communities.

[A&M_Indie_08]

Los Angeles is getting that way..... look at how they have shipped tons of gangs and poverty out to the Inland Empire (San Bernardino, Fontana, Riverside, Ontario, Pomona, Moreno Valley, Colton etc. etc.)

[eschaton]

DC is another city going in that direction. As the city gentrifies, the poor are being pushed into Prince Georges County, which in turn is pushing the black middle class who settled there a few decades prior further out.

[garmin239]

Would Monterey count? Salinas isn't that great of an area and is right next to Monterey but am not sure if Salinas would be considered a suburb of Monterey due to the small size of towns/cities of the area.

[citylove101]

Its not the whole city, for sure but Manhattan in definitely in this pattern, where the affluent have been displacing the working and middle classes for decades, leaving only the poor, who live mostly in public housing. And that process continues in the few affordable parts of the Manhattan uptown (Washington Heights, Inwood, Harlem)

I think that over the course of time (decades) the poor will priced out of most of NYC as a whole and we'll end up like Paris, with a largely affluent city and the poor and working class banished to the inner ring 'burbs.