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I note that there tends to be a "favored quarter"--the wealthier people all tend to live in one direction.
thats a well established fact in urban history. For one thing there usually werent enough rich folks to populate all quadrants, even at low densities. Second all major subgroups - wealthy, ethnic and religious minorities - tended to move out along corridors, so they could go to newer and/or lower density while staying close to key institutions.
its been noted that the wealthy quadrants are OFTEN (not always) west or north of the city center. Ive seen the favoring of the west attributed to A. Prevailing winds, carrying industrial pollution from the center to the eastern side B. a desire for rural sunset views. The north - south distinction Ive seen attributed to the fact that many rivers in the northern hemisphere flow north to south (great lakes in the USA an exception, I guess) so downstream (hence industrial, polluted, etc) is south. Sometimes that impacts east west (like London, the east end is downstream from central london)
also interesting how stable those favored corridors are. Upper manhattan leading to Westchester. North side along the lake in Chicago extending well into the suburbs. The favored corridor up the Potomac in DC from just above Georgetown all the way to Potomac and Great Falls (and even into Loudoun on the virginia side).
I think often the wedge effect in the smaller cities is based on a neighborhood of wealthy folks being established at the beginning of the auto era then other wealthy folks move in next door on the outer side and so on. The cities that had rail commuting had leapfrogging wedges, e.g. New York and Philadelphia.
I had also heard that in many cases the "nice" side was the east side, so that commuters weren't facing the sun heading to the center. In many of the selected cities in the OP's reference, there are countervailing geographic factors - Chicago's east side is a Great Lake, east side of Washington DC is too swampy, east side of Denver too boring, east side of Philadelphia and St Louis are other states, east side of Detroit another country although it still does have an east shoreline wealthy wedge.
Pittsburgh is tough to categorize on this geography since it has narrow wedges in several directions. But Pittsburgh certainly is a geographic challenge generally.
It would be interesting to see similar analysis for other cities.
It would also be interesting to see this more as a heat map, as the distance from the cores the density typically drops leading to large blocks of wealth that may be much less populated and appearing more pronouced. Regardless it does illuminate the wealth and poverty and concentrations thereof...
MSP appears to be bipolar - guess that would make sense
Houston is interesting in that has a very concentrated the wealth is in one area
Not really. the swampy part of DC was the south, east was Capitol Hill, west was Georgetown. The better parts moved up the Potomac from Gtown, rather than east to the Anacostia from Cap Hill. Not because the Anacostia in that area was swampy - it wasnt - but AFAIK because it was the more industrial side of town, being a navigable waterway. The potomac, upriver from little falls, was not, and industry never moved west of GTown.
In philly,look at how the better parts were NW, rather than south along the delaware. In London the west side is better. In boston the west side trumps north and south that bend east.
A lot can be explained by simple avoidance of industry (and colocated blue collar workers)
I found this site that has a zoomable map of OP's maps. It takes a little while to load when you first open up a set of information, but you can fiddle around with the minimum and maximum values and what colors they're represented by.
You can also look up other census information like population density, race percetages, ages, etc. You can really get in-depth with the information for any US city.
Here's Detroit (area I'm most familiar with) when the range for income is only 10,000 to 25,000:
And the range when it's set from 90,000 to 120,000:
*red is the lower value
It's still 2000 census information so I would assume for some areas, it might not reflect exactly what you'd see if you were in the area today...but still pretty close nonetheless. I thought you guys might like to know about the site if you haven't already.
I think often the wedge effect in the smaller cities is based on a neighborhood of wealthy folks being established at the beginning of the auto era then other wealthy folks move in next door on the outer side and so on. The cities that had rail commuting had leapfrogging wedges, e.g. New York and Philadelphia.
I had also heard that in many cases the "nice" side was the east side, so that commuters weren't facing the sun heading to the center. In many of the selected cities in the OP's reference, there are countervailing geographic factors - Chicago's east side is a Great Lake, east side of Washington DC is too swampy, east side of Denver too boring, east side of Philadelphia and St Louis are other states, east side of Detroit another country although it still does have an east shoreline wealthy wedge.
Pittsburgh is tough to categorize on this geography since it has narrow wedges in several directions. But Pittsburgh certainly is a geographic challenge generally.
It would be interesting to see similar analysis for other cities.
Actually, the east side of Denver (city proper) IS where the wealthiest neighborhoods are. I agree it is flat and boring, but it's easier to get around the east side when there is snow on the ground than the hilly NW side.
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For the other metros, the San Francisco Bay area seems quite rich and high income with not that many low income areas. Seattle also did pretty well with that too.
I remember reading somewhere that San Francisco and Seattle have some of the highest percentage of middle class/high income people, and also with some of the lowest poverty rates in the nation.
Cities like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles etc. on the other hand definitely have a lot of middle class/high income people too, but also at the same time a lot of people with low income. Those 3 cites have plenty of both for those extremes.
The Philadelphia metro surprised me. I thought there were many more middle class/high income people in Philadelphia city limits rather than almost entirely the metro suburbs. So much of Philadelphia metro’s low income poverty seems concentrated in most areas of city limits with very little of it extending into the suburbs.
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Originally Posted by
Interesting maps in that website link that shows where the rich and poor live in USA metro areas!
I have personal day to day experiences with going between New York City’s rich and poor areas almost every day such as the rich high income areas of Manhattan/Brooklyn and the poor low income areas of the Bronx.
Most days it feels like a day and night difference and almost like going into completely different worlds... The differences of general income between neighborhoods can completely affect the vibe that neighborhood has, the quality and types of commercial establishments that neighborhood has, the quality of residential establishments, and how desirable that neighborhood is. It can also affect someone’s day to day lifestyle and many aspects about that individual’s life if they live in a higher income neighborhood compared to a lower income neighborhood.
For the other metros, the San Francisco Bay area seems quite rich and high income with not that many low income areas. Seattle also did pretty well with that too.
I remember reading somewhere that San Francisco and Seattle have some of the highest percentage of middle class/high income people, and also with some of the lowest poverty rates in the nation.
Cities like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles etc. on the other hand definitely have a lot of middle class/high income people too, but also at the same time a lot of people with low income. Those 3 cites have plenty of both for those extremes.
The Philadelphia metro surprised me. I thought there were many more middle class/high income people in Philadelphia city limits rather than almost entirely the metro suburbs. So much of Philadelphia metro’s low income poverty seems concentrated in most areas of city limits with very little of it extending into the suburbs.
Philadelphia has very segregated income areas.
For the city itself about 20% of residents (roughly 300K) live in high income areas (Mostly in the broader Center City area and Chesntut Hill areas); lower income high poverty areas represent about 40% (moretroubling about 600K) of the city; most notably North and West Philly. Middle income is about 40%; South, Northeast, and some parts of NW Philly (excluding Chestnut Hill etc.).
In the burbs the Main Line, areas of Chester County, Central Bucks, and parts of Camden/Burlington County (i.e. Moorestown etc.) have high incomes. Most of the remaider of the burbs are middle/working class with the exception of places like Camden/Chester and a select few smaller non city locations.
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