Wealth Concentration
More than half the top 100 richest places in America were either in the New York City area or California. A handful of Midwest and Southwest areas made the top 20.
For the 2019 Bloomberg Richest Places full data set, click here.
Highland Park, Illinois, the 100th town on the list, boasted $209,000 in average household annual income. Last year, No. 100 had $198,000. Four places made their top 100 debut, including two in California: Tamalpais-Homestead Valley in Marin County and beach community Del Mar. Jericho, on New York’s Long Island, and Medina, Minnesota, were also first-timers.
Wealth is concentrated in six counties: Westchester in New York, Bergen in New Jersey and Fairfield in Connecticut, all outside New York City; Cook County of Chicago; Los Angeles County, and Montgomery County, Maryland, bordering Washington D.C.
Rounding out the top 10 communities are Los Altos Hills and Hillsborough in California; Short Hills, New Jersey; Highland Park, Texas; Darien, Connecticut; Bronxville, New York, and Glencoe, Illinois. Glencoe, a Chicago suburb seven miles north of Northwestern University, climbed five spots to land in the top 10 for the first time.
Big Movers
Rumson, a wealthy corner of Monmouth County, New Jersey, ascended 19 spots and into the top 20. Bernardsville, also in New Jersey, jumped 31 spots to No. 64.
Florida moved down the exclusivity list. Four places in Florida made the top 100 but three of them ranked lower than they did last year. Indian River Shores, on the state’s Atlantic coast, dropped out of the top 50 as the average annual income decreased by $20,000.
Methodology