Main Street Finance

What Are the Richest Towns in the United States?

By Brittany Hawthorne

It would be no surprise to most Americans that the richest neighborhoods in the United States surround Silicon Valley, the prized region of U.S. technological innovation. In other areas of the country, there’s immense wealth too — it’s just that in Silicon Valley, the heads of some of the biggest companies in the entire world are located. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook are all located in that area.

That’s why Bloomberg’s list of the richest towns in the United States isn’t exactly surprising so much so as it is illuminating. Immense wealth can be amassed wherever, but having those major companies in the area help. Atherton is only 25 miles outside of San Francisco, which is to say that it’s close to the Bay Area cities which, notably, have a high average household income. According to Bloomberg’s “Richest Towns” list, Atherton, CA is one of the richest towns in the country where the household income is over $525,000 annually.

Isn’t that astounding?

The second “Richest” town in the United States is Scarsdale, New York — all the way across the country. The average household income isn’t over half a million as it is in Atherton. Instead, in Scarsdale, NY the average household income is $452,041. That’s still a seriously substantial amount of money. Even though Bloomberg’s index ranks cities on the average household income, the index doesn’t take into account other factors of the extremely wealthy.

Another study about where the wealthy live took into account factors such as the number of CEOs who live in the area, number of private schools that feed high quality universities, and the median home values of the location. This study, by Coventry Direct, points to Los Altos Hills, California as one of the most wealthy cities in the country.