A somewhat incoherent article, but it does say that San Diego is one of the top three richest urban centers of the U.S. It certainly gives a lot of weight to the argument that San Diego incomes can hold up some of the housing prices…
“SAN JOSE, Calif. — Northern California’s largest city is also the wealthiest urban center in the nation, with a median household income of $74,000.
Two other California cities, San Francisco and San Diego, finished in the top three as well, according to newly released data by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. Seattle and Las Vegas rounded out the top five richest cities of 500,000 people or more.
Santa Clara County, epicenter of Silicon Valley and home to some of the world’s most successful technology companies, was California’s second richest. Santa Clara County’s median household income last year was $80,838, while Marin County, just north of San Francisco, topped the list at
$81,761.
Economists said rising median income reflects the improving fortunes of white-collar Silicon Valley workers since 2000, when the dot-com stock market bubble burst and tens of thousands of workers lost jobs. But some public policy experts said the high median masked a growing inequality between rich and poor and failed to take into account the exorbitant cost of living in the greater San Francisco Bay area.
Deborah Reed of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California said Santa Clara County’s 9 percent poverty rate would be 12.2 percent if the rate included the local cost of living. The national poverty rate is about 12 percent.
Few homes in Silicon Valley cost less than $500,000, and rents have surged in the past year.”
