Cities where people who make $200,000 or more annually flock to in the USA

The dark square are cities (or counties) in the USA where people who make $200,000 or more are flocking to in concentrated numbers.

Some say these cities offer higher earning potential, some suggest the quality of life is the cause, some speak of social and cultural attractions.

New York, California, Florida and Texas are international in scope and can afford excellent ports. 

But the cities also attract celebrity status people, of many whom excel in arts, culture or entertainment. 

Huge and progressive travel hubs appeal to the affluent, and LA and San Francisco, Houston, DFW in Fort Worth/Dallas, and LaGuardia and JFK near New York, and Miami International meet the needs of the affluent, high earners and frequent fliers.  But there are other places that are not big cities that still attract many high earners.  North Dakota and Alaska come to mind. Both of these have oil, gas, mining and economic stimuli. 

California has 12

Texas has 11

Colorado 8

Florida 5

New York 4

New Jersey 7

North Dakota 7

Illinois 4

Pennsylvania 7

Washington DC 3

Washington State 8

 Maryland 6

Minnesota 5

Alaska  4 (Anchorage and surrounding) 

Michigan  2 

Indiana 2 

(Data Source, Dec 18, Bloomberg, Reade Pickert, Jonathan Levin and Hannah Recht, writers)

The four Western states of Texas, Colorado, California and Washington account for 47 cities or  counties of appeal to high earners. Of these, Texas and California lead the flock. Both have oil, natural gas, high tech, agricultural production and industry. 

All of the rest have 56 cities and counties of appeal to high earners.

This gives us 103 cities and counties where people who make over $200,000 per year flock to.  Forty-six percent are in the Western states of Texas, Colorado, California and Washington. 

The east coast -- New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington DC and Maryland have 20 cities and counties that are destinations for $200,000-plus earners -- 19 percent of the total.  New York and New Jersey have financial industry concentrations, DC and Maryland government and defense, and Pennsylvania oil, agriculture and industry.

So 65 percent of these high-earner places are on the East Coast and the West Coast. 

Florida, Michigan and North Dakota, account for only 14 places which are attracting flocks of high earners, at 14 percent.

The deep south and the "heartland" agricultural area on either side of the Mississippi River from Oklahoma, Arkansas and states to the north along the Mississippi, don't seem to have attracted flocks of people making $200,000 or more.

Ironically, many of the leading cities in this list also are experiencing a recent uptick in residential home foreclosure filings. We do not have enough data to interpret this, but with more information we predict that it  probably will tell us that foreclosures of mid- to lower-level housing are increasing, while demand for upper-level housing ($550,000 or higher) is rising. Time will tell us more details to interpret this.