By CHRIS CHURCHILL, Business writer First published in print: Sunday, December 13, 2009
The Capital Region's wealthiest residents are largely missing from the area's cities, following a decades-long migration to towns where lots are larger and tax bills are smaller. The pattern should be obvious to anyone who's spent time here. It's hard to miss that Loudonville is generally wealthier than neighboring Albany, for example, or that Niskayuna is more upscale than Schenectady. But recently updated census data illustrate just how few upper-income households remain in many Capital Region cities.
In Schenectady, for example, only 2.1 percent of households (473 homes overall) have annual income above $150,000 -- a percentage that's well below the regional average. Meanwhile, 34.1 percent of Schenectady households have annual income below $25,000. The pattern is similar in Albany and Troy.
The statistics raise questions: Why do the affluent avoid urban areas here? Can Capital Region cities lure them back? And, if so, how?
It's not as though urban neighborhoods can't attract wealth. Big cities such as Boston and New York have large concentrations of the affluent. Closer to home there's Saratoga Springs, where high-priced condos are being concentrated near the city's downtown. There, 11.7 percent of households have annual income above $150,000.
But Albany, Schenectady and Troy -- as well as smaller cities like Watervliet and Rensselaer -- have been much less successful at luring the monied.
Rocco Ferraro, executive director of the Capital District Regional Planning Commission, cites familiar urban bugaboos as reasons for that. The area's cities, he said, are perceived to have higher crime, worse schools, and higher taxes than their suburban neighbors.
"Many people who have a choice are leaving our cities because of issues of quality of life," Ferraro said. "Cities (here) don't have the panache they had years ago."
Solid middle class
The Capital Region is a solidly middle-class place. The big employers -- government, education and health care -- provide a nice living, but make few people rich.
"That's just the nature of the economy here," says Samantha Friedman, a University at Albany sociology professor. "You see that middle range, but you don't see the very, very wealthy."
How much money makes a household affluent? That's a matter of perception, of course, but many economists say household income higher than $150,000 makes the cut. In the Capital Region, earning that much makes a household wealthier than about 90 percent of the population.
The census bureau estimates that 7.8 percent of households in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy metropolitan area have annual income above $150,000, while 28.2 percent are below $35,000.
Recent census estimates, combining statistics from 2006 to 2008, don't include breakdowns for the area's suburban towns, but close-in suburbs likely have far higher levels of wealth -- as the overall metropolitan area statistic includes many lower-income cities and rural areas like Schoharie County or eastern Rensselaer County.
Maybe the rich are sick and tired of paying very high taxes and getting nothing in return for the taxes paid. The rich may also be sick of the high crime rate in the city as opposed to the burbs. As the cities keep raising the tax rate to make up the difference for the revenue lost due to the mass exit from the cities the problem will just get worse as more and more people flee the city.
The urban areas are exactly as described in this tu article. Schools are historically pathetic. Taxes are pathetically high. Pathetically there are no jobs. Home values are pathetically losing value. Crime is pathetically increasing. At least that's the way it is in schenectady. Who in their right mind would deliberately want to move there? Obviously only the welfare recipients.
I swear that schenectady is the welfare mecca of the state.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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