The Northshore communities are the wealthiest in Chicago and the USA. The map shows the distribution of the median family income around Highland Park. To appreciate the many distinctive cultural landscape features of this area, go to Northshore maps. Optional: see other wealthy communities in the U.S.
To create your own map of
median family income,
use the software instructions on mapping, but don't
do the "U. S. Racial Groups in Metropolitan
Cities Project" !
The Northshore communities have many houses valued at over $1 million, yet only 4 percent of all new mortgages in the whole country (1998) exceeded $300,000! Mortgages are the money (normally 80 percent of house values) that people borrow from banks to buy their houses. USA tax law allows mortgage deductions up to $1 million. If this limit were lowered to $300,000, these wealthy house owners would have to pay $40.8 billion more in taxes over nine years!
Only 10,000 houses were sold for $1 million or more (1999) in the entire USA! [Source: Too Much, Summer 1999, p. 5.]
The National Journal, analyzing voting patterns in 100 of America's wealthiest towns over the past five presidential elections, found that the Democratic share of the vote increased steadily from 25% in 1980 to 41% in 1996. In 1996, Bill Clinton carried 13 of the 17 richest congressional districts in the country.
"To be elected in Winnetka you have to demonstrate you are on the correct side of the cultural divide that splits the GOP between the sane moderates and the Bible-thumping crazies." Little wonder that Winnetka has been represented for 20 years by John Porter, a Republican who is pro-choice, pro-gun-control and has been endorsed by the Sierra Club. Source: The Economist, 20 May 2000.
In the Hamptons, the playground for the very wealthy on the tip of Long Island, NY, many homes cost over $20 million. For example, Ira Rennert has a $30 million estate that features a 29-bedroom house with 42 bathrooms, a 20-car garage, a 240-square-foot beach pavilion, and a gatehouse (larger than most people’s houses). It also has two bowling alleys, two squash courts, two tennis courts, a basketball court, a giant indoor pool, and a personal pub, "transported stone by stone from an original site in England." Source: Too Much, Summer 2001, p. 5. How can so few people have so much income? Read an article from The Economist.