Just came across some interesting data about wealth concentration in western cities over the past few years. Apparently, more than half of the top 50 cities where the upper class is getting richer are all out West, which is pretty wild when you think about it.

Looking at the numbers from 2020 to 2023, some of these western cities saw massive income growth. Places like Dublin and Danville in California had households making $200K+ jump by around 23-24%, and median incomes in these areas went up by 30%+ in some cases. Cupertino hit $231K median income, San Carlos topped $233K, and Sammamish in Washington got to $227K. That's serious wealth accumulation happening.

The Bay Area and surrounding regions are obviously dominating this list—you've got Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Los Gatos, Mountain View all showing consistent growth. But it's not just California. Washington has some solid performers too with places like Mercer Island and Redmond seeing strong upper-income household growth.

What's interesting is that even smaller-known western cities like Erie, Colorado and Bethany, Oregon are making the cut. The median incomes in these towns are still hitting $160K-$180K range, which shows this wealth trend isn't just concentrated in the obvious tech hubs.

The study ranked cities based on both the percentage increase in $200K+ households and median income growth from 2020-2023. Seems like if you're looking at where money is actually flowing in western cities right now, the data's pretty clear about the pattern.