In the last two posts, I explored the consumer preferences of the wealthy first by looking at what all subgroups had in common, and then by looking at politics and seeing what divides the wealthy on ideological lines.  In this post, I want to look at the differences among the wealthy based on where they live.  I placed the subgroups into either an urban or suburban category.  For urban, I grouped together Manhattan, Northwest DC, Westside LA, North Dallas, and West Houston.  For suburban, I put together Westchester County, Montgomery County (MD), Orange County (CA), and the richest suburban zip codes in Detroit, Nashville, Dallas-Ft. Worth, and Houston.  The differences based on residence may be more interesting than those based on politics.  This information was all gathered using Scarborough Research’s PRIME Lingo consumer data database.

Here are some of the findings:

• Children: Overall, conservative rich have more children.  However, much of this discrepancy is because the liberal rich are more likely to live in urban areas.  When you drill down to conservative areas like Dallas and Houston, the difference in fertility between urbanites and suburbanites is noticeable.  Their urban areas are generally pretty similar to Manhattan in family profile, while their suburbs are much more child filled.  Even in a liberal suburb like Montgomery County, the family profile looks much more like red suburbs than liberal urban areas, such as their neighbors in Northwest DC.  Family size is more a function of space than ideology.

• Home ownership: The urban/suburban difference is the dividing line for percentage of those who own their houses.  The most densely populated of the city subgroups, Manhattan and Westside LA, have a nearly 50/50 own/rent split.  Other urban affluent in West Houston and Northwest DC are roughly 75% home owners.  The suburban areas have home ownership rates of at least 85 percent, and usually over 90 percent.  Obviously, there aren’t many homes to own in the heart of Manhattan, while most of the suburban wealthy enclaves are nothing but single family homes.

• Marriage Rate: There is a pronounced gap between marriage rates in urban and suburban areas.  Suburban areas have high marriage rates, usually greater than the regional average.  Urban areas have lower marriage rates, certainly lower than the typical rate for their area.  What accounts for this gap?  Suburban areas are geared towards families and children.  Those who are wealthy and live in the suburbs are likely to be middle aged and have children.  The suburbs are the living environment that maximizes a family’s standard of living.  Urban wealthy tend to be somewhat older than the suburban wealthy.  There is a greater concentration of empty nesters in the city.

• Golf: Also following an urban/suburban split pattern is playing golf.  In the case of the New York metro area, wealthy liberals in Westchester County are big on hitting the links.  Their counterparts in Manhattan, who are similar in so many ways, are not regular golfers.  The urban districts of Dallas and Houston are a bit above average in propensity to golf.  That may be because of the more favorable weather in those cities for golfing.

• Bicycling: Urban wealthy have an average rate of going bicycling.  Suburban wealthy are much more likely than average to bike.  Again, space probably accounts for the difference.  Unless you’re a bicycle messenger, there isn’t much space in Manhattan to go biking.  If you live in the leafy suburbs, particularly in the nice areas, there are likely to be many bike paths to take advantage of.

• Arts/cultural giving: Donations to arts and cultural institutions comes at a unique intersection of location and ideology.  The most generous donors to the arts are urban liberals.  Urban conservatives give somewhat less but still well above average.  Suburban liberals also give strongly.  In last are suburban conservatives, though their giving is about the regional average.  What we can see here is that urbanites are more likely to give to culture.  This could be because most cultural institutions are based in central cities and not in suburbs.  While there is a difference based off of ideology, the bigger difference is due to location.

• Religious giving: The results here are interesting.  Urban liberals are less likely than average to give to religious organizations.  Everyone else, including suburban liberals, is more likely to do so.  At a broad level, the rich give strongly to religious institutions and charities.

• Pets: Despite the stereotype of a single city dweller that lives with a dog or a cat, wealthy suburbanites are more likely to own pets.  In fact, wealthy urbanites are less likely than average to own a pet.  Suburban affluent are more likely than average to be pet owners.  This is likely a function of many apartment buildings not allowing pets or only pets of a certain size.  With large yards, the suburban rich face no such restrictions.

Location is a major variable in figuring out the consumer preferences of the wealthy.  The wealthy are just one small subgroup that we can look at to observe different ways of life depending on the community someone lives in.  Even when we look at people where money isn’t a determining factor in how they live, there are still patterns that will assert themselves due to living conditions.  The size of someone’s yard, the variance between apartments and single family housing, the buildings that tend to be in your neighborhood; all of these are among the most important aspects of how life is lived in America.

In the last post, I explored a series of consumer demographic data points that a wide variety of wealthy subgroups had in common, irrespective of differences in political partisanship or living environment.  Now I want to turn my focus to consumer demographics that divide along ideological grounds.  For this, I grouped together respondents from the wealthiest zip codes in major metropolitan areas.  For liberal wealthy, I have subgroups from Manhattan, Westchester County (NY), Northwest Washington DC, Montgomery County (MD), and Westside Los Angeles.  For the conservative wealthy, I have cohorts from Orange County (CA), separate urban and suburban groupings in Dallas and Houston, and the top zip codes in the Atlanta and Nashville areas.  I also had moderate control groups in Northern Virginia and suburban Detroit.

Among the findings:

• Personal wealth: Liberal areas generally have more money.  Manhattan and Westchester Counties have the highest percentage of respondents making over $250,000.  Much of this is due to the high cost of living in coastal areas.  The suburban areas of places like Nashville and Dallas do not have quite as much in pure dollar earnings, but once cost of living is factored in; there is likely no difference in standard of living.

• Education: All sets are well educated.  Liberals are more likely to have received post-graduate degrees.  Over 40% of NY and DC elites received post-graduate degrees.  For rich conservatives, the percentage is in the 20s.  It could be said that rich liberals are those with more education than money and rich conservatives are those with more money than education.

• Hunting: There is a clear ideological divide.  Rich conservatives go hunting in numbers typical of their neighbors.  Rich liberals almost never hunt, and are less likely to do so than regular income residents of their generally liberal areas.

• Environment: There are two different types of environmentalism.  One type is based on personal consumption habits.  Whether we are talking about buying eco-friendly cleaning products, buying locally grown food, or recycling, there is no difference among rich conservatives and liberals.  Both are much more likely than average to do such activities.  The difference comes when we talk about environmentalism as a cause.  Wealthy liberals give strongly to environmental groups.  Wealthy conservatives do give more than the regional average, but the regional average for places like Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta are very low to begin with.  Liberals are much more likely to support politicians based on their environmental positions.  This generally isn’t a consideration for conservatives.  The difference here is consumption versus activism.

• Vehicles: Liberals are somewhat more likely to own a hybrid than conservatives.  Conservative elites are more likely than others surrounding them to have a hybrid, but their ownership rates are nothing out of the ordinary.  On the other hand, conservatives are more likely to own motorcycles, while liberals generally eschew them.

• College football: There is a marked difference between liberals and conservatives in regards to interest in college football.  Of the liberal subgroups, only Westside LA (home of UCLA) has an interest level approaching average.  The conservative elites are big fans of Saturday football.  This was one of the starkest differences I found.

• Soccer: Liberals express an interest in European soccer many times greater than the general population.  Conservatives do not, and their interest in soccer isn’t much different from the typical resident of their area.

• High school sports: Affluent conservatives are more into high school sports.  It is worth pointing out that conservative elites aren’t the diehards that some others around them are.  Wealthy liberals generally aren’t interested in following high school sports.

• Special TV programs: Liberals are more likely to watch Academy Awards, while conservatives have above average viewing of country music awards shows.  Conservatives were at average rates for viewing beauty pageants, liberals do not watch them.  Liberals were especially likely to watch the Kennedy Center Honors and the Tony Awards.

• Public radio/TV: Rich liberals are the lifeblood of public radio and TV.  They are the best givers in the nation.  Conservatives are more likely than their neighbors to give to public broadcasting, but their levels of support do not compare to their liberal counterparts.

• Grocery stores: Whole Foods is beloved by liberals.  Conservatives do shop there disproportionately as well, but not to the same degree.  Conservatives are more likely to go to the same big grocery stores that everyone else goes to, such as Kroger, Publix, and Costco.

• Cable news: It is no surprise that Fox News is more popular among conservatives.  What is more interesting is that MSNBC barely beats out Fox News even in liberal enclaves.  The liberal elite actually prefer CNN as a viewing choice.  One caveat is that this measures whether a channel was viewed in the past seven days, not something like length of time that stationed was watched.

Next time, I will explore the differences between urban and suburban wealthy.

We often talk about the rich, watch the rich on TV, and even try to imitate them. But how well do we know what they like (and dislike)? To find out, I went through Scarborough Research’s PRIME Lingo database, an immense collection of consumer research data. To find suitable collections of wealthy persons, I grouped adults age 35 and over together from the richest zip codes in the New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Detroit, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Nashville areas. The zip codes collected are a balance of urban and suburban locations, and also balanced politically. These themes will be explored in future posts.

It is nothing new to report that the affluent like to drive Lexuses and Jaguars. What I will do is report some findings that are not immediately obvious. Some of the findings will not be surprising, but others will be somewhat at odds with the perception of who the rich are.

Some similarities among all the subgroups:

Gambling: The rich generally do not gamble. They have low rates of playing slot machines, table games, watching casino shows, and frequenting casino bars. The only casino activity where they resemble the general population is attending an upscale restaurant attached to a casino, a standard of newly built casinos. The high rollers table may make for good James Bond movie settings, but that runs against the typical pattern of who frequents casinos.

Hotels: The hotel chains the affluent like the most are Marriott, Courtyard by Marriott, Hilton, Embassy Suites, and surprisingly, Hampton Inns. Hampton Inns are an odd choice considering they are limited service hotels that cater to travelers on a budget. The category leader in the field is Holiday Inn, and while the rich are less likely than average to stay in one, it is still the most common hotel chain for them to check into. The rich sometimes aren’t so different from the masses.

Soft drinks: Soft drinks are another common facet of American life that aren’t popular among the wealthy. This is likely because they are older and soft drinks are more likely to be consumed by children and teenagers. There are regional exceptions such as Coke being very popular in Atlanta, and Dr. Pepper being widespread in the Dallas area. Both beverages are headquartered in the immediate areas, and conceivably the executives at Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper could be part of these subgroups. If any soft drinks are popular, they are caffeine free beverages.

Alcohol: Among all Americans nationally, more name beer as their alcoholic beverage of choice than wine. Among all of our subgroups, wine is more popular than beer, sometimes much more so. Their second choice is beer and the third choice is liquor. Their propensity to name beer as their first choice is less than average and their preference for liquor is above average.

Credit cards: You would think the wealthy would have less need for credit cards. You would be wrong. The wealthy across the board are more likely to use credit cards, in almost every case including traditional big name brands, gasoline credit cards, and department store credit cards. It would seem intuitive that the rich could pay for more out of pocket, but the convenience (and safety) of paying without cash has appeal with the rich.

NASCAR: To be blunt, the rich shun NASCAR. In many of the northeastern locations, the amount who expresses even slight interest is only around 5-10 percent. It might be expected that rich Manhattanites aren’t fans of stock car racing, but even the elite in some of NASCAR’s hotbeds are not very interested. There are more fans in Nashville, Atlanta, and Texas than the northern cohorts, but they are among the least interested fans in their areas. There could very well be a class-based judgment against NASCAR.

Branded sports apparel: Sporting merchandise such as jerseys, t-shirts, and athletic paraphernalia are less likely to be worn by the rich. This is true of all the major sports leagues. The one exception is college sports gear. Here, the affluent are more likely than average to own apparel. It may be the case that they buy a shirt to root on their alma mater come college football or hoops season, but they won’t wear jerseys of the local pro teams.

Satellite radio: All of the subgroups are much more likely to listen to satellite radio. Depending on the subgroup, anywhere between one fifth and one third of respondents listened to satellite radio in the past week. The general population total averages around 10 percent.

Cable channels: The relevant point here is that the rich are less likely to watch TV. All subgroups were more likely to watch business channels like CNBC. There is a wide preference for watching cable news. Turner Classic Movies and National Geographic Channel are disproportionately popular in most (but not all) markets. Otherwise, nearly every other channel scores lower with the rich than with their fellow viewers. Perhaps being a couch potato is incompatible with being wealthy.

Online activity: If the rich aren’t watching TV, perhaps they decided to shift their leisure time online. The wealthy are more likely to use most common internet functions. Across the board, the wealthy are more likely to do such activities as using online auction sites, read blogs, play fantasy sports, pay their bills, and even use online dating sites. The only sorts of activities they are less likely to do are online gambling, look for jobs, and play video games.

These are some of the characteristics that are broadly similar among differing classes of the wealthy. In future posts, I will explore differences based on political affiliation and the urban/suburban divide.