The 20 Wealthiest Cities In Wisconsin, From The Latest Census Data
Milwaukee's downtown city skyline on Lake Michigan at twilight. Numerous towns along Lake Michigan, ... More as well as towns in the state's interior lake country, rank among the richest in the state.
In a series of recent studies, states have been analyzed in terms of their household finances, home values, and property taxes in order to determine the richest cities in those states. Much of the Midwest has been covered, including the richest cities in Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois, to name a few. For this article, it is Wisconsin's turn. This study analyzed 807 cities in Wisconsin with complete data from the Census Bureau, in terms of their median household income, mean (average) household income, median home value, and median property taxes paid per year, to come up with a list of the 50 richest cities in the state.
Read on to find out what the richest city in Wisconsin is, plus the top 20 wealthiest cities in the state overall.
In order to compile this list of the richest cities in Wisconsin, financial data was sourced from the Census Bureau's 2023 American Community Survey. Once these data points were assembled, they were scored using a system that took into account:
It is important to note some things that the Census Bureau does with its data. For a couple factors, the Census numbers have upper limits, so there's no exact value for certain factors. When it comes to median household income, for example, the Census Bureau has an upper limit of '$250,000+', so no median incomes are recorded above $250,000. For median home value, the upper limit is '$2,000,000+'. For median property taxes paid, the upper limit is '$10,000+'. Because of this, the mean household income (which is the same as average household income) dataset is crucial because the Census Bureau has exact figures for it. All four of these metrics were scored, added up, and then ranked by the cities' combined scores.
Another aspect of the Census to point out is the use of Census-designated places — CDP. The Census, more or less, treats CDPs as cities, though in many cases the terminology is 'place'. This list of the richest cities in Wisconsin uses this classification. So, if you see cities on this list that may be part of a larger township, it's because the Census Bureau has designated it as a 'place'.
You'll find a table detailing the top 20 richest cities in Wisconsin and their respective dollar figures for each metric, below:
The No. 1 richest city in Wisconsin in this ranking is Chenequa, which is west of Milwaukee and situated on Pine Lake, with beautiful lakeside homes that line its shores. There are 241 total households in Chenequa. The median household income in Chenequa is $250,000+ a year, while its mean household income is substantially higher, at $456,817 — the highest income in Wisconsin. The median home value here is also the highest in the state, at nearly $1.5 million. Additionally, the median property taxes paid by households in Chenequa is in excess of $10,000.
Oconomowoc Lake came in as the No. 2 wealthiest city in Wisconsin. This city's name is appropriate since it encompasses Oconomowoc Lake in its entirety. This city is right next to the No. 1 richest city in Wisconsin and is of similar size, with 240 households. Its income figures, too, are similar to Chenequa. The median household income here is over $250,000. The average household income is also in the $400,000s. The median home value is nearly $1.329 million, the second highest in the state. And, again, like the No. 1 city, the median property taxes paid per household is over $10,000.
Coming in as the No. 3 richest city in Wisconsin is Lac La Belle. This city is half the size of the No. 1 and No. 2 cities, with 108 total households. This city is also right in the same neighborhood as the others, part of a string of lakes west of Milwaukee. The median household income here is $206,250. Its mean household income is much higher, at $321,856. Homes are expensive too. The median home value is over $1.158 million, the last of three cities in Wisconsin to have a median home value in excess of $1 million. And like those cities, property taxes per household tend to exceed $10,000 per year.
Many of Wisconsin's richest cities are found in the lake country of the state's interior. And when not there, the wealthiest cities tend to lie along Lake Michigan, a number of them north of Milwaukee. This is a common feature of Midwestern states like Minnesota and Michigan, who also see most of its wealthiest cities lying along the Great Lakes or encompassing individual lakes within the state.
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