I was interested enough in the inset on the top ten “SuperZIPs” in the U. S. in Charles Murray’s troubling op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on how divided America has become to do a little further probing. “SuperZIP” is Dr. Murray’s characterization of ZIP Codes where residents score in the 95th through the 99th percentile in both income and education. As it turns out the #1 and #2 SuperZIPs are on the North Shore of Chicago: Glencoe and Kenilworth.
Let’s look at both of these Chicago suburbs a little more closely. Both are nearly completely residential, i.e. the people who live there work somewhere else. But it is their demographics that is most interesting. Both are overwhelmingly white (90% or more—Kenilworth is 96% white), overwhelmingly native born (Glencoe is 90% or more native born, mostly born in Illinois), more religious than the U. S. as a whole, and those who are affiliated with a religious organization are overwhelmingly Christian and preponderantly Roman Catholic.
In both town the majority work either in finance or insurance or are lawyers. The overwhelming majority have graduated from high school, most have college degrees, nearly half have masters degrees or professional degrees. They are overwhelmingly heterosexual (to the extent that these things can be determined) and married.
The crime rates in both towns are extremely low.
Demographic information for Glencoe: here and here.
Demographic information for Kenilworth: here and here.
The message would appear to be that, if you aspire to live in either Glencoe or Kenilworth, be born a white Catholic lawyer in Illinois.
I may well get another post from Murray’s op-ed.
The crime rates in both towns are extremely low.
Well, no shit! These people are in a position to have whatever it is they’re doing made legal.
And the financial types and lawyers will be committing their crimes in the course of their work, which they will do elsewhere. It’s like having your grow house or meth lab in a different zip code. Most drug dealers don’t have that financial luxury or those kinds of organizational skills.
Also, they’re in a position to make certain the police don’t actually do anything about whatever crimes are committed by the residents of those areas. Here locally one of the expensive neighborhoods had a police chief that was convering up child mosletation by at least one resident for several years. The molester finally molested someone whose parents had more pull than he did, and the whole thing went public. (Search on “Windermere police chief” if you want more details. Note that this area also has the money to make certain this isn’t the first thing that pops up when searching for “windermere” – pull and the savy to do everything they can to bury the sordid details.)
It’s good to be rich and have pull.
And it’s even better to associate (to the extent possible) with other rich people who have pull. Choice of neighborhood is a fine way to establish that.