Where do various social classes (middle, working, rich) live in your countries cities? Especially curious about the big cities.

37 comments

1. Same here, but we are t that far away. I was also suprised about that fact about America.

2. [Try](https://www.comparis.ch/immobilien/marktplatz/details/show/30880481) [living](https://www.comparis.ch/immobilien/marktplatz/details/show/30384404) [in](https://www.comparis.ch/immobilien/marktplatz/details/show/30954686) [Zurich’s](https://www.comparis.ch/immobilien/marktplatz/details/show/30907080) [city](https://www.comparis.ch/immobilien/marktplatz/details/show/30828939) [center](https://www.comparis.ch/immobilien/marktplatz/details/show/30758269) [while](https://www.comparis.ch/immobilien/marktplatz/details/show/30706423) [being](https://www.comparis.ch/immobilien/marktplatz/details/show/29826774) [working](https://www.comparis.ch/immobilien/marktplatz/details/show/30940884) [class](https://www.comparis.ch/immobilien/marktplatz/details/show/30783569).

   The city center becomes unaffordable even with very good salaries. The outer parts of the city are becoming more expensive as well, but there’s the possiblity at least to find something ‘decently’ priced (<2600/m).

   This applies as well:

   >The only real estate worth more are the the slopes of the mountain situated directly north of the city, where “the richer rich” live (greenery, nice view and clean air).

3. Berlin – rich people: West, South West area while the poor live far east, north east and north. Central is a weird area where rich and poor collides but Berlin is in many facets obscure. Outer Areas are usually poorer.

   Not a full list, just a (very) rough overview

   Richest Areas: Grunewald, Steglitz Zehelndorf

   Poor Areas: Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Neu-Hohenschönhausen, Märkisch Vorstadt

   Trendy Areas: Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg

   Middle Class: Köpenick, Reinickendorf ,Pankow,Biesdorf etc

   Edit: Berlin does a great job at “mixing” people to some degree though in terms of income level and I do not see that much racial segregation as I did in other cities overseas. I will never forget when i visited one australian city and I could tell in a week where the rich white, poor white, asians and black people live. Felt surreal.

4. In Ljubljana itself, which is in reality the only city big enough to spot such differences, it works like this.

   The very centre of Ljubljana is very expensive and therefore a privilege to live in for a family. Neighbouring areas with communist apartment blocks, many of which are in decay, are generally for the poorer people who can’t afford a car or a nicer apartment

   Suburbs themselves only exist in the form of former agricultural villages in a 20min driving range from Ljubljana, which range from middle to upper crust for people who commute.

   Keep in mind, line between upper and middle class in Slovenia is very thin, extremely so. So it’s kind of hard to say definitively

5. In Germany it really depends on the city and whether there is something like a lake or river nearby because Flats and houses near those tend to be more expensive.

   I can only speak for my hometown with around 600k inhabitants: The middle class lives in the South and west/south of the city in flats or houses (Suburbs tend to be houses while near the city centre most people live in flats since houses are too expensive.)

   Due to the cheap rents and the proximity to the city centre, parts of the northern city are being chosen as a residential and working location by students, immigrants and artists. The northern part of the City also has the highest population density and crime rate in my town. But it’s not comparable to the US, you won’t get stabbed/robbed more like smallish crimes: People taking drugs, theft und sometimes fights between groups.

   The rich either live near the lake, in the old town or in a specific district in the South. Some might even live in villages not far away.

   In general all parts of the inner city and the closer suburbs are well connected. If you live near the countryside some Buses might only come every 30 Min/ every hour.

6. Generally it’s the opposite in all of Europe. American planning is radically different to European (or old world planning). It was exacerbated after the introduction of cars when building was booming, and the shady practices of American corporations to strip the public of basic services.

   I’m a Planner, and just while I was in the US a seminal work in Urban Planning, over a century old, was for the first time published in English. How they managed to do any planning without that book back then is just puzzling to me. But puts things into perspective.

7. In Stockholm centre it’s mostly middle class, upper middle class and upper class, all depending on where in central Stockholm you live.

   In the suburbs closest to the centre the middle class lives in apartments while the upper middle class and upper class lives in detached homes.

   Further out it’s mostly a planned suburban sprawl with mostly smaller detached homes as well as apartments centres near the public transportation hubs.

   Generally speaking it’s more expensive to live close to the water.

8. Differenciated by neighbourhoods within the city, some are for people of means, others are dangerous with druglords and shady people lowering the value of nearby buildings that the poor can then afford ’cause nobody’d pay shit for a home in a bad area.

   By the outskirts of the city you’ll have nicer houses with a small to medium sized garden, and then between cities and towns you can have suburban style communities with bungalow houses for those who can afford them.

9. >It was always interesting to me that in the USA, inner city is a place where working class people live (aswell as the poor), while the upper middle/upper class lives in the suburbs.

   Well, keep in mind that “inner city” does not mean “city center”. City centers in the US (often called “downtown” but the exact terms vary by city) are generally affluent and expensive.

10. Traditionally, the UK model tended to be different to both the US and the Continental European model: very wealthy centre, working-class inner suburbs and middle-class outer suburbs. The inner suburbs are essentially the outer suburbs as they were during the Victorian/Edwardian era when the UK was urbanising, while the outer suburbs were mostly built during the interwar period and designed for middle-class families wanting to escape the pollution of the inner cities and give themselves a taste of the countryside. Greenbelt legislation was put in place after WW2 to stop the outward growth of big cities, so you didn’t get as many large estates being built on the edges of cities as you did in France.

    Obviously that’s a very crude generalisation though, as it would be for any city in any country. In London, the poorest areas tend to be in the East, the South and along the Lea Valley, while the richest areas tend to be in the West. And it’s also shifting to a more continental model: traditionally poor inner suburbs of London like Hackney are gentrifying while outer suburbs like Croydon are becoming neglected. Oxford has a very continental European model, with most of the large council estates being located on the Eastern and South-Eastern edges of the city.

11. It’s important to note that an American “inner city” is NOT the same as a European “city centre”.

    -American city dweller living in Europe

12. I have lived in Granada for nearly six years now, so do not rely on any of this, but here’s my observations as an American.

    Real estate prices here, to me, resemble a crater on the moon. The city center and the old historic part of town are relatively expensive compared to almost all of the surrounding area.

    Move a little bit out of Centro and real estate is relatively less expensive. For example, I live just across a small river from Centro. If I lived 500m north my apartment would be worth 70% to 100% more.

    As you move away from the center, in most but not all directions, real estate becomes less expensive. There are a few pueblos and barios on the slopes of our highest mountains that have large, detached, single-family houses behind high walls. These are above the smog layer that develops in the city, as it sits at the bottom of a bowl, ringed by mountains. Fresh, clean air and nice views make these homes more valueable than similar homes west or north of the city.

    Away from the east coast of the US, land is cheap so there was never an incentive to build density. Everything just kept moving out and converting farmland to subdivisions of inexpensive, single-family housing. Every city has some outlying area where the rich people live. It is a rare heartland US city that can attract the affluent to the central business district.

13. As for Copenhagen, the rich live in the north and the poor live in south. Mind you, no one is *really* that poor here, and as the former low income areas get repurposed (like the industrial harbours), the image start to shift. It’s trendy to live in these new neighborhoods.

    As for the traditionally bougie neighborhoods, the money get progressively older the further north you go. 🙂

14. In Bucharest, the most expensive area is the North, the least expensive is the South, while the East and West are typical middle class.
    The Center is more complex. There are some areas that are as expensive as in the North (e.g. the apartments on Bd. Unirii – those planned by Ceausescu for the Communist Nomenklatura, though many were finished only after the Revolution) while others are as expensive as those in the East or West (old interwar buildings).

15. In Hungary, Budapest is mostly divided by the “Rich people – Buda, Poor People – Pest” way, though there are exceptions. For example there are some poorer neighborhoods around industrial areas in South Buda, near the bank of the Danube, and the inner city of Pest has the 1920s worker tenements of the 8th district next to gentrified hipster apartments.

    The most slummy areas are at the eastern border of the 8th district, and near Orczy tér and Hős utca, there you feel like in North Korea or 1840s Manchester, while the richest areas are a part of Buda called Rózsadomb, and a village next to Budapest called Nagykovácsi where Americans live, there you feel like in Beverly Hills.

16. In Warsaw the wealthier areas are mainly South – Wilanów is known as the default district for the nouveau riche, Konstancin (further South, outside of Warsaw’s borders) is a richer „villa neighborhood”, where many celebrities live. The wealthy might as well have apartments in some skyscrapers in the very center. Powiśle, a central area just by the river, has lately become pretty trendy and hosts some of the most expensive apartments too.

    The average middle class covers the remaining residential districts, though some neighborhoods (Stary Mokotów, Żoliborz, Stare Bielany, Saska Kępa) traditionally come across as „better”, as they were historically inhabited by the intelligentsia.

    With regards to lower class, one area standing out is Praga Północ, exhibiting the highest crime levels etc., and putting it lightly, having a pretty specific vibe. In general the East side of the Vistula river comes off as less developed and having more of a „working class” vibe than the West one, although that is gradually changing. Some traditionally „worse” neighborhoods on the left side would be Northern Wrzeciono, built to accommodate the local steel mill workers, or the Western part of Wola, but that’s also pretty much dynamic.

17. In Paris only the ultra rich can live in the city center and pretty neighborhoods of the West. There are somme neighborhoods (arrondissements) that are affordable to higher middle class, but mostly middle class people and poor people live in the suburbs outside the city itself and commute (said suburbs having wild differences in terms of quality of life depending on where you look at)

18. The most expensive apartments in all of Finland can be found in Helsinki’s city centre. If you wanna live near the centre in a bigger Finnish city you usually need at least some money. Some suburbs are cheap, others more expensive. To me it seems kind of random which suburbs are richer and which are poorer, both usually have great public transportation.

19. [Here](https://images.app.goo.gl/UkffEuh8F5qbUNH1A) is a fairly fine grained map of Amsterdam. Blue is low income, red is high. I don’t know what the exact bins are. There are a few solid blobs of pure red, but other than that it is pretty evenly mixed. I expect this is not too different from other cities. High income households will very often live at most a few streets away from lower incomes.

20. I have thought to ask a similar question. Here in The Netherlands it really depends on the neighborhood of municipality. For example, in Amsterdam there are differences between neighborhoods. Obviously the houses along the canals / grachten are expensive. Besides that, Oud Zuid/Old South is known as the neighborhood for the rich. They have a lot of old mansions as well as streets where they sell designer clothing and such called the PC Hooft straat. I guess in every major city you have these kind of neighborhoods. Typical poorer neighborhoods in Amsterdam are Nieuw West/New West and Bijlmer. Although those neighborhoods are improved as well.

    Besides neighborhoods in the cities you have municipalities and areas with a lot of rich people. ‘t Gooi which is east of Amsterdam places like Blaricum and Laren are known to be the home of the rich and famous. Lots of celebrities live over there. Another area is places like Bloemendaal and Aerdenhout. Lots of mansions over there with big gardens and lot of green spaces around.

    Another thing is the popularity of old neighborhoods. Among the young professionals with high earnings the so called 30s houses are popular. You can find those in lots of large and midsized cities. Those homes are known for their beautiful design with lots of original details often located just outside the city centers. Since demand is high and availability is scarce those are expensive neighborhoods as well.

21. I don’t think there is a universal rule, as most rich people are really just ordinary people with a lot of money. They live in the same areas, the only difference being how well off their house/apartment is. You have houses on the edge of the city where one house is passed down for generations where an entire family lives, and in the house next door is a rich dude who bought the house because he wanted to have a big house and big garden. In the city centre you have poor people living in 40m2 apartments and rich people living in 200m2 apartments in skyscrapers with a beautiful view of the city, all within walking distance.

22. Usually works as you described. Budapest is slightly more complicated though. For starters, the city lays on both sides of the Danube river and also has 3 significant islands. This area is divided between 23 districts and some special areas like the Margaret Island. Buda’s hills are the home of the rich, the inner city of Pest (District V. VI. and VII.) has a lot of foreigner and also relatively well payed office workers, engineers, lawyers, etc. Outside of the the first ring road (Nagykörút, literally “Great Ring Road”) prices are slightly lower, building are newer. Lot of people lives here, both young adults born here or coming from other parts of Hungary and older blue collar workers. Also fresh new apartment blocks with panorama view to the Danube for the rich but not the richest . These are the most dynamically advancing areas of the city (District XI and XIII for example). Then there are the outer districts where most of the industry lives (and their workers), but also better payed white collar workers starting family there. Outside of the outer districts there is a huge agglomeration ring which almost has the same population as Budapest proper. It is varying how wealthy it is, but generally it’s like the outer districts just further away.

23. I suppose Moscow is similar to Zagreb in this regard. The city centre is for the rich, everything within the Boulevard Ring is for the upper-middle class, and everything beyond the Third Ring is for the middle/working class and the poor. Generally, the farther from Moscow, the cheaper.

    The filthy rich in particular live in gated communities west of Moscow, in a place called Rublyovka. That’s also where Putin’s official residence is.

24. Let’s say that in Italian cities, the situation is quite varied: in the city centres there generally live self-employed professionals who have their activities there, for example lawyers, notaries, doctors, etc. The middle class and workers usually live in the suburbs. The richest people, such as businessmen, have luxurious villas immediately outside the city; in the countryside further away from the cities, on the other hand, mainly farmers, breeders and various people working in the primary sector live.

25. In Moscow Rich people have apartments in the center or in the districts adjacent to the center on the west side and a house in the richer suburbs, like Rublevka or Novaya Riga. The middle class can be found almost everywhere where there is decent housing with developed infrastructure, but the west of Moscow is preferred. Usually they have a house somewhere outside of Moscow (modern dacha on a not so big plot of land). Poorer people are living on the outskirts mostly, or even outside of Moscow, the eastern part of the city is cheaper and there are a lot of industrial areas there, so there are more houses for not so well-of people.

26. Living in Romania is americanizing as well. Less and less people want to put up with the noise and the pollution. Now they can because it’s not a country in abject poverty like it was back in the 90s. The more wealthier we become the less we want to live in cities. We chose the burbs or go rural. If you’re outdoorsy and like some adventures cities suck.

27. There are some exceptions to the American inner city poverty. New York is the best example where the city has poverty and extreme wealth in close proximity. People do move to upstate New York, but Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn are still prime home real estate.

28. Dublin is a very complex md interesting example of this I’d say. In honest, modern terms, you’ll often find that the ‘richest’ neighbourhoods are those that border the coast; Dalkey, Clontarf, Dún Laghaoire, D4, Sutton, Howth etc while the more working-class areas are to the west, usually close to the M50, eg Tallaght, Ballymun, Darndale. Where you live carries immense social and class weight. Many will judge and assume everything about you based on where you live/grew up

    However the stereotype is definitely the North/South side divide. Those North of the Liffey are ‘poor’ due to the fact that the government built up much of the area during the 60’s-90’s with mass-produced, low quality housing, and moved the previously inner-city poor from their tenants to the suburbs, while the South Side is ‘rich’ due to its more established (and larger, formerly more British) position. Ballymun is the most famous example of this, as once drugs began to come en masse to Ireland in the 70’s/80’s, the new, poor, isolated, underfunded and uncared for neighbourhood became perhaps the city’s main no-go area due to the crime and drugs.

    Having a noticeable Northside accent, which developed from this, immediately associates you with drugs, crime, aggression and all sorts of other things that 99% of the people that live there don’t do. I am from what I’d say is a very pleasant area that was apart of this project and my childhood is filled with my mother giving out to me for speaking ‘wrong’, people telling me they’d never set foot on the Northside, or recently people shouting “Yup the flats” when hearing that I’m from said side

    Despite that, there still exists a large inner city wealth divide, with extremely upper-class neighbourhoods living in close proximity to the old tenant areas of yore. So it’s a real mix between the modern and past divides of neighbourhoods.

29. There are no obvious relations between social class and place of living in Ukraine. There are obvious “rich” zones, usually enclosed communes of private housing or enclosed appartment complexes. Usually living in the park or forest zone considered rich (mostly because it’s often illegal to build in those zones and only people who don’t give a fuck and have ties in city government could afford this). Same with living near the water (you can’t build on the shoreline, but rich people doesn’t care).Middle class sometimes mimicks rich (but on smaller scale) tending to live in non-restricted forest zone. But usually both poor and middle class live in the same neighborhoods across the city (private housing and appartments), and they are different only with amount of money they spend on the rent or building/renovation of their house/appartment. There are a lot of old affordable appartments in somewhat bad conditions in almost any city district, including city center.

30. > It was always interesting to me that in the USA, **inner city is a place where working class people live (as well as the poor), while the upper middle/upper class lives in the suburbs.**

    Not the case all the time in US. See upper east side of Manhattan or Back Bay in Boston which are smack in the middle of the city and expensive as hell.

31. We don’t have uptowns or downtowns. But with a few exceptions poor and working class people live in east side of cities.

32. Oslo

    Rich ppl: Left side to central area

    Mid and poor ppl: central area to right side.

33. I live in Birmingham UK and I recently realised that the poorest area (Ladywood) and the richest area (Edgbaston) are in the same postcode

34. I’m not sure if that’s true anymore in the US. The largest cities in the Northeast like New York or Boston have a good number of rich residents in their cores.

35. What I find interesting is that in a general rule of thumb, the western parts of European cities tend to be richer than the eastern parts and that’s because of the prevailing wind patterns from the west (from the Atlantic). During the industrialisation the wind blew away the smoke from the factories to the east so the western districts became popular residential areas. That’s true for Paris, London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich etc.

    I wonder if there is a similar pattern on the US East coast due to wind patterns?

36. The rich live in certain areas in the inner city and certain suburbs (Single family housing), and the middle class in other areas (downtown and suburbs). Poorer/working class live on the outskirts/suburbs, but in this case, these suburbs are full of apartments (think of the great commieblock layout, but better quality housing), not SFH.

37. In Belgium the rich live outside of urban centres. You will not have wealthy Belgians in the city centre unless they have a second home (flat) there, but their main house will be 5-10 km away from the city itself.