To wonder how some areas are so wealthy?

[lapsichord]

There are some areas that just seem wealthy, and have lots of nice houses, feel very "prim and proper", such as parts of Gloucestershire.

Then there are areas of London such as Richmond, where a nice but nothing special house is worth £3mil. In loads of areas of London, you drive through and all the houses and people are IMMACULATE. All done up to the very best standard.

I've been to places like Harrogate and Cheshire and both areas are wealthy.

What I wonder is where exactly this wealth is all coming from. And where is my share? I come from a traditionally fairly comfortable family.. upper middle.. but there is no way we are of the level of wealth seen in these areas

Sadly the divide seems to be getting wider and wider.
There are no regulations limiting what multiples of the lowest paid worker's salary, the higher paid staff pay themselves

Abigail Disney has raised it in America, too here

in my experience wealthy individuals cluster together. someone spots a good location fixes up one house, someone spots the street looking improved they then buy and fix one up etc. it's a bit of a gamble, it can drive up prices so only those with a healthy budget then can afford to live there.

Also where the "good" jobs are. Plenty of areas outside London have very little in the way of quality high paid employment. Other non-London areas have lots of higher paid employment or quality business districts so the local area is bound to be more prosperous.

places like Harrogate and Cheshire and both areas are wealthy

What a stupid generalisation.

Cheshire is a huge county, yes there are v wealthy areas like Alderley Edge, but I can assure you that the whole of Cheshire is not wealthy!

Maybe take a trip to some Cheshire towns to see how much poverty there is in them, see how many people use food banks in them.

Cheshire is no different to any other county, some people have wealth, the majority don’t.

Upper middle? Well I’m surprised your parents don’t live in that sort of area... or you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.

It’s mostly acquired wealth or wealthy foreigners. I live in an affluent city with high level job opportunities and it’s all been given by parents or rich foreign people coming over to work snapping up houses and renovating them.

I've namechanged due to long term mn.
I live in an area that has quite a lot of deprivation in the area . My house is probably worth less than 180k and houses are taking a long time to sell. Here you could buy a terrace two up /down for less than 100k.
People around here ( in the majority ) do not walk around immaculate as you state.
Between us my dh and I have just under half a millon in the bank, we have no mortgage. We have no new cars, don't have big foreign holidays.
Would you class us as wealthy ? How about a family that live in Gloucestershire. Live in a £750k house, 2 New cars on the driveway, them and the children in designer clothes, 3 fabulous holidays a year etc . On the outside looking in, you'd class them as wealthy . But everything would be down to debt and loans.
My point is wealth ( or the illusion ) of it matters it some people. They want their neighbours, friends, the school gate mum's to think they have it all, but in reality they are juggling a lifestyle they cannot afford.

I live in a prosperous part of the South East. When you scratch the surface, a lot of 40-something professional people here have family money or business interests that provide a substantial buffer to a nice lifestyle. Landed property, agriculture, a family business...The grandparents get to a point where they don’t want to do it anymore and are happy to pass it down the line.

I met a woman who lived nearby and got into the ‘what do you do’ conversation. Her background was clearly upper-middle class. She was mostly a SAHM, but managed some family farms and also had a remotely-based job for a very wealthy person she had met at school. Her husband worked in London and clearly had a good job, but effectively her background provided her family with a steady ongoing income.

On a more substantial level I met someone in my twenties who had a family ‘name’ and a family estate, on which he ran various sporting pursuits. I looked him up the other day and he is still doing it, but has added a whole additional layer of activity around eco-tourism and holiday rentals. Twenty years later and he still has that benefit of no housing costs and a business to run, while the rest of us have been dealing with redundancies, insecurity, house moves and trying to work our way up the promotion ladder. There are probably disadvantages to being ‘tied’ in that way, but nice work if you can get it!

Other, not so wealthy people, have been given a boost due to the housing boom benefitting their parents or themselves as they move up the ladder. I would include ourselves in that category.

The other huge generator of wealth is the City of London as a global financial centre and its high salaries. Which is why Brexit is such a mistake!

But it is also worth thinking critically about where inherited family wealth really comes from. Often it can be traced back to the industrial revolution, slavery, the two world wars or the enclosure of common land in the 19th century.

Earnings in London are very high so there are many affluent areas. And somehow people seem to take more pride in the appearance of their homes and themselves. I wouldn’t say you need to that much wealthier than elsewhere - out of the people I know in Richmond, they tend to own smaller homes and wear nice clothes but it’s not designer stuff costing £££.

Also some of the £3-5M homes cost £500k not that many years ago so you’ll often find owners in their 50’s with good professional jobs etc but they wouldn’t have been multimillionaires when they bought their properties.

I think every town/city will have a ‘nicer’ area or streets. Even industrial mill/mining towns needed to differentiate between lower rung labour workers and managers.

Wherever humans live, we enjoy a hierarchy.
This sketch was true 300 years ago, then and now.

@MaybeDoctor Kudos to people able to make actual money in agriculture in England...

Upper middle? So inherited family money but not a title?

Most rich people I know have made all of their money themselves by opening multiple business, providing services that others want, providing employment etc. It’s risky though, most of them have been either bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy at least once. Much easier to become a professional and earn a decent salary without any of the risk. You’ll never be rich but you’ll never be poor either.

@JoJoSM2
Well, the farmers whom I have met on skiing holidays didn't seem to be scratching about for money!

I think it's like everything else, if you are totally dependent on it then you are very vulnerable to fluctuating prices, new policies and changes of fortune. If you farm as part of a portfolio of income generating activities, then it is not such an issue.

I couldn't help myself and googled some stats. Agriculture contributes 0.5% to the UK economy. The average income generated per 1 full time worker in the sector is 24k/year... Obv some will have better business models than others.

I know, I was as surprised as you to meet both a dairy and an arable farmer on a holiday where the majority of people had professional jobs -this wasn't me being nosy, there was an element of forced socialising so you tended to find out what people did for a living! But once I thought about it, I could see the benefit of inheriting a family-sized house, inheriting a ready-to-run business and inheriting the land and outbuildings that meant you could diversify and run other businesses alongside.

I am one generation away from manual workers yet am rich and live in v “wealthy” area in the south east. Did this by a combination of education (Oxbridge) and securing a City job with resulting high income, marrying someone in a similar situation, and benefitting from massive increases in property values and big bonuses which will probably never be replicated again. Right time, right place I suppose. And as for neat and tidy houses etc, we pay others to do that!

@VanCleefArpels love you name!

Just looked up more stats. The median property price in Richmond back in 1995 was... 108k.