The 9 Best Cities to Build Wealth

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Many factors contribute to a person's ability to grow their net worth. A recent study looked at many of those factors to determine the best cities for people looking to accumulate wealth.

It’s no secret that the cost of living varies widely from state to state and city to city. As we noted yesterday, the salary physicians earn can go a lot further in places with a low cost of living. A low cost of living makes it easier to build wealth over the long term.

Of course, that’s not the only factor that determines how quickly one is able to build wealth. The financial website Bankrate.com looked at a variety of factors when it created its recently released list of the best cities for building wealth. Among the metrics they used: After-tax savable income; the city’s job market; educational opportunities; access to financial services; and the local housing market. They also looked at retirement savings and 401(k) participation.

The resulting list has a number of surprises. It’s not full of the kinds of places one thinks of when they think of wealth, although it does have its share of ritzy, glamorous cities. Nor is the list overtaken by low cost-of-living cities, since some of those cities lack access to financial services and sufficiently robust job markets.

What follows are the nine best cities to build wealth, according to Bankrate. We’ve included their rankings for the city’s labor and housing markets (their full list uses other metrics, too). In addition to those stats, we’re adding the city’s median household income and median home value.