Here in Garrett Park (enter its zip code: 20896) we are rated, according to the latest national demographic thingie that people are quoting, “100% Top Tier.” That’s the highest category in everything – money, culture, education, home prices.
‘thesda – the vague area GP’s vaguely adjacent to – has for some time been ranked richest small city in America.
Here’s the language that accompanies Garrett Park’s category:
We’ve achieved our corporate career goals and can now either consult or operate our own businesses. We’re married couples with older children or without children. Every home maintenance chore in our lavish homes is handled by a variety of contracted services. We can indulge ourselves in personal services at upscale salons, spas, and fitness centers, and shop at high-end retailers for anything we desire. We travel frequently, sparing no expense in taking luxury vacations or visiting our second homes in the US and overseas. Evenings and weekends are filled with opera, classical music concerts, charity dinners and shopping…
I showed this paragraph to my across the street neighbor, a just-retired federal employee. We assumed British accents and talked about how we were looking forward to the charity dinner after the opera tomorrow night, at the end of which we planned to return to our lavish homes.
I said that the people putting the scale together seemed to have confused us GP/’thesdans with number two on the richest small cities list — Greenwich Connecticut, home of Brown University trustee Steve Cohen and other titans of post-industry.
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Still. It can’t be denied that we beat them out. We beat out Palo Alto. We beat out Brookline.
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Of course you can play with numbers in any number of ways and get different results, as Nate Cohn notes. Maybe we ain’t so hot.
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I suppose we are bourgeois bohemians.
This is an elite that has been raised to oppose elites. They are affluent but opposed to materialism.
I suppose I was happy a couple of days ago having to walk very slowly, with great difficulty, to the post office (my neighbor Peggy was with me and didn’t notice anything) because, my ancient Nike women’s walking shoes having recently imploded, I had, in desperation, gone into La Kid‘s room and found sneakers that looked like these. They were too large for me and they flapped around like clown shoes and the whole show was so ridiculous that I finally ordered replacement Nikes. I suppose it’s true that I like that sort of thing.
July 30th, 2015 at 8:25AM
I plugged in my own ZIP code. Gibberish about “traditional living”, “small-town simplicity”, “heartland communities”. Okay, whatever. Reality is it’s Italians on the east side of town, Scots-Irish in the west. According to local lore, the ascendant anti-immigrant Klan of the 1920s was put down by Mafia thugs; the Depression, WWII, post-WWII prosperity, and a lot of intermarriage and uneventful intermingling among people pretty much ended serious inter-ethnic squabbling. Yeah, there’s a little Grant Wood here, plenty of heroin, and you can buy a house in a good neighborhood for $200,000 that would go for $1-$2 million in 90210.
Yeah, as a sales and ad guy, I did that sort of broad-brush characterization of sales territories. Those characterizations never survive in toto, sometimes not even close, after you first start working a territory.
July 30th, 2015 at 8:35AM
Jack/OH: I’m sure there’s plenty of heroin here too.
July 30th, 2015 at 2:27PM
The codes in the pull down descriptions under the categories are interesting. “Enterprising professionals” is my favorite. STEM, rented townhouses, etc.
July 30th, 2015 at 3:01PM
“Zip code demographics” can be amusing, but you have to bear in mind that this is analysis done by marketers and for the benefit of marketers. The odd, breathless language in the segment descriptions is decoded when you realize it’s all about aspirations. I guess it’s benign, but it’s also a sales strategy– what do these people want, and what do they, therefore, want to buy?
July 30th, 2015 at 3:51PM
The terms “Traditional Living” and “Rustbelt” feature prominently in mine.
The real breakdown:
White Trash: 20%
Gangstas and gangstas-in-training: 5%
People riding scooters because they picked up a 4th DUI: 5%
Little old ladies driving 10 miles per hour under the speed limit in the passing lane: 10%
Guys driving $50K monster pickups with long trailers attached who never actually haul anything: 5%
Strange people walking around and talking to themselves: 5%
Obnoxious hipsters sure that one more subsidized kale-and-dandelion smoothie shop will resurrect downtown: 1%
Politicians persuaded by the obnoxious hipsters: 4%
Dumb teenagers who can’t figure the change for a $3 sale when given a $5 bill: 5%
The rest: 45%
July 30th, 2015 at 4:13PM
tp: You’re making my day.
July 30th, 2015 at 4:45PM
theprofessor: Howdy, neighbor!:) LOL!