No, you’re not imagining things when you walk around Georgetown, Logan Circle or Clarendon these days: there really are more affluent young adults zipping around in their BMWs and dropping $50 on brunch.
A new county-by-county study by Nielsen Claritas shows that D.C. has a larger percentage of the young and wealthy (those 25-34 making $100,000-plus) than any other metropolitan area in the country. In fact, sixteen of the top 50 “young and wealthy” counties are in the D.C. area — including the No. 1 and 2 counties: Loudoun and Arlington.
“In 1990 you had a lot more concentration of this demographic in the heartland and in Texas, likely driven by the oil economy, and some of the agribusiness,” said Michael Mancini, vice president of data product management for The Nielsen Company. “But now, there’s a densification of young money into the major metros.”
The study notes that Loudon ranked 24th in this measure in 1990, while Arlington ranked 8th.
