In recent studies, we’ve analyzed and examined the richest cities in other Deep South states, like Mississippi and Georgia. Here, we’re going to take a look at the richest cities in their mutual neighbor, Alabama. Although the median household income in Alabama — $54,943 — is close to $14,000 less than the median household income for the United States — $69,021 — there are still many cities in Alabama with high incomes.
Read on and find out what the richest city in Alabama is, as well as the top 50 wealthiest cities in the state.
What Is the Richest City in Alabama?
So that we could define a “richest city in Alabama,” we sourced data from the Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (which is the latest data available), including median household income, mean household income, median home value, and median property taxes paid, and then analyzed and scored each one of these factors, assembling a list of the top 50 richest cities in Alabama
In order to fully grasp the figures, here are some important notes about Census data. The Census Bureau measures median household incomes up to $250,000, with households earning more being denoted as “$250,000+”. Similarly, the Census does this with median home value, which goes up to $2 million, with everything above that being expressed as “$2,000,000+”. Lastly, the same limits apply to measuring median property taxes paid, which go up to $10,000 and any amount above that is denoted as “$10,000+”.
This is what makes mean household income particularly useful in our analysis of the wealthiest cities in Alabama. Unlike median household income, the Census Bureau provides mean (or average) household income with exact values for every city in Alabama. All four of these metrics were scored, added up, and then ranked by the cities’ combined scores.
Below you’ll find a table detailing the top 50 richest cities in Alabama and their respective dollar figures for each metric: