Region sees income growth
Federal figures also show homes with higher medians tend to cluster
If you’re making good money in the Capital Region, chances are so is your neighbor — and your neighborhood.
Especially if that neighborhood is somewhere in a straight run between Slingerlands and Ballston Lake.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s 201317 American Community Survey shows the Capital Region’s 318 tracts are following the national trend of households with higher median incomes clustering together.
The downside: Median household incomes of the better-off areas are more than twice to nearly three
times as high as incomes in Albany, Schenectady and Troy, the region’s three major cities.
“It shows they’re self-segregating themselves in a way that is income-stratified,” said Samantha Friedman, an associate professor of sociology at the state University at Albany with expertise in demographics.
The trend in the metropolitan Capital Region mirrors what’s happening around the nation, Friedman said.
Twelve of the 17 tracts with median household incomes ranging from $100,000 to $127,583 are lined up in a south-to-north row from Slingerlands to Guilderland, Niskayuna, Lisha Kill in Colonie, Clifton Park and Halfmoon to Ballston Lake.
The remaining five census tracts with $100,000-plus median household incomes are Bethlehem, Loudonville, East Greenbush and Saratoga Springs.
Studies show that concentrations of income result in resources being pumped into schools through property taxes and various public services, Friedman said.
Overall, the greater Capital Region’s 11 counties are doing well compared to counties nationwide.
Ten counties – Albany, Columbia, Fulton, Greene, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Warren and Washington — were among the 521 counties around the nation (16.6 percent of 3,142 counties) that had an increase in median household income when comparing the 2013-17 census estimates to 2008-12 estimates. Schoharie County’s income was flat.
Of the region’s 318 census tracts, median household income rose in 219 tracts, remained f lat in 12 and fell in 87.
The region’s 17 tracts with the highest median household incomes don’t show the robust percentage growth in household incomes in gentrifying urban neighborhoods, or the deep percentage drops in declining areas as reflected in data from the recent American Community Survey.
Friedman said the attraction of urban life for people with higher incomes may help offset the draw of enclaves of wealthier people by a lure of the arts, a better walking experience and a lifestyle different from suburbia.
Closing the gap
Take Troy’s Beman Park-hillside neighborhoods south of Hoosick Street between Eight and 15th streets. Its residents are in Census Tract 406, which had the Capital Region’s second-highest median household income expansion with an 85 percent jump to $35,478. It’s still below Troy’s median household income of $40,911, but new residents helped close the gap.
“We’ve seen real estate prices going up. I’ve noticed new settlers in the neighborhood,” said Amy Halloran, whose family moved here in 2001.
Halloran noted the advantages of
being close to downtown Troy and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The neighborhood “has definitely been part of the gentrification that’s happening all over the city. Lots of young professional people are attracted to our neighborhood,” she said.
Downtown Saratoga Springs’ appearance as the sixth fastest-growing census tract with an increase of 70 percent to a median household income of $81,654 seems stunning given the city’s reputation as a home to the rich, particularly during the summer.
That ref lects the combination of condominium construction feeding the growth in a downtown area that already has senior citizen housing, apartments and seasonal visitors.
“Definitely more people are living here with the walkability of downtown,” said Marianne Barker, owner of Impressions of Saratoga at 368 Broadway.
There’s the usual influx of summer visitors and conventiongoers passing by Barker’s store at Broadway and Phila Street, she said. But they’re supplemented by the purchasers of the condos west of Broadway.
“Our year-round business has been growing; we’re seeing new residents (in the shop),” Barker said.
Pushed out?
What communities have to be concerned about is lower-income households being pushed out of neighborhoods that are attracting more affluent residents with new construction or rehabbed buildings that demand higher rents or purchase prices, said Mark Castiglione, executive director of the Capital District Regional Planning Commission.
“There should be a balanced approach to residential development,” Castiglione said. Without it, minority communities with lower incomes can be pushed out.
Longtime Lansingburgh residents have complained that their neighborhood, which includes the city’s three northernmost census tracts, has been in decline.
Household incomes have dropped, with two of the three tracts falling below the city’s median household income of $40,911: One fell 22 percent to $32,489, the other dropped 13 percent to
$33,722. (The other tract, along Oakwood Avenue, dipped 18 percent but at $44,550 remained above the median income.)
More absentee landlords, unsafe buildings and financially strapped families are the signs of a downturn, said Mike Manupella, executive director of the Lansingburgh Boys and Girls Club on Lansingburgh’s Fourth Avenue, which serves about 140 kids daily.
“When there’s no school, 40 kids are left without lunch,” Manupella said about the club’s patrons. “The household incomes are dropping. Thirty percent are single mothers here.”
Across the Hudson River from Lansingburgh, the city of Cohoes has seen three of its four census tracts grow in income. The largest jump — 36 percent to $36,944 — has been around Harmony Mills, which was converted from an abandoned mill into high-end housing units.
“We’re getting people who want to live here,” Mayor Shawn Morse said. The revamped buildings and new construction aren’t displacing lowerincome residents, the mayor said. “We have plenty of housing stock for the people who need it.”
Morse said the city’s vitality is shown in the mix of people who live in its neighborhoods, with higher-income families living across the street from lower income. “We all live here together.”
The suburbs continue to be where households with the highest incomes congregate. The census tracts with the highest median incomes are concentrated in these towns, and other towns are not far behind.
Brunswick “is a great
location to travel to where the high-paying jobs are,” Supervisor Phil Herrington said about his suburban-rural town. “It’s a beautiful place to live.”
That sentiment could sum up the advantages many of these communities have. Brunswick has a median household income of $86,115, which is the ninth-highest in the region among towns and cities.
And that’s what’s leading to growth in neighboring rural areas.
In Nassau, both the village and the town have enjoyed robust household income growth. The village’s median household income climbed 67 percent to $67,308, while the town saw a jump of 22 percent to $75,938.
“It’s 15 or 20 minutes to downtown Albany,” Supervisor David Fleming said. “People want the quality of life out here. They’re in the Averill Park and East Greenbush school districts.”
The community is also seeing downstaters moving in to live part of the week in town, helping to bring up income levels, Fleming said. Between the town and the village, there is a variety of housing, which should stop the community from becoming an enclave of high-income families and continue to have a broad spectrum of residents, he said.