What comes to your mind when you think of wealthy places in America? Maybe you think of California, the state that’s home to the most billionaires (186 of them), where you’ll find neighborhoods like Menlo Park, the affluent suburb with a fun downtown in the heart of Silicon Valley. Or your brain might go to the District of Columbia for having the highest median household income, or New York City, where you’d need to earn around $185,000 a year to live comfortably. The truth is, America’s wealthiest suburbs aren’t concentrated in any one state, and Pennsylvania is a sleeper when it comes to rich neighborhoods. While the state has affordable destinations like the artsy former railroad town of Reading, it also has several suburbs where a high net worth is the norm.
Pennsylvania’s wealthy suburbs are concentrated in two main areas: around Philadelphia in the state’s southeast corner, and around Pittsburgh along its western border. Both cities have a history of wealthy residents. Pittsburgh’s East End was the world’s richest neighborhood at the turn of the 20th century, when inhabitants included banking mogul Andrew Mellon, ALCOA founder Alfred Hunt, Pennsylvania Railroad president James McCrea, and steel magnates Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. Philadelphia, meanwhile, was once home to shipping magnate and banker Stephen Girard, who was the richest man in the United States when he died in 1831. The city is brimming with historic landmarks built by wealthy founders like real estate investor and Patriot Mayor Samuel Powel and Revolutionary War financier Robert Morris.
If you’re wondering where the wealthiest Pennsylvanians live today, we’ve compiled a list of the five neighborhoods with the highest average household incomes and real estate values in the state.
Gladwyne
Gladwyne is a quaint Philadelphia suburb with historic charm that consistently ranks among the most expensive cities in Pennsylvania, largely due to the steep cost of real estate. It’s part of Lower Merion Township, about 12 miles northwest of downtown Philadelphia, in an area known as the Main Line. This part of Philadelphia was first developed in the late 1800s, after the expansion of railways made it a convenient escape for the city’s wealthy. The suburb gained a reputation for stately manors and elegant estates that still define it today. The median home value across Lower Merion Township sits at $788,700, a number that rises significantly when you tighten the focus on Gladwyne. The Zillow Home Value Index for 2025 puts the average price of a home in Gladwyne at $1.52 million…