Favored Quarters

[Alcibiades]

For New York, it is quite difficult to establish one. You have the Upper East Side and Upper West Side in Manhattan, but to link them with the wealthy suburban sections of Westchester (lfromnj is right that the east of the county is the wealthiest part, e.g. Rye, although the single wealthiest town is Bronxville in the south-centre, which is more of a conservative WASPy place along the lines of Darien or New Canaan) and Fairfield County, you have to go through the South Bronx (which is home to the poorest congressional district in the nation). Then of course you have other disconnected wealthy places on Long Island (many of which, such as Oyster Bay and Locust Valley, are still Republican) and in NJ.

In San Francisco, maybe the wealthy northern parts of the city such as Pacific Heights linked across the water to Marin County? But then you have the wealthy areas in Silicon Valley which can’t be connected.

For an international perspective, I think London has a pretty clear favoured quarter which radiates southwest from the city centre. From the centre outwards, it runs from the likes of Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Kensington and Chelsea, then crosses the river and takes in the leafy southwest London suburbs such as Putney, Wimbledon, Barnes and Richmond-upon-Thames, finishing in the ‘Stockbroker Belt’ towns in Surrey e.g. Esher, Oxshott and Cobham. There are of course other affluent areas outside of this wedge, such as Hampstead and Highgate in North London.

[Alcibiades]

Kind of irrelevant but I'm Italian so why not. The eight largest cities in Italy:

Turin: East side i.e. the nice hilly right bank of the River Po. Extends to the suburbs - Pino Torinese is in the top 10 richest municipalities in Italy. [also the historic centre and the immediately southward neighbourhood Crocetta, but that's less notable]
Genoa: East coast, especially near East (Albaro), plus the 19th century additions immediately north/east of the historic centre. It's absurdly clear. [the medieval centre itself is notably quite poor instead]
Milan: It doesn't exist, actually. Wealth pretty much decreases radially away from the centre.
Bologna: South side i.e. again, the nice hilly side - the very name of the neighbourhood is Colli (Hills). Starting out from the historic centre.
Florence: Unclear? It's easier to identify a "non-favoured quarter", which is the West side.
Rome: Near North side. Not the only place (there is also e.g. EUR, the home of the corporations, to the south) but overall it's fairly clear. Bougie Roma Nord vs. proletarian Roma Sud is a pretty famous meme. [the actual #proletariat lives outside the Great Ring Junction, but that's beside the point]
Naples: Near West side, though it's a bit complicated to describe because it has an extension protruding on the coast (Posillipo).
Palermo: Can't find any proper data, but I suspect it's something like centre-to-North-side.

Speaking of hills, they are a very obvious place for wealthy neighbourhoods to be - in London, Richmond, Wimbledon, Hampstead and Highgate are all on hills. In terms of the US, LA and San Francisco immediately spring to mind as having a similar situation (and Portland, IIRC?) - any other US examples?

[Alcibiades]

Jackson - Northeast from Downtown, picking up portions of Madison/Ridgeland and Flowood as well

In the US Birmingham (Hoover) seems another obvious example. Maybe sorta kinda Boston or Atlanta? I don't know.

It's true that Mtn Brk/Hoover and Buckhead are all more elevated than Downtown BHM/ATL, respectively

Not too sure about Boston though...

Beacon Hill was the original favoured quarter, but Back Bay and (to my knowledge) the suburban towns to the West are not elevated.

[Alcibiades]

Kind of irrelevant but I'm Italian so why not. The eight largest cities in Italy:

Turin: East side i.e. the nice hilly right bank of the River Po. Extends to the suburbs - Pino Torinese is in the top 10 richest municipalities in Italy. [also the historic centre and the immediately southward neighbourhood Crocetta, but that's less notable]
Genoa: East coast, especially near East (Albaro), plus the 19th century additions immediately north/east of the historic centre. It's absurdly clear. [the medieval centre itself is notably quite poor instead]
Milan: It doesn't exist, actually. Wealth pretty much decreases radially away from the centre.
Bologna: South side i.e. again, the nice hilly side - the very name of the neighbourhood is Colli (Hills). Starting out from the historic centre.
Florence: Unclear? It's easier to identify a "non-favoured quarter", which is the West side.
Rome: Near North side. Not the only place (there is also e.g. EUR, the home of the corporations, to the south) but overall it's fairly clear. Bougie Roma Nord vs. proletarian Roma Sud is a pretty famous meme. [the actual #proletariat lives outside the Great Ring Junction, but that's beside the point]
Naples: Near West side, though it's a bit complicated to describe because it has an extension protruding on the coast (Posillipo).
Palermo: Can't find any proper data, but I suspect it's something like centre-to-North-side.

Speaking of hills, they are a very obvious place for wealthy neighbourhoods to be - in London, Richmond, Wimbledon, Hampstead and Highgate are all on hills. In terms of the US, LA and San Francisco immediately spring to mind as having a similar situation (and Portland, IIRC?) - any other US examples?

Typically, they have the advantage of being above pollution, more exposed to the sunshine, and a little bit more exposed to the breeze/cool air on hot summer nights. Although, here YMMV still. Thinking of French cities - Montmartre is the highest point of Paris, but became the arty centre precisely because it wasn't bourgeois; the hilly part of Lyon is the wealthy part, but is also the West end, therefore the point about prevailing winds applies; the wealthy end of Marseille is South of the city, I don't really know why, although it is "prettier" geographically; Toulouse is wealthy in the hyper centre and near the airport (ie, well paid airbus employees); Nantes is rich in the West, but Rennes more in the North East, even though it is very much on the route of prevailing winds (but industrialised late) - there's no real consistent pattern.

In particular a hill on the eastern side of the city, facing west is going to be very desirable because it gets the evening sun (something that has been very obvious here recently, when the snow completely melted on the East bank of the lake about a week before it did pn the West bank). That is why, for example, all of the larger cities in Switzerland have wealthy eastern and poorer western suburbs.

Yep, the Zürich Goldküste is a very good example of various geographic factors creating a desirable location.

[Alcibiades]

Borrowing from Batista, here are my guesses for the 10 largest Spanish cities:

Madrid: Unclear. The richest areas in the city proper would be the neighbourhoods of Salamanca, Retiro or Chamberí in the Northeast. However, right after you cross the area delimited by highway M-30, income drops like a rock. Plus, the eastern suburbs like Coslada, Torrejón de Ardoz or Alcalá de Henares are fairly middle class. Meanwhile it is the western suburbs that are where the super rich live.

In Madrid if anything it makes more sense to talk of an "unfavoured quarter", southern Madrid is very firmly poor.

Barcelona: West. Barcelona has a much clearer favoured quarter. This one goes from the Eixample (just nord of the old city), which is upper middle class, and follows "Diagonal Avenue" to the west, up until the mountais. The wealthiest part of the city is just on the foothills (Pedralbes, Sarriá, etc). It is such a distinct area that "Upper Diagonal" is often used as a synonym of the rich people of Barcelona and what not.

Valencia: East. In the city proper, starting in the old town (which unlike in Madrid and Barcelona is fairly wealthy, especially in the eastern half), you go east to neighbourhoods like Eixample or El Pla del Real. It is worth noting that in terms of suburban areas, the rich ones in Valencia are to the northwest (there is a sort of V shape, but the western half is more like middle class until you are well outside city limits)

Seville: South. The richest parts of Seville seem to be the southern half of the old city, and the neighbourhoods just outside it (Los Remedios, Nervión). Worth noting that if you go too far south you get to Las 3000 viviendas, which is the poorest and worst neighbourhood in all of Spain arguably.

Zaragoza: South. The favoured quarter here is fairly clear. It starts just outside the old city, and goes south along Paseo de la Gran Vía.

Málaga: East. In the area immediately next to the city centre, there doesn't seem to be a clear pattern. However once you start getting to even slightly more peripheral neighbourhoods, the east gets very wealthy, very fast.

Murcia: North. Again a very clear one.

Palma de Mallorca: West. This is a weird one because the city centre is richer than any area surrounding it. However when you head east, you get to the poorest neighbourhoods and it never picks up from there. Meanwhile, when you head west there is a middle class area and then super rich suburbs.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: East. This is a very clear one. Las Palmas is a very mountainous town, and the coastal areas on the east are the ones that are very clearly richer than the inland ones. There is a rich strip all the way from Ciudad Jardín to the old city in Triana. Meanwhile, inland neighbourhoods on the hills and mountains are way poorer (Schamann, San Juan, Las Rehoyas, etc)

Bilbao: West. Bilbao is a weird one because the city centre does not coincide with the old town. In any case, the rich areas are to the west of the old town. (Abando, Indatxu)

So overall it is:

1 North
2 South
3 West
3 East
1 Unclear

So interestingly Spain doesn't really seem to have a preference of East vs West. I guess perhaps it is because Spain never really had much industry to begin with? (so the prevailing winds argument is much weaker).

What is interesting is that, although the PP obviously dominate such wealthy areas, Vox got a clear second place in many of them (of course except in Barcelona and Bilbao). They seem to be fairly unique among European far right parties in managing to win a decent amount of the traditional well-off conservative vote (their best areas though seem to be the Madrid exurbs (what is the income level of these?) and the coastal regions of Andalucia and Murcia). Would I be correct in suspecting that this anomaly among European nations is at least partially due to historical patterns of support for Francoism, and the more recent polarising debates on Catalan independence?