Unlike many other metro areas across the nation, the wealthiest ZIP codes in Portland are not concentrated in exclusive suburbs ringing the city, nor are they focused in hoity-toity districts within the heights and historic sections of Portland.
They are literally all over the map, from the inner city to corporate suburbs to scenic forested and agricultural parts of the metro area. Our ranking was calculated with the five-year version of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2017 American Community Survey, which was just released in December and gathered by American City Business Journal's national research team.
ZIP codes with fewer than 2,500 residents or incomplete data sets were excluded.
Six factors were equally weighted to determine the ranking:
- Percentage of household incomes of $200,000 or more
- Median household income
- Per capita income
- Median home value of owner-occupied residences
- Percentage of residents with management, business, science and arts occupations
- Population in 2017
We simply totaled the ranks for each of these criteria to obtain a score, then re-ranked from lowest to highest score. Population was factored in to prevent small-population ZIP codes from exerting an advantage over the more populous ZIP codes.
The population of all 87 ZIP codes measured in the Portland region was 2.2 million in 2017.
Looking at a few of the wealth factors, the lowest household income was reported right downtown in 97205 at $32,276, while the highest was in Lake Oswego's, 97034 at $118,566. However, highest per capita income was in Northwest Portland's 97210 at $75,997, likewise touting the highest owner-occupied home value of $707,700. Lowest per capita income of just $17,027 was in East Portland and Gresham's 97233, which also had the lowest owner-occupied home value of $193,400.
The area with the highest share of workers in management, business, science and arts was Southwest Portland's 97239 at 69 percent, while the lowest was again Eastside's 97233 at 20.4 percent.
