Chesco towns are among the Philly area’s wealthiest, but big Bucks County is making gains

It abuts an internationally famous garden. It may well be the most affluent community in the nation that hosts a prison, a source of some unwanted attention a few years back.

And, according to recently released U.S. Census data, picturesque Pocopson Township is in a rarified zone for wealth in the eight-county Philadelphia region, with an annual median household income of $230,000.

Chester County towns dominated the top 50 list in an analysis of incomes in the region’s municipalities — compiled from self-reported American Community Survey data — calculated for the five-year period that ended in 2024.

But the analysis also showed that not only has Bucks County been gaining star power, some of its towns may merit the label “Big Bucks County.”

Legendary locale New Hope and neighboring Solebury — places associated with Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alumna Yolanda Hadid and actor Bradley Cooper — are among the towns that have made significant moves up the income chart, compared with the five-year period that ended in 2014.

Inflation-adjusted median annual incomes jumped 58% in New Hope, to $175,000. Incomes were up nearly 30% in Solebury, to $196,000, among the highest in the region.

The national median income was around $80,000, according to census figures.

Income figures are estimates, rounded to the nearest hundred, and are subject to margins of error. A total of 286 municipalities were included in the analysis; those with fewer than 2,500 residents were excluded. Here are some key findings.

Chester County towns held six of the top 10 spots, including Birmingham, adjacent to Pocopson.

The county evidently is rich in an amenity attractive to the wealthy — and to others.

“Chester County has been a leader in terms of the amount of land preserved,” said Andrew Svekla, Office of Smart Growth manager with the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. “The availability of open space is an amenity that everyone is looking for.”

While the natural environment is an understandable attraction, not everyone who spends time in Pocopson comes for the green space: The Chester County Prison has been a mainstay in the township since 1959.

In August 2023, Pocopson and Longwood Gardens became international news when inmate Danilo Cavalcante escaped and set off a two-week investigative frenzy that mutated into a massive exercise of Where’s Danilo? He was eventually captured while hiding in Longwood.

Otherwise, the likes of Pocopson and Birmingham have not exactly been centers of media attention, and the towns even have avoided the development-vs.-open-space conflicts that have erupted elsewhere, said Matthew J. Edmond, executive director of the Chester County Planning Commission.

“They aren’t in the path of growth,” he said. “These areas are off the beaten path.” The residents represent a mix of old and new money, he said.

He likened Chester County to a macro-version of Lower Merion Township, where neighborhoods vary from ultra-wealthy Gladwyne to the middle-class sections of Ardmore.

While overall the county has the highest median income in the state, “when you get down to the granular level, it’s a very diverse county,” he said.

The overall picture of wealth in the eight-county region was quite a diverse one in the census survey, raging from Pocopson’s median income to the $40,000 levels of Camden, the City of Chester, and Darby Borough.

But the preponderance of the higher incomes clearly were west of the Delaware River.

Jersey’s wealthier municipalities tend to be clustered in the New York metro area, Svekla said, and only six were on the top 50 list in the Philly region. They included Camden County’s Haddonfield, with a median income of $200,500, and Moorestown, at $160,000 and a favorite of professional athletes. They include ex-Phillie Nick Castellanos, onetime 76er Ben Simmons, Flyers legend Bobby Clarke, and former Eagle Terrell Owens, who famously drew media attention by doing push-ups on his driveway.

It also is the home of Kevin Patullo, the Eagles’ former offensive coordinator whose house was pelted with eggs in October after one of the team’s lackluster performances.

Haddon Heights and Haddon Township did not join Haddonfield in the top 50 but were high on the list of towns where incomes had grown substantially in the last 10 years.

Other places that experienced substantial paycheck bumps in the last 10 years included the Blue Route towns of Conshohocken and West Conshohocken. Both are close to I-476 interchanges and have experienced growth spurts in population and wealth since the highway connecting the Pennsylvania Turnpike to I-95 opened in the 1990s.

Led by Chester County, population increased in all eight counties between the 2010 and 2020 census counts. “We’re growing mainly due to international immigration,“ said Greg Diebold, the Delaware Valley planning commission’s senior data analyst.

“Bucks has been one of the slower-growing counties,” he said, having added only about 4% to its population between 2010 and 2020.

In terms of median-income growth over the last 10 years, however, it had seven municipalities in the top 20, more than any other county.

One Delaware County town, Upland Borough, adjacent to the City of Chester and location of part of the closed Crozer-Chester Medical Center, made the biggest-growth list with incomes up more than 40% to $61,000.

Bankrupt Chester itself, with one of Pennsylvania’s highest poverty rates, reported a 10% gain, to $41,000.

However, half of the 10 towns where incomes decreased the most were in Delaware County.

Speaking to the region’s overall prosperity, fewer than 25% of the 286 towns showed drops in income in the period that ended in 2024, compared with the five-year period that ended in 2014.

And only 20% this time around reported incomes below the national median.