You might expect neighbourhoods with a combined income of more than $1 billion to be exclusive havens of the super-rich. But it turns out Sydney has 41 of them.
Mosman, on the city's lower north shore, has Australia's highest combined neighbourhood income – a cool $2.71 billion in 2012-13. Not far behind was Double Bay-Bellevue Hill with collective earnings of $2.46 billion.
Port Jackson is ringed by billion-dollar neighbourhoods but new local area income figures show that club is not confined to the harbour-front.
A swag of localities in the eastern suburbs, north shore and northern beaches were represented along with several water-front suburbs in Sydney's south including Cronulla and Caringbah-Lilli Pilli.
In the inner-west, Leichhardt-Annandale, Balmain and Strathfield all had combined incomes of more than $1 billion. Three neighbourhoods in Sydney's fast-growing north-west region also made the list - Castle Hill, Kellyville and Parklea-Kellyville Ridge.
The Bureau of Statistics' newly released Estimates of Personal income for Small Areas calculated the combined earnings in small localities called "Statistical Area Level 2" in 20112-13. These statistical areas are sometimes identical to suburbs but often combine two or three adjacent suburbs depending on their populations. The bureau says these statistical areas represent a "community that interacts together socially and economically". They vary in population but average about 10,000 people each.
Australia had 64 of these local statistical areas with a combined income of more than $1 billion in 2012-13 and nearly two-thirds of them were in Sydney.
But the figures also revealed major income disparities across the metropolitan area. An area around Fairfield-Cabramatta in Sydney's south-west with a comparable number of earners to Mosman had less than one-third of its combined income. It was a similar story in the Busby-Miller-Bonnyrigg neighbourhood near Liverpool – there, 17,877 earners had a combined income of $868.7 million in 2012-13 while a comparable number of earners in Mosman had a combined income of $2.71 billion.
The bureau's estimates of personal income for small areas also showed Sydney is Australia's most unequal major city with 11.5 per cent of all income accruing to the top 1 per cent of earners in 2012-13. The top 10 per cent of the city's earners accounted for 36.2 per cent of the city's income compared with 33.7 per cent nationally.
The Rose Bay-Vaucluse-Watsons Bay area had Sydney's highest average annual income of $159,029 - almost $95,000 more than the city-wide average. Double Bay-Bellevue Hill had the second highest average income of $144,356. Bellevue Hill also has Sydney's highest median house price of $4.1 million, according to Domain Group data.
Balmain, a suburb known for its working class history, had the city's highest median income of $72,591 followed by Lilyfield-Rozelle ($69,029) and St Leonards-Naremburn ($68,476). Almost half of all income earners in Balmain receive $75,000 or more per year.
The median income, which shows the midpoint when all earners are ranked in ascending order, is less affected by extremes and therefore more reflective of typical incomes. The median income in Greater Sydney was $47,281, somewhat higher than the national median of $44,940.
The bureau said its small area personal income estimates did not include tax-free income, including some income streams from superannuation. Government pensions and allowances were also excluded.
