10 Most Expensive Places To Live In Pennsylvania For 2019

The 10 Most Expensive Places To Live In Pennsylvania For 2019

1. State College

State College is a home rule municipality in Centre County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the largest designated borough in Pennsylvania. It is the principal borough of the six municipalities that make up the State College Metropolitan Statistical Area, the largest settlement in Centre County and one of the principal cities of the greater State College-DuBois Combined Statistical Area with a combined population of 236,577 as of the 2010 United States Census. In the 2010 census, the borough population was 42,034 with approximately 105,000 living in the borough plus the surrounding townships often referred to locally as the “Centre Region.” Many of these Centre Region communities also carry a “State College, PA” address although are not part of the borough of State College.

The median income in State College comes in at $33,735 and the median home value is $284,300 for 2019.

2. West Chester

West Chester is a borough and the county seat of Chester County, Pennsylvania, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The population was 18,461 at the 2010 census.

The median income in West Chester comes in at $55,313 and the median home value is $338,800 for 2019.

3. Gettysburg

Gettysburg is a borough and the county seat of Adams County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The Battle of Gettysburg and President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address are named for this town. The town hosts visitors to the Gettysburg National Battlefield in the Gettysburg National Military Park. As of the 2010 census, the borough had a population of 7,620 people.

The median income in Gettysburg comes in at $37,274 and the median home value is $224,300 for 2019.

4. Millersville

Millersville is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 7,774.

The median income in Millersville comes in at $41,076 and the median home value is $161,200 for 2019.

5. Stroudsburg

Stroudsburg is a borough in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is in the state’s Poconos region, approximately five miles from the Delaware Water Gap, at the confluence of the Brodhead, McMichaels and Pocono Creeks. It is in northeastern Pennsylvania. It is also the county seat of Monroe County. Stroudsburg is part of the East Stroudsburg, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in turn is part of the New York combined statistical area.

The median income in Stroudsburg comes in at $31,207 and the median home value is $154,100 for 2019.

6. Bristol

Bristol is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 23 miles northeast of Center City Philadelphia, opposite Burlington, New Jersey on the Delaware River. Bristol was first incorporated in 1720. After 1834, the town became very important to the development of the American Industrial Revolution as the terminus city of the Delaware Canal providing greater Philadelphia with the days High Tech Anthracite fuels from the Lehigh Canal via Easton. The canal and a short trip on the Delaware also gave the town access to the mineral resources available in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York via each of the Morris Canal, the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and the Delaware and Raritan Canal, and connected the community to those markets and trade from New York City. These were among the factors spurring development of Bristol and nearby towns, explaining in part the industries which developed in the region.

The median income in Bristol comes in at $47,039 and the median home value is $181,400 for 2019.

7. Edinboro

Edinboro is a borough in Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Erie Metropolitan Statistical Area. As home to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, it is a small college town, as well as a resort community. The population was 6,438 at the 2010 census, down from 6,950 at the 2000 census.

The median income in Edinboro comes in at $38,214 and the median home value is $157,500 for 2019.

8. Phoenixville

Phoenixville is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States, 28 miles northwest of Philadelphia, at the junction of French Creek with the Schuylkill River. It is located in the Philadelphia Metro Area. The population is 16,440 as of the 2010 Census.

The median income in Phoenixville comes in at $60,006 and the median home value is $222,400 for 2019.

9. Shippensburg

Shippensburg is a borough in Cumberland and Franklin counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Settled in 1730, Shippensburg lies in the Cumberland Valley, 41 miles southwest of Harrisburg, and is part of the Harrisburg-Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,492 at the 2010 census. Of this, 4,416 were in Cumberland County, and 1,076 were in Franklin County.

The median income in Shippensburg comes in at $32,429 and the median home value is $142,700 for 2019.

10. Conshohocken

The median income in Conshohocken comes in at $81,814 and the median home value is $281,700 for 2019.

How We Determined The Most Expensive Places To Live In The Keystone State For 2019

The two most important things to think about when it comes to being able to afford if you can live comes down to:

1. How much do money do I make?
2. How much do I have spend to live there?

You need to understand your costs in the context of how much money you make.

For example, if the median household earns $100,000 and spends $40,000 on housing it’s actually cheaper to live there than a place with a median income of $50,000 and housing costs of $21,000. You might spend more on housing, but you have more money overall to play with.

With that example in mind, we derived several statistics from the latest Census American Community Survey 2013-2017 around incomes and costs. They are:

• Median Home Price / Median Income (lower is better)
• Median Income / Median Rent (Higher is better)
• Median Home Price

We added simply median home price because high home prices generally correlate with higher expenses for all costs related to homes (heating, electricity, etc).

You can then compare these metrics in each of the places in Pennsylvania to figure out which is the most expensive.

What you are left with is a “Cost of Living Index” by taking the average rank of each of these metrics for each city.

So we used that cost of living index in order to rank all of the 186 places in Pennsylvania that have more than 5,000 people.

The place with the highest cost of living in Pennsylvania according to the data is State College.