2. San Francisco, California: more than $193,354
• How much money it takes to be in the top 1% in California: $453,772
• Median income in San Francisco: $96,677
• Metro-area population: 4.7 million

Currently an Alpha world city, San Francisco is a historic American city which came to prominence in the United States during the California gold rush of the late 1840s and early 1850s. At that time it established itself as an enduring financial powerhouse of the West Coast, with many calling Montgomery Street in its financial district “the Wall Street of the West.” Technology has been the greatest driver of economic growth in San Francisco in recent years, with high tech jobs making up only 1 percent of San Francisco’s job market in 1990, quadrupling to 4 percent over the next two decades by 2010, and rapidly doubling to 8 percent of the city’s economy by 2013. The San Francisco Bay Area is the global epicenter of Internet start-ups, dot coms, and social media giants.