1) Like Grandpa Potts of “Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang”, it’s the “Posh Life” for the Church…

2) The Church’s property arm is a major player in the real estate business. Of necessity to get sites for future meetinghouses, stake centers, institutes, seminaries, and, of course, temples, it’s a buyer and seller of properties, which that business pays taxes and is regulated like any other real estate entity.

3) Since most Church facilities, especially temples, are long-term investments, the trends in member locations has to be projected. A temple in a more ‘ritzy’ area, where the neighbors already have incentive to maintain the property values, is less risky. Plus, the land may have been acquired by the Church decades ago, so that capital investment by today’s standards is likely a pittance.

4) At times, the Temple itself factors into the ‘gentrification’ of an area…that is, older members, with some money built up over the years, tend to prefer closeness to a temple, other things considered. Market demand stimulated by LDS member interest can influence property values decidedly upward.

The New Zealand Temple is surrounded by fields covered by grazing cattle. There is a need to build these building in an area which will not become a run down area of town over a long period of time. Brent Wood

this is sometimes the case and nice that people can provide a couple of examples. Still the majority of modern temples are build in wealthy neighborhoods across the globe.

Explain Washington DC or Las Vegas, neither are located at the center of where members live in the area, they are both at the center of some of the most wealthy. Chicago, Atlanta, Newport Beach, Fort Collins, Denver, DC, Oakland, San Diego, Louisville, Indianapolis, etc. for just a few examples are all built in extremely wealthy areas where the majority of the members in those districts do not live very close (in the same neighborhoods) to these temples.

Sometimes this is true. So what your saying is the Temples sit on donated land and not inspired locations selected by the Prophets as directed from the Lord? Which is it? because if it’s mostly on donated land from wealthy members it confirms the question rather than validating Gramps answer.

Accept when built Manti was to be a key center for the church but plans changed. Siting one or two examples hardly makes up for the fact that most temples built in the last 40 years have been built in highly affluent neighborhoods.

Gramps comments about Africa or Mexico were frankly lame. There are certainly wealthy neighborhoods, areas and towns for that matter in both these places. Its like claiming California is poor because it have farm country in and inner-city poor neighborhoods while ignoring that much of CA. Is among the most expensive places to live in the nation (and happen to have temples in them) Oakland, New Port beach, LA, San Diego.