Santa Barbara is a larger medium-sized coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of California. With a population of 87,291 people and 37 associated neighborhoods, Santa Barbara is the 91st largest community in California.
Santa Barbara home prices are not only among the most expensive in California, but Santa Barbara real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.
Also of interest is that Santa Barbara has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 18.88% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.
Another interesting thing about Santa Barbara, despite not being a huge city, is that there is a relatively high proportion of people living here who are young, single, and upwardly-mobile professionals. This makes it a good choice for other relocating single professionals. Here, these young singles will find many others like themselves, with opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.
One of the nice things about Santa Barbara is that it is nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go to these areas to take in the scenery or to enjoy waterfront activities.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Santa Barbara spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 17.85 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.
Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Santa Barbara, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Santa Barbara is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 51.93% of its adults having a college degree or even advanced degree, compared to a national average across all communities of 21.84%.
The per capita income in Santa Barbara in 2022 was $65,452, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $261,808 for a family of four. However, Santa Barbara contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Santa Barbara is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Santa Barbara home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Santa Barbara residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Santa Barbara also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 36.42% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Santa Barbara include English, German, Irish, Italian, and European.
Foreign born people are also an important part of Santa Barbara's cultural character, accounting for 19.88% of the city’s population.
The most common language spoken in Santa Barbara is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and German/Yiddish.