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 86,499 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: 17.03% 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.

One thing that you will notice about Santa Barbara is that there is a good-sized population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile career starters. Many singles consider Santa Barbara a good place to live without being in a really big city, with opportunities for friendships and fun with others like themselves.

Santa Barbara is also nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Quite often, nautical areas such as these attract visitors and locals who come to enjoy the scenery and various 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 17.83 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.

If knowledge is power, Santa Barbara is a pretty powerful place. 50.23% of the adults in Santa Barbara have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns.

The per capita income in Santa Barbara in 2022 was $62,921, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $251,684 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 36.79% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Santa Barbara include German, English, Irish, Italian, and European.

In addition, Santa Barbara has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (20.43%).

The most common language spoken in Santa Barbara is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and German/Yiddish.