Goleta is a larger medium-sized coastal town (ie. on the ocean or tidally-influenced rivers) located in the state of California. With a population of 55,367 people and nine constituent neighborhoods, Goleta is the 137th largest community in California.

Goleta is neither predominently blue-collar or white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Goleta is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Goleta who work in office and administrative support jobs (14.25%), management occupations (10.79%), and sales jobs (9.83%).

Also of interest is that Goleta has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

Goleta is also a college town, where lots of students live while attending area colleges. Because of the high percentage of people living in Goleta enrolled in college, Goleta has a number of services, amenities and opportunities geared towards the needs and activities of students.

In addition, Goleta is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates." Urban sophisticates are people who are both educated and wealthy, and thus tend to be older, richer, and more established than young professionals. "Urban sophisticates" is not just about being educated and well-off financially: it is a point of view and state of mind, one that you might call 'urbaneness.' But such people can and do regularly live in small towns, suburbs and rural areas, as well as in big cities. They read, support the arts and high-end shops, and love travel.

The town is also nautical, which means that parts of Goleta are somewhat historic and bounded by the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and tidal rivers. Such areas are often places that visitors and locals go for waterfront activities or taking in the scenery.

One of the benefits of Goleta is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 16.20 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result.

Goleta is a decent-sized town, yet no one gets to work using public transit, because the town has no real transit system.

Goleta Information and Demographics

The education level of Goleta citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (14.96%): 39.02% of adults in Goleta have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in Goleta in 2000 was $28,890, which is upper middle income relative to California, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $115,560 for a family of four. However, Goleta contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Goleta is a very ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Goleta home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Goleta is White, followed by Asian. Goleta also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 22.46% of the town's residents. Important ancestries of people in Goleta include German, English, Irish, Italian, and French.

Goleta also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 17.80%.

The most common language spoken in Goleta is English. Some people also speak Spanish.