Palos Verdes Estates is a somewhat small coastal city (ie. on the ocean or tidally-influenced rivers) located in the state of California. With a population of 13,340 people and three constituent neighborhoods, Palos Verdes Estates is the 371st largest community in California.

Palos Verdes Estates is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 95.75% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Palos Verdes Estates is a city of managers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Palos Verdes Estates who work in management occupations (26.31%), sales jobs (14.72%), and healthcare (9.39%).

Of important note, Palos Verdes Estates is also a city of artists. Palos Verdes Estates has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Palos Verdes Estates's character.

One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their homes - 7.77% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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.

In addition, Palos Verdes Estates 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.

Because of many things, Palos Verdes Estates is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Palos Verdes Estates really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Palos Verdes Estates perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic night life, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.

One of the nice things about Palos Verdes Estates is that is it nautical, meaning that parts of the city are somewhat historic and on the ocean, or touch tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and tidal rivers. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go to these areas to take in the scenery or to enjoy waterfront activities.

One downside of living in Palos Verdes Estates is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Palos Verdes Estates, the average commute to work is 32.85 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.

Palos Verdes Estates is a very car-oriented city. This is because most people - 97.6% - drive by car to work every day, and few people choose alternative modes of transportation, such as public transit, cycling, or walking. In general, car-oriented communities have a layout that emphasizes streets, highways, and ease of parking, and sometimes this can be to the detriment of human-scale priorities such as walkability alongside roads, and public spaces. For example, strip malls are something you will find in Palos Verdes Estates.

As is often the case in a small city, Palos Verdes Estates doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.

Palos Verdes Estates Information and Demographics

If knowledge is power, Palos Verdes Estates is a pretty powerful place. 70.85% of the adults in Palos Verdes Estates have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 14.96% for all cities and towns.

The per capita income in Palos Verdes Estates in 2000 was $69,040, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $276,160 for a family of four. However, Palos Verdes Estates contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Palos Verdes Estates is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Palos Verdes Estates home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Palos Verdes Estates is White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Palos Verdes Estates include English, German, Irish, Italian, Scottish, and Russian.

In addition, Palos Verdes Estates has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (19.03%).

The languages spoken by people in Palos Verdes Estates are also diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in Palos Verdes Estates is English. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Korean.