Urbandale is a medium-sized city located in the state of Iowa. With a population of 29,066 people and three constituent neighborhoods, Urbandale is the 14th largest community in Iowa.

Urbandale is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 87.88% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Urbandale is a city of sales and office workers, professionals, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Urbandale who work in office and administrative support jobs (17.34%), sales jobs (14.48%), and management occupations (12.23%).

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

Urbandale, while not large, also appears to be attractive to some younger, educated professionals, who help shape the character of the city.

In addition to being popular with young singles, Urbandale is also home to many people who can be described as "urban sophisticates." Urban sophisticates are educated, wealthy, executives and professionals, who have urbane tastes in books, food, and travel, whether they actually live in a big city, or choose to reside in a small town. In big or medium-sized cities, urban sophisticates tend to frequent art institutions such as opera, symphonies, ballet, live theatre, and museums.

One of the benefits of Urbandale is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 18.12 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.

Urbandale is a very car-oriented city. This is because most people - 97.7% - 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 Urbandale.

Being a small city, Urbandale does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.

Urbandale Information and Demographics

The population of Urbandale is very well educated relative to most cities and towns in the nation, where the average community has 14.96% of its adult population holding a 4-year degree or higher: 43.68% of adults in Urbandale have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in Urbandale in 2000 was $29,021, which is wealthy relative to Iowa and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $116,084 for a family of four. However, Urbandale contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

The people who call Urbandale home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Urbandale is White, followed by African-American. Important ancestries of people in Urbandale include German, Irish, English, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, and Italian.

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