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.

A relatively large number of people in Santa Barbara telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 17.03% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. 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 noticeable about Santa Barbara, although not a huge city, is that it has a large population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile career starters. That’s because Santa Barbara is full of single people in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting careers in professional occupations. This makes Santa Barbara a pretty good place for young, educated career starters looking to find many people like themselves, with good opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.

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.

Residents of the city have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 17.83 minutes getting to work every day.

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.