Economy & Demographics

The economy of the city owes a lot to agriculture and there are many wineries, vineyards and winemakers in the area, as this is part of the wine country of Santa Barbara and the wine country of Edna Valley.

The areas used for agriculture here are some of the best in the state of California and the main crops are wine grapes, strawberries, lettuce, celery, squash, peas, spinach, beans, broccoli and cauliflower. There are also a lot of cattle ranchers in the area.

Lately, there are a number of additional industries which appeared here and those included high tech development and research, communications, aerospace, military operations, energy production and manufacturing.

Demographics

During the census from the year 2000, it was revealed that the city has 77,000 people, living in 22, 000 households, with 16,000 families in them. The density of the population is 4000 people for each sq. mile. The number of housing units is 1181 for each sq. mile. The race makeup of this city is 66% White, 4.7% Asian, 2% African American and 2% Native Americans. The Latino population was around 47%.

42% of the 22,000 households had kids that were less than 18 years old, 56% of the households had couples that were married, 24% had non families and 13% had females without a husband inside. The average size of a family from this city is 3.85.

31% of the city’s population has less than 18 years, 11% is between 18 years and 24 years old, 30% are from 25 years to 44 years, 16% are between 45 and 64 and 11% were older than 65 years. The city’s median age is around 29 years. There are a bit more males than females in the city, with a ratio of 103 males to 100 females.