Palm Desert, California

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Area
City of Palm Desert, California

Country	United States
State	California
County	Riverside
Mayor	Jim Ferguson
- City	63.7 km²
- Land	63.1 km²
- Water	0.6 km²
Population
- City (2000)	41,155
- Density	625.0/km²
Time zone	PST (UTC-8)
- Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC-7)
Website: http://www.ci.palmdesert.ca.us/

Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, in the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs area), approximately 11 miles east of Palm Springs in the Coachella Valley. The population was 41,155 at the 2000 census. Other cites in the Coachella Valley are Cathedral City, Coachella, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta, Palm Springs, and Rancho Mirage. The city was one of the state's fastest growing in the 1980's and 1990's, began with 11,801 in 1980 to doubled to 23,650 in 1990 to doubled again to 35,000 in five years.

A major center of growth in the Palm Springs area, it was a popular retreat for "snowbirds" from colder climates (the Eastern and Northern US, and Canada), who swell its population by an estimated 31,000 each winter, but in the past couple of years Palm Desert has seen more residents become "full-timers" (mainly from California came for affordable but high-valued home prices) who now live in the city year-round. Palm Desert may have 75,000 to 85,000 at January 1st as the "season" peaks and decreases by half at July 1st as the hot desert summer comes by. Palm Desert is still viewed as a socio-politically conservative bastion, but shifted to a more liberal socio-political/cultural environment in the late 1990's.

1 History
2 Education
3 Culture
4 Geography
5 Demographics
6 Sister cities
7 Points of interest
8 External links

[edit] History

The area was first known as the Old MacDonald Ranch, then Palm Village in the 1920s when date palms were planted. The first residential development occurred in 1943 in connection with an Army maintenance camp in the area. That site was later developed into "El Paseo," an upscale shopping district not unlike Rodeo Drive. In 1948, the Palm Desert Corporation began to develop real estate, and in 1951 the area was given its present name. Many celebrities keep homes in Palm Desert, including Rita Rudner and more recently, the current home of teenage pro golfer Michelle Wie and one of the homes of Bill Gates. The community was incorporated November 26, 1973 when it only had 1,500 permanent residents in a master-planned community covered with desert, from Palm Springs to Indio at the time.

Palm Desert once served as a training ground for General George Patton's Third Army troops and tank battalions. After world war II, Clifford Henderson, a L.A.-based developer made the sold land into his dreamed community "Palm Village" in 1946, but that name was changed to "Palm Desert" in 1950. The first golf course/tennis club was Shadow Mountain in 1952, followed by Marrakesh in 1954, and the Palm Desert Country Club in 1961 located five miles east, was formally annexed by the city in 1992, is once again a trendy gem of the "world's golf capital". The city developed a major shopping area when the Palm Desert Town Center (now the Westfield Shoppingtown-Palm Desert) opened in 1983.

The rapid growth and several annexations in the 1980's/1990's has made Palm Desert to the main center of business activity in the Coachella Valley, although Indio is the most populous city at 75,000 in 2005, is the home of the majority of Palm Desert's employees who come to work daily or seasonally.

[edit] Education

Palm Desert is the home of the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, a combination zoo and botanical garden featuring an extensive collection of desert plants and animals. It is also the site of the campus of College of the Desert, the local community college, as well as an extension campuses for both California State University, San Bernardino and the University of California Riverside. Its main High School is Palm Desert High School (with 2500 students) and its main Middle School (with 1600 students) is Palm Desert Middle School.

[edit] Culture

As the home of the pioneering band Kyuss and its successor group Queens of the Stone Age, the Palm Desert Scene is considered one of the cradles of the stoner rock movement. Palm Desert, alike Palm Springs got its' nickname "Boomertown" to indicate the baby boom generation, an aging mega-group in America, are moving in Palm Desert with its' subculture to make a new trend: Baby-boom majority cities way over half the local population. Palm Desert remains a recreational mecca for golfers, tennis players, water sports, hikers and bicyclists.

[edit] Geography

Palm Desert is located at 33°43′32″N, 116°22′10″W (33.725542, -116.369444)^GR1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 63.7 km² (24.6 mi²). 63.1 km² (24.4 mi²) of it is land and 0.6 km² (0.2 mi²) of it (1.02%) is water.

The elevation (City hall) is 250 feet (80 meters) above sea level.

Sun City Palm Desert, California lies on the northern side of Interstate 10 from Palm Desert itself, but is unincorporated and not part of the City of Palm Desert (the original name was Sun City Palm Springs from 1991 to 1996).

[edit] Demographics

As of the census^GR2 of 2000, there were 41,155 people, 19,184 households, and 11,414 families residing in the city. The population density was 652.0/km² (1,689.1/mi²). There were 28,021 housing units at an average density of 443.9/km² (1,150.0/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 86.84% White, 1.20% African American, 0.45% Native American, 2.57% Asian, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 6.48% from other races, and 2.36% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 17.08% of the population.

The global appeal of Palm Desert as the "place to be" for tourists has made it home to thousands of retired Canadians, Europeans, and Australians, but Palm Desert isn't entirely homogeneous: affluent African-Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans moved to this formerly "all-white" city. There are many persons of Armenian, German, Italian, Polish, Swedish and Jewish ancestry from Europe or the US. Other groups include Arab Americans, Mexican Americans and Japanese Americans.

There were 19,184 households out of which 18.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.5% were married couples living together, 7.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.5% were non-families. 32.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.13 and the average family size was 2.67. The demographics of Palm Desert shows otherwise a rising population of children and young adults.

In the city the population was spread out with 17.3% under the age of 18, 6.2% from 18 to 24, 22.7% from 25 to 44, 26.3% from 45 to 64, and 27.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 48 years. For every 100 females there were 92.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.7 males. Palm Desert with the rest of the Coachella Valley has a large senior citizen (over age of 55) community, most of them have annual personal incomes exceeding well over $100,000.

The median income for a household in the city was $48,316, and the median income for a family was $58,183. Males had a median income of $42,257 versus $32,202 for females. The per capita income for the city was $33,463. About 5.9% of families and 9.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12.1% of those under age 18 and 4.3% of those age 65 or over. Palm Desert is considered an upper-class community in terms of above average incomes for both California and the nation.