Chapter 9

Culture

Santa Barbara contains numerous performing art venues, including the 2,000 seat Arlington Theatre, the largest indoor performance venue in Santa Barbara; the Lobero Theatre, a historic building and favorite venue for small concerts; the Granada Theater, the tallest building downtown, originally built by contractor C.M. Urton in 1920, but with the theatre remodeled and reopened in March 2008; and the Santa Barbara Bowl, a 4,562 seat amphitheatre used for outdoor concerts, nestled in a picturesque canyon northwest of Santa Barbara at the base of the Riviera.

The city is considered a haven for classical music lovers with a symphony orchestra and many non-profit classical music groups (such as CAMA). The Music Academy of the West, located in Montecito, hosts an annual music festival in the summer, drawing renowned students and professionals. Current event listings can be found at Santa Barbara Performing Arts League.

Chapter 8

History of Santa Barbara

The History of Santa Barbara, California begins approximately 13,000 years ago with the arrival of the first Native Americans. The Spanish came in the 18th century to occupy and Christianize the area, which became part of Mexico following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, the expanding United States acquired the town along with the rest of California as a result of defeating Mexico in the Mexican-American War. Santa Barbara transformed then from a dusty cluster of adobes into successively a rowdy, lawless Gold Rush era town; a Victorian-era health resort; a center of silent film production; an oil boom town; a town supporting a military base and hospital during World War II; and finally it became the economically diverse resort destination it remains in the present day. Twice destroyed by earthquakes, in 1812 and 1925, it most recently has rebuilt itself in a Spanish Colonial style.

Pre-History

The area along the Santa Barbara Channel, both near the city of Santa Barbara and on the Channel Islands, has been continuously inhabited by the Chumash Indians and their ancestors for at least 13,000 years; the oldest human skeleton yet found in North America, ArlingtonSprings Man, was unearthed on Santa Rosa Island, approximately 30 miles (48 km) from downtown Santa Barbara. In more recent pre-Columbian times the natives had many villages along the shore, at least one of which (on present-day Mescalitan Island) had over a thousand inhabitants in the 16th century. They were peaceful hunter-gatherers, living on the region's abundant natural resources, and navigating the ocean in tomols, craft closely related to those used by Polynesians.

Chapter 5

According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the gross value of Santa Barbara County's agricultural production was more than $739 million in 2000, ranking it 14th among the state's 58 counties

Santa Barbara's Agricultural Report
http://www.countyofsb.org/agcomm/cropRpt/2007.pdf

When the importance of Agriculture was recognized

The Victorian Period After the Civil War, the face of Santa Barbara began to change. Victorian houses soon outnumbered Spanish Colonials. Shipping grew in prominance, as goods and people from the East began pouring in through the small, but growing, port. This begins a period of great experimentation. Agriculture becomes more important as people realize that just about anything planted grows here

Chapter 4

Pace of Urbanization

The pace of urbanization in Santa Barbara County from 1998-2000 increased compared to 1996-98, and a significant amount of new cultivated land – primarily vineyards but also some row crops – was created, according to a map released today by the California Department of Conservation.

The county reports that 1,062 acres – including 775 acres of farmland – have been committed to non-agricultural use in the future. Often, this is land earmarked for development. In some cases infrastructure development, such as sewer installation, may be underway.

There are 4,536 more acres of urbanized land in Santa Barbara County now than there were in 1990. However, there are also 8,321 more cultivated acres. Most of that has come from the conversion of grazing land. During the 1998-2000 mapping cycle, 5,404 new acres of cultivated land were created.

Of the 1,039,816 acres in Santa Barbara County, 13 percent are farmland, 56 percent are grazing land, 6 percent are urban land and 24 percent are “other” land – a category that includes wetlands, low-density “ranchettes” and brush or timberlands unsuitable for grazing from 1998-2000. The remainder is water area.

Transportation

Transportation Santa Barbara is bisected by U.S.Route 101, a primary transportation corridor that links the city to the rest of the Central Coast region. The Santa Barbara Airport offers commercial air service. Amtrak offers rail service through the Coast Starlight and Pacific Surfliner trains at the train station on State Street. The Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District (MTD) provides local bus service across the city, and Greyhound bus stations are located downtown and in nearby Goleta. Electric shuttles operated by MTD ferry tourists and shoppers up and down lower State Street and to the wharf.

Chapter 3

Demographics

According to the 2000 census, there were 92,325 people*, 35,605 households, and 18,941 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,865.3 people per square mile (1,878.1/km²). There were 37,076 housing units at an average density of 1,953.8/sq mi (754.2/km²).

Chapter 2

Physical Environment

The architectural image of Santa Barbara is the Spanish Colonial Revival style of architecture adopted by city leaders after the 1925 earthquake destroyed much of the downtown commercial district. The domestic architecture of Santa Barbara is predominantly California bungalows built in the early decades of the 20th century, with many Victorian homes adorning the "Upper East" and Spanish style homes designed by well known California architects in Santa Barbara and on estates in Montecito and Hope Ranch. The city has passed ordinances against billboards and regulates outdoor advertising, so the city is relatively free of advertising clutter.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 41.4 square miles (107.3 km²), of which, 19.0 square miles (49.2 km²) of it is land and 22.4 square miles (58.1 km²) of it (54.17%) is water. The high official figures for water is due to the city limit extending into the ocean, including a strip of city reaching out into the sea and inland again to keep the Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) within the city boundary.

Climate

Santa Barbara is a city in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the only such section on the west coast, between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the sea, and having a Mediterranean climate, it is called California's "South Coast", and is also sometimes referred to casually as the "American Riviera." As of the census of 2000, the city had a population of 92,325 while the contiguous urban area, which includes the cities of Goleta and Carpinteria, along with the unincorporated regions of Isla Vista, Montecito, Mission Canyon, Hope Ranch, Summerland, and others, had an approximate population of 200,000.

By the early 1890s Santa Barbara had established its preeminence as a place to live and as a place to winter. The 1893 Baedekers referred to the city as the "American Mentone" and went on to note "It has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most attractive winter resorts in California, due to its mild, dry and equable climate, the beauty of its surroundings, the luxuriance of its roses and other flowers, the excellent bathing beach, and its pleasant society." Santa Barbara enjoyed an equally impressive reputation during the early decades of the nineteenth century when, along with Monterey to the north, it was the most important of the Spanish and later Mexican bastions in California.

A mild climate, and a superb setting, are impressive assets for any place-but these qualities account only in part for the positive aura that the name Santa Barbara has continued to evoke for well over a hundred years. The other ingredient revolves around what man has or has not done to a specific physical environment. The really unique aspect of Santa Barbara and its environs is that man's manipulation of this place has (on the whole) enhanced rather than devastated it-and this has been true from the very beginning.

Chapter 1

Interesting Facts about Santa Barbara.....the most beautiful place on EARTH!

Santa Barbara is located about 90 miles (140 km) WNW of Los Angeles, along the Pacific coast. This stretch of coast along southern Santa Barbara County is often referred to as the "American Riviera" because its geography and Mediterranean climate are reminscent of the French and Italian Riviera coastline along the Mediterranean. The Santa Ynez Mountains, an east-west trending range, rise dramatically behind the city, with several peaks exceeding 4,000 feet (1,200 m).

By the early 1890s Santa Barbara had established its preeminence as a place to live and as a place to winter. The 1893 Baedekers referred to the city as the "American Mentone" and went on to note "It has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most attractive winter resorts in California, due to its mild, dry and equable climate, the beauty of its surroundings, the luxuriance of its roses and other flowers, the excellent bathing beach, and its pleasant society." Santa Barbara enjoyed an equally impressive reputation during the early decades of the nineteenth century when, along with Monterey to the north, it was the most important of the Spanish later Mexican bastions in California.