Isla Vista is an unincorporated community in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, it had a population of 18,344.
It is a census-designated place and beachside community west of the University of California, Santa Barbara, on a flat plateau about 30 feet in elevation, separated from the beach by a bluff. Many paths connect the town to the beach.
Isla Vista enjoys a Mediterranean climate and often has slightly less precipitation than either Santa Barbara or the adjacent community of Goleta. Isla Vista is located on a south-facing portion of the Santa Barbara County coast, between two small peninsulas, Coal Oil Point and Campus Point, in view of the Channel Islands. During El Niño years, precipitation in Isla Vista can be excessive and potentially dangerous. Some homes and apartments built on the south side of Del Playa, most popular with students due to their direct ocean views, are in danger of collapse, since they are built on quickly-eroding bluffs thirty to sixty feet above the relentless Pacific Ocean. Recent erosion has exposed foundation supports in several of the properties closest to the university campus.
Isla Vista is one of the higher-priced housing markets on the south coast of Santa Barbara county, which has some of the highest housing prices in the United States (the mean home price in Santa Barbara, ten miles east, passed $1,000,000 in June 2004); this situation has resulted in the student population sharing densely packed housing with a very poor working Hispanic population. Since Isla Vista has not been annexed by either Goleta or Santa Barbara, remaining unincorporated, only County funds are available for civic projects.
In the recent incorporation of Goleta, inland to the north and up the coast to the west, Isla Vista was deliberately excluded. No official reason for the drawing of the Goleta boundaries was given.
Isla Vista is also home to one of the most successful housing cooperatives in the State of California, the Santa Barbara Student Housing Coop. There is also a food cooperative, the Isla Vista Food Co-op.
|
