West Beach

West Beach in Santa Barbara is home to Santa Barbara City College—the local community colleg--and to the moderately well-known West Beach Music Festival. Santa Barbara City College, to begin, is more than just your regular community college. It really doesn’t have the feel of a community college at all. From its beach side location to the active nature of the students, you feel more like you are at a regular four year college than just your average 2-year. (There is definitely nothing “junior” about this college.)

The West Beach Music Festival is also a pretty good event. Happening right at the end of summer as people are just getting into the swing of things at school. Last year’s festival featured Rebelution, UB 40 and Bright Lights among others. It is a very Santa Barbara event.

Homes to the west of campus are pretty standard California fair: Ranch houses dating from the 1950’s for the most part. The streets are leafy and nice in a modest sort of way. It’s a good mix of students, young families and some older residents around here. With the beach so close, it should be prime territory for developers but the proximity of the college keeps them from rebuilding the whole place.

Overall, it is a pretty cool place to live and a great location for beach lovers.