Community Profiles

Palm Desert

The Desert Sun

The City of Palm Desert is the business hub of the Coachella Valley as well as the home to the Coachella Valley's only junior college, College of the Desert. The new California State University San Bernardino-Palm Desert campus and University of California, Riverside's Heckman International Center for Entrepreneurial Management is also based here. The 17 hotels, 32 golf courses, 14 shopping centers and plazas, and attractions such as The Living Desert Zoo and Botanical Gardens and McCallum Centre for the Performing Arts adds to the diversity of this still-growing City.

Population: 49,280   (19.7 percent growth rate since 2000)