Palm Springs

The Cahuilla have lived in the Coachella Valley for thousands of years, and the hot spring at the heart of modern Palm Springs was central to the life of the Agua Caliente band, whose name is Spanish for "hot water". In 1876 the federal government created a reservation for them, laid out in a checkerboard with alternate square-mile sections granted to the Southern Pacific Railroad; the pattern still shapes land ownership in the city today. The San Francisco lawyer John Guthrie McCallum began buying land there in the mid-1880s, and by the 1900s a small resort had grown up around the spring, drawing health tourists who came for the dry heat.

From the 1920s the village became a winter escape for Hollywood, a short drive from the film studios. Stars built houses in the Movie Colony and Las Palmas, and the city was incorporated in 1938. After the Second World War, architects such as Albert Frey, Richard Neutra, E. Stewart Williams and Donald Wexler gave it the steel, glass and breeze-block buildings now called desert modernism.

The postwar boom had a hard side. In the 1960s homes in Section 14, the tribe's downtown square mile where many Black families and other non-Indian residents rented land, were cleared by the city, which has since formally apologised. Later decades brought decline and then revival, as the modernist houses were rediscovered and the city grew into one of the best-known LGBTQ destinations in the United States.

The city's look is its culture. Mid-century houses with low roofs, clerestory windows and turquoise pools are maintained with real devotion, and February's Modernism Week brings architecture fans from around the world. Albert Frey's buildings, Neutra's Kaufmann Desert House and whole tracts of Alexander houses are treated as heritage in a way few American suburbs are.

Palm Springs has one of the largest LGBTQ populations, as a share of residents, of any American city, and in 2017 voters elected a city council made up entirely of LGBTQ members. Pride in November is one of the biggest events of the year. The Hollywood connection survives in the film festival, the Walk of Stars and the stories told about Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and others who kept houses here.

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians remains a major presence: the tribe owns much of the land in and around the city, runs the canyons south of town, founded the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum in 1991, and runs a casino resort at the original hot springs downtown. Golf, tennis and pool culture dominate the leisure life of the wider valley, and the tone everywhere is casual, sunny and unhurried.

About 45,000 people live in Palm Springs at the 2020 census, and the population swells in winter when seasonal residents, known locally as snowbirds, arrive from colder parts of North America. Many residents are retired, and the city's median age is well above the national average. Palm Springs is one of the cities of the Coachella Valley, whose incorporated cities held about 370,000 people at the 2020 census, from the resort towns of Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert to farming communities around Indio and Coachella.

Tourism, hospitality and healthcare drive the economy, along with property and the service jobs that keep resorts and gardens running; in the eastern valley, agriculture — dates, citrus, grapes and vegetables — still employs many workers.

The rhythm of the day follows the temperature. In the cooler months people walk and hike early, eat outside in the evening and fill the golf courses. In summer life moves indoors and into pools, errands are done before ten in the morning, and the town is noticeably quieter. Water supply, heat and wildfire smoke are recurring local concerns.

Dates are the valley's signature crop. The Coachella Valley grows most of the dates harvested in the United States, especially the large, soft Medjool and the firmer Deglet Noor, from palms first imported from the Middle East and North Africa from 1890 onwards. The date shake, a thick milkshake blended with chopped dates, is the classic local treat, sold at roadside date gardens down the valley and in cafés in town.

Eating out in Palm Springs leans towards the relaxed and the retro: brunch on shaded patios, steakhouses and martini bars that recall the Rat Pack era, and cocktail lounges with a tiki or mid-century theme. Restaurants along Palm Canyon Drive cool their outdoor tables with misters through much of the year.

The valley's large Mexican American community shapes everyday food, from taquerías and panaderías (bakeries) to family restaurants serving enchiladas, carne asada and fresh salsas. Citrus, grapes and vegetables from the eastern valley turn up at farmers' markets, and Southern California's wider habits — fish tacos, avocado on everything, green juice — are as common here as on the coast.