Santa Ana, with a population of 327,780 and a total area of 27.2 square miles, is the county seat of Orange County. It is situated right in the middle of Orange County by the Santa Ana River. It is now the financial and government centre of the county, but it competes with Irvine for the lead in commercial growth.
One of the main objectives of the city is to revitalize downtown. Based from the California State Fullerton's Grand Centre Art Center, the city built the Santa Ana Artists Village, that is home to the Bower's Museum and the Old County Courthouse..
The downtown of Santa Ana City is a perfect mix between residential and commercial communities. In the area, there are a lot of historic houses which date back to the late 1800's. The city is taking great care so as to maintain the cities historic monuments as the downtown area develops.
Santa Ana's economy is based largely dependent on technology. The city is in a great position to guide the rest of California into the information age. Santa Ana ranks 3rd within the state of California for the amount of office space available downtown, coming in behind San Fransisco and Los Angeles. They ranked thirteenth for the biggest number of companies established and have the fourteenth biggest consumer market in the country.
Initially, the economy in the area around Santa Ana was the various agricultural industries. Then again, with Northrop, Huges as well as several aerospace companies became really prominent soon after the end of WWII. As soon as the University of California was constructed in Irvine in the mid 60's, science based industries developed and prospered. Santa Ana is considered Southern California's top high-tech area. Amongst the "Fast Fifty" businesses, Santa Ana has 21 of them established in the city limits.
The city strongly encourages small businesses, that is amongst the reasons the city's financial system is so strong. Practically a quarter of these smaller businesses are minority owned. Due to the cities strong economic base, it could outperform lots of other cities in California during tough economic times.
Within Orange County, there have been several businesses that have been founded, like for example Gotcha, St. John Dritts and Roxy.