It is 100 miles (160 km) north of the city of Los Angeles, and the population was 14,973 at the 2020 census.

Other major employers are the California City Correctional Center (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation), Mojave Air and Space Port (and its flight test facility) and the Hyundai/Kia Proving Grounds, located in the rural southwestern part of the city.

California City also has a park, a PGA golf course, and a municipal airport.

[12] The masterplan was prepared by Smith and Williams and architect Garrett Eckbo at the behest of real estate developer and sociology professor Nat Mendelsohn.

[13] The city included a central park with a 26-acre (11 ha) manmade lake, two golf courses, and a new Holiday Inn.

[14] Mendelsohn was then president of a corporation called the California City Development Company.

[15][16][17] The city was originally designed to accommodate 400,000 people, with a downtown center capable of holding 80,000–100,000, and satellite suburbs housing the rest.

[12] A post office opened in 1960,[18] and the city incorporated in 1965, when it had 158 square miles (410 km2) of land, 5,900 landowners, 817 residents, and 232 homes.

Part of the book focused on California City, calling it a fraud and "a particularly stark study of government failure.

The Federal Trade Commission filed a cease and desist against the home seller for misleading advertising about the city,[26] and in 1977, over 14,000 landowners receiving partial refunds from a $4 million pool, the largest FTC settlement to date.

The sales company was also required to invest $16 million in long-promised infrastructure in various cities.

[19] In 2015, it was reported that California City's water usage had exceeded expectations, increasing by 28% in May of that year.

[29] The rapidly increasing water usage was blamed on aging pipes beneath undeveloped portions of the city, faulty pumps reporting exaggerated figures, and the large number of inmates and workers at California City Correctional Facility.

[32] Satellite photos underscore its claim to being California's third-largest city by land area (40th largest in the United States).

California City's population increased an estimated 4.2% in 2005, over three times the growth rate of the state as a whole.

Studies for a privately built and owned 2,000–4,000-bed prison on the east side of town began in 1995, and an environmental impact statement on a 550-bed facility was completed in 1996.

Marshal Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2006 to 2013, then was leased to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in 2013 for $28.5 million per year in response to a federal order to reduce overcrowding in the state's prison facilities.

[9] The California City Whiptails were a professional baseball team competing in the unaffiliated Pecos League.

Kern Transit provides direct bus service to Mojave, Lancaster, and Ridgecrest with connections to Tehachapi and Bakersfield.