Manly Vale is predominantly a residential suburb with commercial land use on Condamine Street, containing small patches of light industrial.

The most common countries of birth were England 8.4%, New Zealand 2.4%, China 2.1%, Brazil 1.7% and South Africa 1.5%.

Other languages spoken at home included Mandarin 2.4%, Spanish 1.9%, Portuguese 1.8%, Italian 1.5% and Japanese 0.9%.

The project consists of regularly involving volunteers to collect rubbish, remove weeds and plant local native species in the Mermaid Pool on Manly Creek.

The SMDCC was established to fight a controversial development in the head waters of Manly Dam by British Motorway constructor Wimpey in conjunction with local firm, Ardel.

[5] When bushland was lost to this housing development, the Mermaid Pool Project was initiated to compensate for the destruction.