Garden City vs Surfside Beach

A side-by-side comparison of Garden City and Surfside Beach: population, income, housing, and more.

Garden City and Surfside Beach are places in South Carolina. This page compares them across population, income, housing, education, commuting, and how each has changed since 2019.

Garden City has the higher population (10,820 vs 4,217 in Surfside Beach). Surfside Beach has the higher median household income ($74,202 vs $50,027 in Garden City). Surfside Beach has the higher median home value ($412,100 vs $194,100 in Garden City).

Population, income & housing

	Garden City	Surfside Beach
Population	10,820	4,217
Median age	61.2 yrs	55.4 yrs
Median household income	$50,027	$74,202
Median home value	$194,100	$412,100
Median gross rent	$1,382	$1,274
Housing units	10,229	4,272
Homeownership rate	82.3%	65.0%
Bachelor's degree or higher	24.5%	40.4%
Unemployment rate	4.8%	7.3%

Trends (ACS 5-year, 2019–2023)

	Garden City	Surfside Beach
Population	10,669 → 10,820 (+1.4%)	4,385 → 4,217 (-3.8%)
Median household income	$44,862 → $50,027 (+11.5%)	$55,099 → $74,202 (+34.7%)
Median home value	$145,800 → $194,100 (+33.1%)	$266,600 → $412,100 (+54.6%)
Median gross rent	$1,062 → $1,382 (+30.1%)	$1,040 → $1,274 (+22.5%)

Garden City

Population

10,66910,820

Median household income

$44,862$50,027

Median home value

$145,800$194,100

Median gross rent

$1,062$1,382

Surfside Beach

Population

4,3854,217

Median household income

$55,099$74,202

Median home value

$266,600$412,100

Median gross rent

$1,040$1,274

Age & race/ethnicity

Age distribution (share)

	Garden City	Surfside Beach
Under 5	0.7%	4.6%
5 to 17	6.6%	4.6%
18 to 24	3.4%	6.7%
25 to 34	4.6%	10.0%
35 to 44	7.8%	8.8%
45 to 54	14.9%	14.5%
55 to 64	23.9%	22.0%
65 to 74	23.8%	18.7%
75 and over	14.2%	10.1%

Race & ethnicity (share)

	Garden City	Surfside Beach
White (non-Hispanic)	95.2%	91.9%
Black or African American	0.9%	1.6%
American Indian & Alaska Native	0.4%	0.0%
Asian	0.6%	0.8%
Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander	0.0%	0.5%
Some other race	0.0%	0.0%
Two or more races	1.5%	4.9%
Hispanic or Latino	1.5%	0.4%

Educational attainment (age 25+)

Share of adults 25+

	Garden City	Surfside Beach
No high school diploma	4.8%	1.9%
High school graduate	34.9%	25.0%
Some college or associate's	35.8%	32.7%
Bachelor's degree	15.2%	24.2%
Graduate or professional degree	9.2%	16.1%

Commute to work

How workers get to work (share)

	Garden City	Surfside Beach
Drove alone	82.0%	70.3%
Carpooled	5.3%	8.8%
Public transit	0.0%	0.0%
Walked	0.4%	0.0%
Bicycle	0.0%	0.7%
Worked from home	11.3%	13.5%
Other means	1.0%	6.6%

Housing

Units in structure (share)

	Garden City	Surfside Beach
1-unit, detached	33.2%	54.6%
1-unit, attached	2.8%	7.4%
2 to 4 units	3.8%	18.1%
5 to 19 units	15.7%	14.6%
20 or more units	12.7%	4.3%
Mobile home & other	31.7%	0.9%

Poverty & households

	Garden City	Surfside Beach
Poverty rate	14.2%	9.7%
Average household size	1.86	2.11
Mean commute (minutes)	22	20
Median year structure built	1990	1986