The out-of-towner’s conception of Palmdale is as clear as smog.

Aword of advice to anyone looking to make it to the top of the Los Angeles social scene. Keep it a secret. Never tell your friends. Don’t admit to anyone that you are moving to . . . Palmdale.

Among many Angelenos, it seems, the conception of life there--or in nearby Lancaster or anywhere in the vast Antelope Valley--is about as clear as a smoggy afternoon in Van Nuys. It’s “somewhere out in the desert,” some correctly observe.

“That’s where it gets so hot in the summer,” others point out, probably failing to realize that it also can snow in the winter. And as everyone knows, it’s not Los Angeles.

No need to tell that to Palmdale residents, an independent lot who relish the 40 or so miles of freeway that separate them from the hubbub and sprawl of the San Fernando Valley. Ask 10 Palmdale locals what they have to say about the Valley and chances are a common answer will emerge:

Whatever made the Valley what it is, they don’t want it to happen again where they live.

I’ve learned that bragging that you live in Palmdale of all places is not likely to elicit sighs of envy from most urbanites. They tend to gasp and stare. They question one’s sanity, or wonder if one committed some horrible crime to deserve such a banishment.

The trek across the San Gabriel Mountains and their unrelenting loneliness is enough to make any newcomer wonder whether anything awaits at the other end. But eventually the surprising blue expanse of Palmdale Lake comes into view heralding a city at the edge of the desert valley.

It’s not like the towns “down below” in L. A.

Palmdale is flat--really flat. A tall ladder provides almost a bird’s-eye view, with not a high-rise in sight. And Palmdale is sharply defined. Drivers can cross unknowingly from Burbank to Glendale. But Palmdale literally stands alone, with little but open desert and Joshua trees surrounding it.

Within the city, there are certain constants.

One is countless mothers with young children in tow, young families drawn by cheaper housing. Seemingly out of nowhere, they line up by the hundreds at City Hall for a magician’s show on a summer afternoon, or pack the local Target or K mart stores.

Who really lives in Palmdale? Some Los Angeles residents seem to think that the area is populated mostly by farmers and colorful old desert codgers. There’s more than a few of both, but increasingly the population of the city and its environs is diversifying as more people try to escape the troubles of urban life in Los Angeles.

The result is an odd hodgepodge of Canoga Park meets Coachella. Young executives race down the Antelope Valley Freeway in the morning in their BMWs. A bedraggled young woman in worn jeans sports a fist-sized tattoo on her arm. There are plenty of guys in crew cuts and cowboy boots.

Put them all together and the mix is markedly different from Los Angeles.

Take politics. For years, Democratic voters and politicians have dominated the big city. But the Antelope Valley, where Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly two-to-one, is more conservative.

Some say the locals are more religious. Some surely are, but that hasn’t prevented the bars along Sierra Highway from filling to the rafters with boisterous weekend crowds.

What provides the glue that holds the valley together? For years, it’s been the big A--Aerospace.

Some call it Aerospace Valley. Signs of the aerospace world are everywhere, from Edwards Air Force Base to Air Force Plant 42 to the miles of vacant land for the airport that the city of Los Angeles envisions building in some faraway future. The mayor of Palmdale is a former test pilot. Air Force planes often circle overhead. Aerospace companies are the region’s largest employers.

Nearly equal in impact are the acres and acres of homes under construction, a spectacle unmatched anywhere in Los Angeles County. Processions of lumber trucks, concrete mixers and landscaping crews crisscross the town. They feed the hunger of searchers for suburban homes, newcomers who have brought an end to Palmdale’s not-so-distant era as a sleepy desert town.

Some vestiges remain, though. Parts of the city feel like a ghost town during the day, when parents are away at work and kids are tucked away in school.

In the eerie quiet, those at the right vantage point may feel that they cannot only see but hear everything going on for miles.

In Palmdale, locals like to boast, you actually can see for miles much of the time, unlike the San Fernando Valley. The local smog problem is much less severe because of the relative sparsity of development and the desert winds that scour the valley.

But at a price.

As one woman explained, Palmdale has three kinds of wind: when it blows, when it really blows and when the shingles fly off.

The phenomenon can have both hilarious and not-so-funny effects. The sight of a man chasing his sunglasses across a wind-blasted gas station is funny. But the same winds are strong enough to slam shut a car door on someone trying to get out.

And just try keeping the desert dust out of swimming pools and spas.

And then there’s the heat, which does go above 100 degrees during July and August.

But the locals have an answer to that, the custom of “Desert Dress Days,” when city officials shun coats and ties for cooler attire.

After all, this is the desert.