Alameda County at a Glance

© McCormack's Guides

 

Energetic, intellectual and diverse, Alameda County is located across the bay from San Francisco and counts 1,556,657 residents, the great majority of them residing in 14 cities and two unincorporated towns. www.mccormacks.com

Alameda County also includes — a point of confusion — a city called “Alameda.”

Just north of Alameda County is Contra Costa County. Together the two counties make up what is known locally as the East Bay.

In land, Alameda encompasses 733 square miles, about one-third the size of Delaware. North to south, the county runs from Albany to Fremont and east to west from Oakland to Livermore and the edge of the San Joaquin Valley. Discovery Peak, located south of Livermore-Pleasanton, is the highest mountain, 3,841 feet.

With the exception of Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin and the hamlet of Sunol, all cities are located on or near the Bay. Tall hills divide the Bay cities from the inland towns and create different weather patterns.

Temperate with a Punch

The weather is balmy, one of the great attractions of the region. Rarely do temperatures roast or freeze. Rarely does humidity cause discomfort. Many shore cities, however, are too cool for outdoor pools. On some summer days, when the fog barrels through the Golden Gate, the Oakland hills can be plain cold. If you travel a few miles inland, over the ridge into Dublin-Pleasanton, you’re in swimming pool country. www.mccormacks.com

In the fall, dry winds called Diablos occasionally roar through the Berkeley-Oakland hills. In 1991, a Diablo-blown fire killed 25 and destroyed 2,500 homes and apartments, a loss of about $1.5 billion.

Fingertip Facts

Three bridges connect Alameda County with the “Peninsula” (San Francisco and San Mateo counties). They are the Bay, the San Mateo and the Dumbarton. Of the three, the Bay, with its spectacular views of San Francisco, is by far the prettiest.

But if you commute to San Francisco, you may come to hate the Bay Bridge, a notorious bottleneck, that for the next few years will be an even bigger pain. The east span is being replaced and the west span overhauled and rewired.

The largest and most populous city is Oakland. The richest is Piedmont, the smallest, Emeryville, the most exciting and stimulating, Berkeley, with Oakland a close second.

Berkeley is home to one of the most successful universities on the planet, the University of California at Berkeley, enrollment about 34,000 (grads and undergrads). The university is called “Cal.” Its mascot is a Golden Bear. When fans urge Cal players to get hopping, they chant, “Go Bears.” Cal’s colors are blue and gold. Its alumni are Old Blues. Cal’s arch rival is Stanford University, down and across the Bay. Colors: red. Nicknamed: The Cardinal. When Cal beats Stanford, especially in football or basketball, the hearts of young and old Blues go thumpety-thump. www.mccormacks.com

Berkeley’s politics are quite liberal and to some people “Berkeley” epitomizes the zaniness of California. The town makes no apologies for its politics or its policies. If you think that you are secure in your beliefs, Berkeley will offer someone who will differ, in a challenging way. The town, in lesser numbers, also has its conservatives and its moderates.

Alameda County is generally considered suburbia but 100-percent bedroom communities are few: Piedmont and maybe Castro Valley and San Lorenzo.

The other communities blend business, industry or government with residential, and this helps shorten the commute for many.

Oakland has an international airport that specializes in economy airlines (Southwest, United, JetBlue), one of the busiest shipping ports in the nation and a high-rise downtown.

On its south, Alameda County borders Santa Clara County, home of the original Silicon Valley. Short of space, Silicon Valley jumped its borders about 30 years ago and started building offices, plants and research facilities throughout Alameda County, particularly at Fremont, Hayward, Union City, Dublin and Pleasanton. www.mccormacks.com

In the local economy, the university, which employs about 21,000 full and part timers, has been enormously beneficial. Berkeley graduates staff or manage thousands of firms, high tech to high finance, and government institutions. Biotech, one of the coming industries, has a firm hold in the East Bay, thanks in large measure to the university.

At Livermore, the university manages a large laboratory, 8,000 employees, that researches and develops weapons. The lab has its critics and its supporters.

In politics, Alameda County, foremost Berkeley and Oakland, is quite liberal and invariably goes head-over-heels for anyone the Democrats trot out as president. But many people approach politics in a pragmatic and sometimes contradictory way. The communities welcome jobs but often argue over residential development. Both put more cars on the road, a sore point, but housing is considered more intrusive.

Protecting the environment is a big thing in Alameda County. Over the past 40 years, pollution laws have been tightened, development controls installed and hundreds of millions spent to clean up the Bay. Quality-of-life issues are also big. Suburbanites argue for open space to keep the country feeling that they find so pleasing.

In its annual tally of housing, the state in 2009 counted 573,111 residential units in Alameda County. This included 303,968 single homes, 39,891 single attached, 221,590 apartments or condos and 7,662 mobile homes. www.mccormacks.com

A Diverse Lot

The residents are a diverse lot: all sorts of colors and creeds, rich and poor but mostly middle class, home-owners and renters, white collars and blue, homeless and Nobel winners. Thanks to the university and its labs, the county boasts a large collection of Big Brains.

The 2000 census tallied 215,598 African Americans, 9,146 American Indians, 309,013 Asians, 591,095 Caucasians, 273,910 Hispanics, and 9,142 Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders.

Schools, churches, businesses and government agencies do a good job of encouraging everyone to respect and celebrate differences. There are, and probably always will be, arguments over policies such as profiling and affirmative action. Alameda County is very much of the modern world but this said the county and its residents strongly favor inclusive politics and practices to bring people together.

Charm, Beauty, Amusements

The Bay charms the eye. The hills command sweeping views. If you wish to swim, boat, fish, hit a baseball or a softball or a golf ball or a tennis ball, if you wish to shoot or weave a basket, if you wish to watch the best (or near best) in basketball or baseball or football, if you wish to study painting, or paint a nude or paint the town, Alameda County can accommodate. All the towns field sports for the kids and the adults. Soccer is particularly popular.

If you wish to pursue your ambitions, Alameda County offers the chance. Besides the University of California, the county boasts a state university, two large private universities, seven community colleges, an arts college and many vocational and specialty schools. www.mccormacks.com

California Cuisine was invented in Alameda County by Alice Waters in her Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse. Berkeley, Albany and Oakland are loaded with first-class restaurants and recently restaurants that pride themselves on fine cooking have moved out into the suburbs. Livermore and Pleasanton are noted for their wines.

Oakland has a first-class museum and three professional teams — the Warriors (basketball), the Athletics (baseball) and the Raiders (football) — a zoo and a first-class nightlife built around Jack London Village, which is being improved. For college football and basketball, there’s the university. The Sharks (professional hockey) play in San Jose, the Giants and the Forty Niners in San Francisco.

Plays, regular movies, offbeat movies, night clubs, jazz clubs, dance recitals, art galleries and art museums, chamber orchestras, symphonies, operas — they are all there. Many high culture events are presented in Berkeley or Oakland but art and culture groups are found throughout the other cities.

The East Bay is hip enough and populous enough to attract the top acts — in 2007 Christina Aguilera, Disney on Ice, My Chemical Romance — touring the country. What the East Bay doesn’t have, San Francisco does.

Problems

Alameda County’s elementary and secondary schools score among the top in the state and among the lowest. In 2003, Oakland school district, having lost track of its finances, was forced to declare bankruptcy. The state loaned it $100 million and put its own administrator in charge of the district. www.mccormacks.com

In recent years, the state and local voters have greatly increased school funding and adopted programs that, all hope, will help students learn more. Many suburban schools score well above the 50th percentile.

In the early 1990s, Alameda County was recording over 200 homicides a year. Later in the decade, homicides dropped sharply but several years ago made a comeback. In 2001, the county counted 108 homicides; in 2002, the number was 144, in 2003, 139. In 2004, homicides tallied 117 and 2005, they rose to 126.

Many of the homicides occur in Oakland which in 2004 passed a tax to add more cops but in 2006 saw its homicides increase by 59 percent to 148.

In the 1990s, billions were spent to improve local freeways and mass transit. BART (suburban rail) runs trains to San Francisco and San Mateo County and down to Fremont. The line also runs up to Richmond and Pittsburg and out to Dublin-Pleasanton. The Altamont Commuter Express carries passengers from the inland cities down to San Jose.

In 2003, BART began service to San Francisco International Airport, a plus for penny-pinching travelers and for people who work at or near the airport. v

For several years, Oakland has been renovating its airport and the approach roads. The job continues but now it’s much easier to get to and from the airport.

But no matter how much money is spent, traffic jams don’t go away. The main reason: more people, more cars. In 2000, the state tallied within Alameda County 1,227,688 vehicles. If you take out everyone under age 16 and over age 85, you come up with just about one vehicle for every functioning adult.

Although home prices are slipping or stabilizing, they are still quite high. Alameda County offers lower home prices and rents than San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. But it’s easy to spend $600,000 on a modest home and fork over $1,200 a month on a one-bedroom apartment. Newcomers to California are shocked by the home prices and rents.

Alameda County has its rich neighborhoods and its poor neighborhoods but the great majority of the housing was built for the middle class or upper middle. Because of the hills, many homes have views of the Bay.

Quakes a Fact of Life

The Hayward and Calaveras faults run right through the county. A major earthquake is not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when. For some good information about preparing for a quake and what to do in one, read the beginning of your phone directory. www.mccormacks.com

In the quake of 1989, many Oakland buildings were damaged, about 40 people were killed, a portion of a freeway collapsed, and the Bay Bridge, the main connection to San Francisco, was knocked out of service. A section of the top deck fell to the lower deck. The freeway has been redesigned; the part of the Bay Bridge that collapsed was repaired and is being replaced.

A Little History

The Spanish arrived in 1772, the expedition led by Lt. Pedro Fages and Father Juan Crespi. European diseases (cholera, measles and smallpox) and settler hostility and indifference just about obliterated the Indians and almost all their culture.

Then followed the Ranchero interlude, 1820 to about 1860. To secure California for Spain and later Mexico, large land grants were made to soldiers and civil servants.

Luis Peralta got Berkeley, Albany and Oakland; Jose Estudillo, San Leandro; Don Guillermo Castro, Hayward and Castro Valley; Jose Amador, Dublin; Juan and Augustin Bernal, Pleasanton.

Superb horsemen, the dons raised cattle, staged rodeos and lived in the grand style. Their parties lasted for days, their hospitality was renown. www.mccormacks.com

But few in number and only recently endowed (the Castro and Estudillo grants were not made until the 1840s), they were unable to resist the Yankee invasion. What they didn’t sell, they lost to swindlers, squatters and lawyers.

Gold Fever

Gold lured the Yankees to California, but the many who did not strike it rich turned to farming and commerce. Within a few decades of statehood (1850), Alameda County was well on its way to modern life. Horace Carpentier, sly lawyer, and friends incorporated Oakland as a city in 1852, much to surprise of rest of community. In 1853, the county of Alameda was formed, population 3,000. The first county seat was at Union City, the second at San Leandro. Finally, Oakland’s votes carried the seat to that city in 1873.

Berkeley

“Westward the course of empire takes its way.” Written by Bishop George Berkeley, the words charmed Frederick Billings. Billings was a trustee of the College of California, opened in 1860 in wild Oakland.

Favoring a more secluded and peaceful spot, trustees purchased land north of Oakland and, at Billings’ suggestion, named the town “Berkeley.” A few years later the college was offered to the state as the cornerstone of a public university system. The University of California at Berkeley went on to become one of the finest universities in the world.

Meanwhile, the trading posts and ranches in the hinterland were growing into small towns that would later burgeon into suburban cities. www.mccormacks.com

The 20th Century

Ships and electric trains, planes and automobiles. The early 20th century saw many changes in Alameda County transportation. Borax Smith, of 20-mule-team fame, for a while beat Southern Pacific at the commuting race to San Francisco. His electrified trains, with the aid of ferries, crossed the Bay in 35 minutes.

In 1926, Oakland purchased 692 acres on Bay Farm Island for an airport.

Bridges

The first bridge was the railroad Dumbarton (Newark to Redwood City), 1910; the second, automotive Dumbarton, 1927. On Oct. 23, 1936, the last rivet was driven on the Bay Bridge. In 1967, Hayward and San Mateo were joined by the San Mateo Bridge. Finally, the Dumbarton, which used to infuriate motorists by raising the drawbridge during rush hour, was replaced with a higher bridge in 1982.

The bridges, World War II and the freeways changed the face of modern Alameda County. War brought people who liked what they saw. The bridges and freeways allowed them to spread over the countryside and travel long distances to work. In World War II, UC-Berkeley helped build the A-bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

Wild Years

Sixties and Seventies. Free speech. Student protests. Vietnam. War protests and marches. Black Panthers. Hell’s Angels. People’s Park. Marijuana and LSD. Super Bowl and World Series victories. BART (commuter rail) begins service. Port of Oakland, containerized, takes off. Symbionese Liberation Army. Oakland school superintendent assassinated. Patty Hearst kidnapped. Oakland elects first black mayor. www.mccormacks.com

The Eighties. Raiders depart. Smoking down, cocaine up. Yuppies. Business follows people to suburbs (Pleasanton, Fremont). Japanese, GM join hands in NUMMI auto plant in Fremont. Gene splicing. Herpes and AIDS. Wild sex out, safe sex in. Babies in. Money in. Food in. U.S. veers right, Berkeley stays left but tilts toward center. Drug abuse remains a problem.

Oct. 17, 1989, the earthquake that won’t be forgotten for a long time.

The county’s demographics change. Revisions in the federal law greatly increased the number of immigrants from the Philippine Islands, China, India and Southeast Asia. The new Alameda County is much more international, cosmopolitan.

The Nineties

Oakland rebuilds from the earthquake.

BART in 1997 extended its line and opened stations in Castro Valley and Dublin, welcome alternatives to congested freeways. www.mccormacks.com

The military pulls out of the Bay Area, the logical outcome to the end of the Cold War. Alameda Naval Air Station, home for decades to the giant carriers, closes and is now being used for civilian purposes. Also closed: the Oakland army base, a supply depot. Lawrence Livermore National Lab survives the shutdowns and finds ways to prove its benefits.

In 1995, cold-shouldered by L.A., the Raiders return to Oakland and after years of losing seem to have found their winning ways — until 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 El floppo! For 2007, new coach, higher hopes.

The A’s made the playoffs several times, the last in 2006.

2000 Plus

In the late 1990s and in 2000, the California economy boomed and millions were allocated to reduce class sizes and improve instruction.

In 2002, people were saying that many schools were in the best shape they have been in 25 years.

In 2003, with the state deficit hitting $38 billion and Sacramento warning of steep cuts coming to schools, colleges and universities, the cheering turned to fretting. As mentioned, the Oakland school district declared bankruptcy. Retrospectively, the failings seem obvious but in the heady days of 2000 and 2001, Oakland may have assumed that the good-time dollars would keep rolling in. www.mccormacks.com

After several years of purse tightening, the state in 2006 and 2007 allotted more money to the schools.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq, many in Berkeley protested but the days of sustained protests seem over. The hippies of old are now in their 50s and 60s; the younger generation perhaps less interested in politics.

Suburbs and Small Towns

In the suburbs and smaller towns, conservative or middle-of-the-road politics hold greater appeal but many a Democrat resides in towns like Fremont, Union City, Hayward and San Leandro. Growth and development tend to dominate suburban politics because billions of dollars and thousands of jobs ride on development and because the builders are the great moneybags of local politics.

With the passage of Prop. 13 in the 1970s, the funding base of local agencies, especially schools, shifted to Sacramento. Each year, heated arguments fill the Sacramento air as local groups try to squeeze money out of the governor and legislature.

Here are the groups making and carrying out local policy in the county:

The Board of Supervisors

Five members are elected countywide but by districts (Oakland votes for its supervisor, the Fremont area for its supervisor, and so on.) Supervisors are regional and municipal governors. They control spending for courts, social services and public health, including hospitals for the poor. www.mccormacks.com

In their municipal hats, they build roads, decide zonings and, through the sheriff, provide police protection for unincorporated areas.

If you live in Castro Valley, San Lorenzo or outside any city limits, you will be governed from Oakland, seat of the county government, but often county officials follow the advice of local leaders.

City Councils

Generally, five members (Berkeley has nine) are elected, one council for each of the county’s 14 cities. Some cities (Berkeley, Oakland) have directly elected mayors who share power with the councils. Councils are responsible for repairing roads, keeping neighborhoods safe, maintaining parks, providing recreation and doing other municipal chores.

Utility Districts

California grew so fast and chaotically that some regional needs, such as sewer and water, were met on an emergency basis by forming taxing districts with their own elected directors. The East Bay Municipal Utility District provides water to large portions of Alameda and Contra Costa counties and sewage treatment to six Alameda cities.

East Bay Regional Parks

If the park is big, chances are it’s owned by the East Bay Regional Park District, one of the most successful park agencies nationally. The district, through its elected board, manages parks in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Cities and special districts manage the small, municipal parks. www.mccormacks.com

School Boards

Generally composed of five persons. There are 20 school districts in Alameda County, each with an elected school board.

Members hire or fire principals and superintendents, negotiate teacher salaries and decide policy matters and how much should be spent on computers and shop. The everyday running of schools is left to superintendents. Major funding decisions are made in Sacramento.

BART & Other Transit Districts

Elected Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) directors are responsible for making the trains run on time, providing parking at the stations and deciding where to extend BART.

Other transit agencies, such as AC Transit, run buses.

Regional Governments

As the Bay Area grew, it became apparent that many political boundaries either didn’t make sense or else were too restrictive to solve regional problems, such as air and water pollution. Regional agencies were formed to deal with these problems. www.mccormacks.com

Among the more important are, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (shore protection), the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission

Miscellaneous

• Responding to the cutback in state funds to the schools, several school districts in 2004 and 2005 passed funding measures to build and renovate schools or retain programs.

• In 2006, the Oakland Athletics announced they were moving from Oakland to Fremont, in southern Alameda County.

• In 2007, Jerry Brown, former governor and mayor of Oakland, took over as the state attorney general. He was replaced by Ron Dellums, former congressman.

• Cal Berkeley in 2007 won big contract to develop alternate fuels.

Alameda County's Official Website: http://www.acgov.org/