City, Santa Clara County
© McCormack's Guides
Zip Codes: 94301, 94302, 94303, 94304, 94305, 94306, 94309
Cultural
center of Silicon Valley. Prestigious. Sophisticated. Palo Alto has its
well-to-do homes, 4-6 bedrooms, and its mansions but much of the town consists
of tract homes built for the middle class and apartments for students and
people employed at the university and the many jobs in the area. www.mccormacks.com
Palo Alto
and Stanford University are so closely associated that many think the two are
one and the same. But Palo Alto may be better understood as the largest and
most popular city associated with the university, which is located just outside
Palo Alto city limits.
Other
Stanford “communities” include Menlo Park, Portola Valley, East Palo Alto and
probably Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. The university is an economic
powerhouse, running not only an institution of higher education but next to the
campus, a large business park (150 companies, 23,000 employees), a medical
center and a giant mall.
Click for regional or detailed map
Stanford
itself has its own residential community, about 13,500 people (census 2000)
residing in 850 homes (owned by faculty) and 628 rentals. The university plans
to build more housing on campus, up to 3,000 units.
One of the
oldest legal cities in Santa Clare County, Palo Alto sprinted out of World War
II, the local economy boomed by the jobs in the region, the migration to California
and the GI bill, which guaranteed veteran loans.
In 1950,
Palo Alto counted 25,475 residents. In 1960, it tallied 52,287 and put on the
brakes. www.mccormacks.com
Over the
next 10 years, the population eased up to 56,040, then declined, dropping to
55,900 in 1990. In the 1990s, Palo Alto added 2,700 residents and between 2000
and 2006, it took on another 3,550 people.
The state
in 2008 tallied 63,367 residents living in 27,938 housing units. Of these,
15,636 were single homes, 980 single-family attached, 11,158 multiples, 164
mobiles.
The 1950’s
jump defines much of the housing in Palo Alto. East of the campus is the old
university neighborhood, large and stately homes, mixed with custom homes.
North of University Avenue is a small neighborhood of large but not opulent
homes built among trees and shrubs.
Moving
south toward Mountain View, the homes take on more of a tract look with a Palo
Alto touch. As the region prospered, many residents, especially in the 1990s,
remodeled and expanded. Until the city tightened the rules on the so-called
McMansions, a fair number of people tore down their two- and three-bedroom
houses and replaced them with four-to six bedroom homes, much larger.
Palo Alto
has many neighborhoods that at first glance look ordinary but on closer examination
reveal many improvements and a high level of care. Over the last 15 years, the
city and market forces have burnished the tract neighborhoods, adding cozy
restaurants and small shops. Trees line many streets. www.mccormacks.com
The tract
housing includes about 3,000 Eichlers, an unusual and graceful design featuring
ceiling to floor windows, atriums and a lot of light.
University
communities take education seriously. Palo Alto notches up to very seriously.
What parents think the schools need, the schools get. The result: some of the
highest scores in the state.
Almost
every school is scoring in the 90th percentile and the two high
schools — Gunn and Palo Alto — land usually in the top 3 percent in
the state. Only about three dozen high schools in the state break the 600
barrier on the math SAT. Gunn and Palo Alto are always in this group, usually
in the top ten. (The top school, Whitney in Los Angeles, admits by competitive
exam; Gunn and Palo Alto accept all the students in their attendance zones.) See Schools.
The
graduation rates at Gunn and Palo Alto High schools are hitting almost 100
percent and the schools advance students to the most prestigious universities
in the country. Schools offer instruction in French, German, Spanish and
Japanese.
In 1995,
the Palo Alto Unified School District, which also takes in part of Los Altos
Hills, passed at that time one the largest school-renovation bonds in the
history of California, $143 million. All the schools have been renovated or
rebuilt and equipped with modern technology. In 1998, the district opened
another elementary school. www.mccormacks.com
In 2001,
voters continued a parcel tax to raise money for salaries and programs and in
2005 renewed the parcel tax.
School
district, under a court agreement, accepts minority students from East Palo
Alto. It also gets many requests from parents who live in other towns but want
their children to attend Palo Alto schools.
In recent
years, enrollments have risen at the public schools, to the point where some
are short of space and have waiting lists. Parents angry. For information,
phone (650) 329-3707.
Fourteen
private schools in town.
Much of
the retail and commercial shows up on or near two avenues:
•
University Avenue. Runs from Highway 101 to the campus, part residential
(toward the freeway), the other part, considered the downtown. Bookstores,
restaurants, movies, banks, city hall, post office, library, museum, seniors
center. Variety of stores. www.mccormacks.com
• El
Camino Real. The old king’s highway, stretching from San Diego to San Francisco.
In Palo Alto, lined with stores, office buildings, many restaurants. At north
end, the Stanford Shopping Center, an outdoors mall: Bloomindales, Nordstroms,
Neiman Marcus, Macys and 140 other stores and restaurants. Lot what Silicon
Valley earns is spent here.
Another
street of note: San Hill Road, which defines the north border of Palo Alto.
Famous boulevard of venture capitalists.
Events, amusements,
activities, sports — an excess. Plays, movies, recitals, symphonies. Palo
Alto and the other communities have quietly put together first-class music
programs for the kids. Stanford football and basketball and other spectator
sports.
One of
every four acres in parks, 4,233 acres total, 30 parks in all, including one,
1,400 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains solely for Palo Alto residents.
Swimming,
libraries, community centers, garden club, farmers’ market, playgrounds, bike
and pedestrian trails, children’s theater, junior museum and zoo, teen center,
ice-skating rink, golf, soccer, baseball, many fitness and seniors classes.
Sports league for adults: basketball, softball, volleyball. Children's library.
Summer concerts. www.mccormacks.com
Some recent samplings from the city
recreation program: T'ai Chi,
Strollerrobics (parents and babies), lawn bowling, table tennis, chess, circuit
training, drawing and painting (about dozen classes), bead making, photography,
ceramics.
Also,
indoor soccer, gym for boys and girls, rock climbing, skateboarding (several
levels), Tae Kwon Do, tennis, tumbling, dance (including preschool ballet) and
piano for kids, library readings, kinder science.
Dance
including classes in clog, country, folk, Lindy, line, tap, salsa, swing and
jitterbug, ballet, belly, Brazilian, Caribbean, flamenco, jazz and tango.
Children’s
hospital. Named for Lucille Salter Packard, late philanthropist and wife of
David Packard, high-tech tycoon.
Berkeley
is considered the liberal campus in the Bay Area, Stanford, with its Hoover
Institute, the conservative. But in social matters Stanford and Palo Alto have
moved to the left: pro-choice, pro-gay, anti-discrimination. www.mccormacks.com
Berkeley
gets into many fights over aesthetics and at times seems to look down its nose
at grubby capitalists and big-business types.
Stanford
has its Nobel (18) and Pulitzer winners and MacArthur Fellows and its graduates
include Supreme Court justices and political leaders and one president (Herbert
Hoover.) In the pursuit of beauty, grace and high culture, it is, in the
parlance of boxing, a contender, big time.
But it also
loves capitalists, loves big business, loves deals and ventures. The president
of the university co-founded a semi-conductor firm and sits on the board of
Google and Cisco. It is widely believed that Stanford University created and
still drives Silicon Valley. Its grads, many of them rolling in big bucks, say
thanks in the form of donations and working with the students.
Two
homicides each in 2005, 2004 and 2003, one in 2002, two in 2001, one in 2000,
zero in 1999, three in 1998, one in 1997, one in 1996, zero in 1995, one in
1994, zero in 1993, one in 1992 and 1991, zero in 1990 and 1989, one in 1988,
zero in 1987, and two in 1986, reports FBI. See Crime.
Commute
generally good, because of location. Highway 101 travels along the east side of
town, Interstate 280 the west. El Camino Real functions as a parkway and moves
a lot of traffic. Several other arterials. www.mccormacks.com
Not too
far from San Francisco International Airport and San Jose International. Small
private airport near the Bay.
Caltrain
up to San Francisco or down to San Jose, with stops along the way. New “bullet”
service to San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
Buses to
East Bay and San Mateo County and other cities in Santa Clara County. See commute
Barriers
have been erected on many residential streets to slow the cars and nudge them
onto the arterials.
Chamber of
commerce (650) 324-3121.
• A lot of
shaking during the 1989 quake but almost no damage to the town. The university,
however, took a bad hit: damage well over $100 million. Cuts and bruises, no
major injuries. Stanford library rebuilt; opened in 1999. www.mccormacks.com
• Historic
tour shows the garage where Bill Hewlett and David Packard started out.
• On some occasions having to do with
cloud cover, the music from the Shoreline Theater in Mountain View bounces into
Palo Alto and irritates some residents. Mountain View made some adjustments and
then stopped paying attention to the complaints.
• When people complained about noise
from planes from San Francisco International Airport, the approach height was
raised 1,000 feet, from 4,000 to 5,000. This seems to have done the job.
• New football stadium at the university.
• Stanford enrolls 6,422
undergrads and 11,325 graduate and professional students and has a faculty of
1,771 (2006 numbers). www.mccormacks.com
• A few streets on the south side, near Mountain
View, are within the Mountain View-Whisman elementary school district.
• It used to be that every
Parents-Teachers Association in the Palo Alto district did its own fund-raising
but this led to bad feelings because the rich neighborhoods raised more than
the merely affluent and the middle income. In 2002, the district decided to
pool the funds and distribute them according to a school's enrollment.
• In some
years, community foundation raises about $1.8 million for Palo Alto schools —
an unusually large amount and indicative of strong support for education.
According to newspaper, PTA asks many parents to contribute annually $350 per
child and the Foundation asks for $500 per. Voluntary contributions.
• “Jewish Town Square” is being
built, a 12-acre complex of seniors housing, childcare and fitness facilities,
starter homes and offices for Jewish community agencies. Also Jewish Community
Center. Many buildings will be situated around a central square with a
promenade. In 2005, Jewish high school moved from San Jose to Palo Alto. Town
hosts annual Jewish festival.
• If you want to meet the town's
shakers and movers and activists and dance and dine the night away, then the
annual Black and White Ball, held in summer, is just the ticket. The event raises
money for good causes. www.mccormacks.com
• New
housing angle: Building deep — basements that go down two stories and are
used for hobbies and home theaters.
• Mandarin
instruction during the summer at a middle school. Some parents want to start a
Mandarin immersion program at Ohlone Elementary but the school board, voting
3-2 in 2007, said no. Concerns about having enough students to justify the
program.
• Four
Seasons Hotel opened in 2005 in East Palo Alto, at Highway 101. The hotel, with
200 rooms, is being called the most luxurious in Silicon Valley.
• Two
Caltrain stations in Palo Alto. In 2007, politicians voted to spend $15 million
on improvements to the stations.
City web site:
www.city.palo-alto.ca.us
