City, San Mateo County
© McCormack's Guides
Zip Codes: 94010, 94011
A
Bay-to-hills town that has many businesses yet is known primarily as a bedroom
community, peaceful and well-to-do. Many hill homes have views of Bay. Located
just south of San Francisco International Airport. Good commute. www.mccormacks.com
Population
28,867. Added about 1,400 residents in the 1990s and about 500 between 2000 and
2007 and is just about built out.
Median age
of residents is 38. Under 18 years, 19 percent. Over 55 years, 24 percent.
Mature and getting more so. Few kids.
Click for regional or detailed map
Loaded
with trees, about 11,000 in total, many of them towering.
Slumbered
through the 19th century and woke up with a bang, literally, when the 1906
earthquake leveled San Francisco. Eyes turned south and the virtues of
Burlingame were discovered. Within a year the population had blossomed from 200
to 1,000. Burlingame incorporated as a legal city in 1908.
Named
after Anson Burlingame, ambassador to China, who once owned 1,200 acres nearby
(but never lived in the town). www.mccormacks.com
Two
Burlingames: one residential, other, office-hotel-business.
Located near
airport, having flat land, some recovered from the Bay, Burlingame has
attracted many businesses. Airport Boulevard shines with sleek hotels, about
4,000 rooms, and office buildings. Ten hotels in the town. City Hall estimates
that about 26,000 people work in Burlingame.
Moving
west from the water, you encounter modest and small homes and apartments,
well-kept, traffic congestion (price of progress) and two shopping sections:
Broadway and the bigger, more popular, ritzier Burlingame Avenue (shops, restaurants,
bakeries, bookstores, sidewalk cafes). Banana Republic, Crepevine, Anne Taylor,
Gap, Sharper Image, etc. Burlingame also has a Lunardi’s, a gourmet market.
Then the
town ascends to the hills and home prices rise with elevation. Great views of
Bay and of planes taking off. Home buyers should ask neighbors about noise;
better happy than irritated.
Streets
lined with eucalyptuses, magnolias, sycamores. Wood shingle roofs, rock
gardens, many shrubs. Good-looking neighborhoods. Designs favor ranch style. www.mccormacks.com
Council in 1994 voted to restrict size
of new homes — no “monsters.” Level of care is unusually high, not only
because residents are wielding rake, hoe and paint brush but because the city
has pumped millions into the infrastructure, down to and including repairs to
sidewalks.
Burlingame
is sort of the little sister of Hillsborough, one of the richest and most
beautiful cities of California. Hillsborough, which sits above Burlingame, is
loaded with wealthy business people who want nothing to do with business —
in their neighborhoods; no stores.
Hillsborough
looks to Burlingame to supply the upscale shops and haute restaurants, and
Burlingame happily obliges.
More than
this, Burlingame has been inspired or let’s say influenced by Hillsborough. The
Burlingame streets that glide out of Hillsborough have many large and handsome
homes, landscaped with loving care. Drive the hill streets west of El Camino
Real.
Many San
Mateo cities built their low-income housing east of El Camino Real, and so did
Burlingame, two and three bedroom cottages and tract-model homes. The
difference, the Burlingame “blue collars” have been lavished with care that has
elevated an ordinary neighborhood into a desirable one, priced up market. These homes are within a short distance
of the upscale shops, restaurants and coffee houses that serve the Hillsborough
clientele. www.mccormacks.com
The 2008
state count showed 12,971 residential units — 6,164 single homes, 423
single-family attached, 6,384 multiples (including hotel rooms), zero mobiles.
Burlingame,
as a government entity, is rich. Hotel tax alone sometimes yields over $13
million annually. When you add in
the tax revenue from auto dealers and other businesses, Burlingame covers over
half the town’s expenses from business sources. This has its downside. When the
economy went south after 2001, tax revenue plunged and civic improvements had
to be delayed.
Crime rate
low. Zero homicides between 2005 and 1998. In previous years, one, zero, zero,
zero, one, two, three, zero, zero, zero, zero, four, zero. See Crime.
Fifteen
parks and large Bay park just over city limits along with a public golf course
(Poplar Creek, 18 holes), a marina and a swimming beach. Trails along the Bay. Tennis and basketball courts. Fishing
pier. Kite boarding on Bay. Bird
sanctuary. Recreational center. Movies. Library renovated and expanded; holds
250,000 volumes. Annual Art in the Park.
The booklet of offerings from the city
recreation department runs to about 75 pages and includes many activities for
kiddies, including tumbling, play school, dance, arts and crafts. For older
children and teens, there’s acting, softball and basketball; for adults,
computer classes and aerobics, volleyball, tennis, foreign languages, music;
for the elderly, excursions and classes — and much more. www.mccormacks.com
A drive of
about 15 minutes will bring you to the Pacific.
School
rankings high, 70th to 90th percentile, on statewide comparison. Voters have
passed bonds to renovate elementary schools and add classrooms and labs and a
parcel tax to improve instructional programs. After several tries, voters in 2001 approved a bond to
renovate all the schools in the high-school district including Burlingame and
Mills High, the most popular schools for Burlingame students. Both high schools
score about the 90th percentile. In 2006, yet another bond, $298
million, was passed to continue upgrading the high schools. See Schools.
Compared
to many other cities, Burlingame supports its schools very well. Parents and
school supporters also raise money through donations and fundraisers.
In 2005,
city and school district combined to open a pre-school for children with
special needs.
Four
private-parochial schools, including Mercy High, which is housed in one of the
loveliest mansions on the Peninsula. www.mccormacks.com
Highway
101 runs through flatlands, Interstate 280 along western border. In 2005,
Caltrain, which runs passenger trains to San Francisco and Silicon Valley,
closed one of its two Burlingame stations and directed riders to the other
station. Some grumbling but the closed station was serving fewer than 200
riders a day. SamTrans buses serve the street routes. BART station in Millbrae.
Free downtown trolley.
Chamber of
commerce (650) 344-1735.
• For as
long as anyone can remember giant eucalyptus trees along El Camino Real
impressed and charmed motorists and residents. Alas, the trees are at the end
of their natural lives and are being replaced by elms. Effort underway among
cities to improve El Camino Real, one of the most traveled roads in the county.
• City is
working with neighborhood groups to come up with a way to finance improvements
to storm drains, catch basins, pump stations, city hall (seismic safety) and
sidewalks. Could add about $175 annually to tax bill.
• What do
Burlingame kids do on Friday evenings? Well, one member of the library
foundation contended they would do their homework if the city council put up
$300,000 and kept the library open two more hours, to 7 p.m. Council said, OK.
• In fall
2007, McKinley Elementary will start a Spanish-English immersion class for kindergartners. www.mccormacks.com
• In 2006,
a student, age 13, crossing the tracks to get home, was killed by a train. Bus
stop was changed to location away from tracks. The student had just gotten off
a bus. Principal criticized Caltrain, said it didn’t pay enough attention to
safety.
• Caltrain
in 2007 hopes to add more parking spaces to train station and make improvements
that will speed service.
• Check out the noise from the trains.
City web
site: www.burlingame.org
