Portal:San Francisco Bay Area

WELCOME TO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA   BAY AREA CITIES   RECOGNIZED BAY AREA CONTENT The San Francisco Bay Area Portal The San Francisco Bay Area (referred to locally as the Bay Area) is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses the major cities and metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, along with smaller urban and rural areas. The Bay Area's nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Home to approximately 7.68 million people, the nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a network of roads, highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels, and commuter rail. The combined statistical area of the region is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 43rd-largest urban area in the world with 8.80 million people. The Bay Area has the second-most Fortune 500 companies in the United States, after the New York metropolitan area, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The area ranks second in highest density of college graduates, after the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and performs above the state median household income in the 2010 census; it includes the five highest California counties by per capita income and two of the top 25 wealthiest counties in the United States. Based on a 2013 population report from the California Department of Finance, the Bay Area is the only region in California where the rate of people migrating in from other areas in the United States is greater than the rate of those leaving the region, led by Alameda and Contra Costa counties. (more...) Selected article KTVU, virtual channel 2 (UHF digital channel 44), is a Fox owned-and-operated television station serving the San Francisco Bay Area that is licensed to Oakland, California, United States. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, as part of a duopoly with independent station KICU-TV (channel 36). The two stations share studio facilities located at Jack London Square in Oakland; KTVU maintains transmitter facilities located at Sutro Tower in San Francisco. KTVU presently broadcasts 47½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 7½ hours on weekdays and five hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the second-highest newscast output of any television station in the San Francisco Bay Area (behind MyNetworkTV affiliate KRON-TV, which carries 60 hours each week). In addition, the station produces the sports highlight program Sports Wrap, airing weekends at 10:45 p.m. (during the final 15 minutes of the 10:00 p.m. newscast), and the public affairs program Bay Area People, which airs Saturdays at 6:30 a.m. KTVU's Saturday 6:00 p.m. and Sunday 5:00 p.m. newscasts are subject to preemption or delay due to network sports telecasts overrunning into or starting within either timeslot. KTVU is the largest Fox station not owned by the network without a newscast in the traditional 11:00 p.m. timeslot (the station instead occupies the 11:00 half-hour with off-network syndicated sitcoms), and the fifth-largest Fox station overall without a newscast in a conventional late news timeslot. (Full article...) Selected biography Gerald Albert Asher (born 18 August 1932) is an English-born wine personality, based since 1974 in San Francisco, California. Initially a wine merchant and importer, today he is a wine writer. Born in London and raised partly in rural Essex because of the Blitz, Asher's career in wine began in 1950, when he took a part-time job at a wine retailer in London's Shepherd Market. He founded his own merchant house, Asher, Storey and Co, in 1955, to import rare and lesser-known French wines to Britain. Active until 1970, the firm was widely seen as ground-breaking for its introduction to the British market of several previously obscure wines that proceeded to become popular. In 1971, Asher relocated to New York to take up a senior position at Austin, Nichols and Co, which imported Bordeaux-classed wines to the United States. The next year he also became wine editor at Gourmet magazine, a post he would hold for the next three decades, writing the "Wine Journal" column, which eventually became monthly. In 1974, he received the Mérite agricole from the French government for his contributions to French agriculture. (more...) Selected city Walnut Creek is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. With a total estimated population of 67,673, Walnut Creek serves as a hub for its neighboring cities because of its location at the junction of the highways from Sacramento and San Jose (I-680) and San Francisco/Oakland (SR-24) and its accessibility by BART. Its active downtown neighborhood features hundred-year-old buildings and extensive high-end retail establishments, restaurants and entertainment venues. Walnut Creek owns more open space per capita than any other community in the state of California. In 1974, Walnut Creek voters approved a $6.7 million bond measure that allowed the city to purchase 1,800 acres (730 ha) of undeveloped hillsides, ridge lines, and park sites. Walnut Creek owns parts of Lime Ridge Open Space, Shell Ridge Open Space, Acalanes Ridge Open Space, and Sugarloaf Open Space. (more...) Selected image Aerial view of Golden Gate Park (long rectangular park, center) in San Francisco image credit: Hispalois Recently in the Bay Area 2018 February The Berkeley City Council declares Berkeley a "sanctuary city" for recreational cannabis sales, prohibiting the use of city resources to assist in enforcing federal marijuana laws or providing information on legal cannabis sales, the first city in California to do so [1] Marin County is ranked worst among all California counties in racial disparity, according to Race Counts and Advancement Project California, with a spokesperson for the groups stating, "We were surprised, and were not expecting Marin to be the number-one county in terms of disparity...It’s not that progressive counties have it all figured out" [2] Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley announces that her office will review thousands of marijuana convictions, dating back to 1974, for possible dismissal under Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, guidelines, following closely after San Francisco announced a similar plan (above) [3] Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf alerts city residents to imminent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, earning criticism from some federal authorities. She responds, "I was sharing information in a way that was legal and was not obstructing justice, and it was an opportunity to ensure that people were aware of their rights." [4] March A man with a rifle enters the Veterans Home of California Yountville, the largest veterans home in the United States, holds employees hostage, and is found dead, along with 3 hostages [5] May Two studies conclude that the housing crisis in the Bay Area and California is reaching emergency proportions, with one study estimating that two counties alone, Santa Clara and Alameda, will need more than 50,000 new homes to meet the demand for affordable housing for lower-income residents, while homelessness increased by 36% in Alameda County from 2016-2017[6] The father of some of the ten children that were removed from a home in Fairfield, where they were living in conditions of severe neglect and abuse, is arrested and booked on seven counts of torture and nine counts of felony child abuse [7] A nine-story electronic sculpture, "Day for Night", created by artist Jim Campbell, that features low resolution, abstract videos of San Francisco, debuts at the top of Salesforce Tower [8][9] June San Francisco voters pass an ordinance banning the sale of flavored tobacco products, due in part to concerns that candy-flavored products may lure teenagers into nicotine addiction [10] Santa Clara County voters remove Santa Clara County Superior Court judge Aaron Persky, who came to national attention in 2016 when he sentenced a Stanford University student to just six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman [11] London Breed (pictured) is elected Mayor of San Francisco in a special election, defeating close rival Mark Leno [12] Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes, and former president and COO Ramesh Balwani are indicted on charges of wire fraud, accused of carrying out a multi-million dollar scheme to defraud investors, doctors and patients. Theranos announced that Holmes would resign as CEO, but retain her position as chairwoman of the board [13] Hanabiko "Koko", a female western lowland gorilla born at the San Francisco Zoo, who was known for having learned a large number of hand signs from a modified version of American Sign Language. dies at her home in Woodside, California [14] July The West County Detention Center severs ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and will no longer incarcerate undocumented migrants at the Contra Costa County facility. [15] Nia Wilson, an African American woman, is killed while exiting MacArthur BART station, when a white male attacked her and one of her two sisters with her, with strong suspicions that this was a racially motivated hate crime [16] Ron Dellums (pictured), former East Bay US Representative and mayor of Oakland, known for his fiery anti-Vietnam War oratory and progressive politics, dies at his home in Washington, D.C. [17][18] August Apple Inc becomes the first company in history to reach $1,000,000,000,000 in value [19] The Transbay Transit Center opens in San Francisco, initially as a hub for bus lines including MUNI and AC Transit, and eventually nearly a dozen other transit agencies, including BART and CalTrain [20] A study by the California Association of Realtors shows that only about 1 in 5 Bay Area residents can afford the median purchase price for a home, with state home affordability rates at a 10 year low [21] A jury in San Francisco awards 46-year-old former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson US$289m in damages against Monsanto, after alleging that it had spent decades hiding the cancer-causing dangers of its Roundup herbicides [22] September The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upholds a patent filed by the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University involving Crispr Cas-9 gene-editing, ruling that the patent didn’t infringe on another patent filed two years prior by the University of California, Berkeley, where the technique was first developed [23] The Global Climate Action Summit convenes in San Francisco, hosted by California governor Jerry Brown, who pledges to uphold state environmental guidelines despite moves by the United States to roll them back [24] San Francisco businessman and co-founder of Salesforce.com, Marc Benioff, and his wife, Lynn Benioff, purchase Time magazine for $190 million [25] Psychologist and Palo Alto University statistics professor Christine Blasey Ford accuses Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in 1982 [26] The Bay Area by year 1850 The San Francisco Bay Area is part of the new state of California, which is admitted into the United States of America The City and County of San Francisco is incorporated John W. Geary (pictured) becomes the first mayor of San Francisco Contra Costa County is incorporated Marin County is incorporated Napa County is incorporated Santa Clara County is incorporated San Jose is incorporated in Santa Clara County (First Street, ca. 1868-1885, pictured) Solano County is incorporated Benicia is incorporated in Solano County (Benicia's State Capitol building from 1853 pictured) Sonoma County is incorporated Selected historical image "Gardens and Groves of California", all in the Bay Area (1878) image credit: public domain Did you know...  • ... that filmmaker Emiko Omori (pictured, left, with Victor Wong) began her career in 1968 at KQED, becoming one of the first camerawomen to work in news documentaries?  • ... that Fisher Creek is tributary to the largest freshwater wetland in Santa Clara County, Laguna Seca, a seasonal lake important to groundwater recharge and migratory birds?  • ... that San Francisco based architect Jack Hillmer is known for his meticulously hand-crafted Modernist homes built from redwood, and was an exponent of what Lewis Mumford called the "Bay Region style"?  • ... that Stanford University Department of Biology chairman Tim Stearns (pictured), together with his wife, medical researcher Susan Cleveland, tend a fruit tree orchard at their home in Redwood City?  • ... that the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company's flagship, the Oceanic (pictured), set a Pacific crossing record of 16 days and 10 hours, 8 days less than the ships of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company?  • ... that the building consumed in the 2016 Oakland warehouse fire had at least ten complaints filed on it since 1998? (interior damage pictured)  • ... that after Agnes Fay Morgan conducted a nutritional study with foxes, she presented her data wearing a stole made from the fur of her subjects? Previous Did you know... ... that Jane Baker, a former cooking show host and community organizer, became the first female Mayor of San Mateo, California? ... that Indonesian sociologist Mely G. Tan participated in student protests at the University of California, Berkeley until warned that she could be deported? ... that the houseboat Vallejo (pictured), made an icon of Bay Area culture by artist Jean Varda and philosopher Alan Watts in the 1960s, originally served as a passenger ferry in Portland, Oregon in the 1870s? July/August 2011 Selected periodic event BayCon is the San Francisco Bay Area's main science fiction and fantasy convention. It is held over Memorial Day weekend in Santa Clara. It began in 1982 as "The San Francisco Bay Area Regional Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention". (Trekkies pictured) Quote “ It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world. ” ~ Oscar Wilde *more quotes about San Francisco from Wikiquote Selected multimedia file Conversation of air traffic controllers and pilots at San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) during the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash landing credit: public domain Bay Area regions, geographic features and protected areas Regions East Bay North Bay Peninsula Santa Clara Valley Silicon Valley Wine Country West Marin Geographic features San Francisco Bay San Pablo Bay Suisun Bay Islands of the Bay Marin Headlands Diablo Range Berkeley Hills Santa Cruz Mountains Protected areas Golden Gate Recreation Area Farallones Marine Sanctuary Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge Point Reyes Seashore Mount Tamalpais State Park Henry Coe State Park Midpeninsula Open Space East Bay Regional Parks Things you can do *Write an article on a Bay Area-related subject *Propose new material or features for this portal *Add new selected articles *Add new selected biographies *Add new selected cities *Add new selected images *Add new selected historical images *Add new selected events *Add new selected multimedia files *Add new quotes *Add new historical events *Add new selected panoramas WikiProject You are invited to participate in the San Francisco Bay Area task force, a task force dedicated to developing and improving articles about the San Francisco Bay Area. 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