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 The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), is a center of health sciences research, patient care, and education; located in San Francisco, California. UCSF is widely regarded as one of the world's leading universities in health sciences. Though one of the 10 campuses of the University of California, it is unique for being the only University of California campus dedicated solely to graduate education, and in health and biomedical sciences. Some of UCSF's treatment centers include kidney transplants and liver transplantation, radiology, neurosurgery, neurology, oncology, ophthalmology, gene therapy, women's health, fetal surgery, pediatrics, and internal medicine. Founded in 1873, the mission of UCSF is to serve as a "public university dedicated to saving lives and improving health." The UCSF Medical Center is consistently ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, who also ranked UCSF's medical school as one of the top 10 in a number of specialties, including a specialty program in AIDS medical care ranked first in the country. UCSF is administered separately from Hastings College of Law, another UC institution located in San Francisco. In recent years, UCSF and UC Hastings have increased their collaboration, including the formation of the UCSF/Hastings Consortium on Law, Science, and Health Policy. (more...) Selected biography Barbara Levy Boxer (born November 11, 1940) is the junior United States Senator from California (since 1993). A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1983–1993). Born in Brooklyn, New York, Boxer graduated from Brooklyn College. She worked as a stockbroker for several years before moving to California with her husband. During the 1970s, she worked as a journalist for the Pacific Sun and as an aide to U.S. Representative John L. Burton. She served on the Marin County Board of Supervisors for six years and became the board's first female president. With the slogan "Barbara Boxer Gives a Damn", she was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982, representing California District 6. She sat on the House Armed Services Committee, and was involved in government oversight, passing several procurement reforms. Boxer won the 1992 election for the U.S. Senate. She previously held the record for the most popular votes in any U.S. Senate election in history, having received 6.96 million votes in her 2004 re-election, until her colleague, Dianne Feinstein, the senior Senator from California, surpassed that number in her 2012 re-election. Boxer is the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the chair of the Select Committee on Ethics, making her the only senator to preside over two committees simultaneously. She is also the Democratic Chief Deputy Whip. She resides in Marin County. (more...) Selected city Martinez is a city and the county seat of Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 35,824 at the 2010 census. The downtown is notable for its large number of preserved old buildings. Martinez is located on the south side of the Carquinez Strait in the San Francisco Bay Area, directly facing the city of Benicia. In 1824 the Alhambra Valley was included in the Rancho El Pinole Mexican land grant to Ygnacio Martínez. In 1847, Dr. Robert Semple contracted to provide ferry service from Martinez to Benicia, which for many years was the only crossing on the Carquinez Strait. By 1849, Martínez served as a way station for the California Gold Rush. The town was laid out in 1849 by Col. William M. Smith and named for Martinez. It became the county seat in 1850, but could not incorporate at the time because it lacked the 200 registered voters required, and only became a city in 1876. Martinez was the home of John Muir from 1880 until his death in 1914. He was buried about a mile south of the building that is now the John Muir National Historic Site. Also nearby is the Vicente Martinez Adobe, built in 1849 by the son of Ygnacio Martinez. (more...) Selected image Sather Gate, University of California, Berkeley image credit: Franco Folini 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 1930 The Art Deco downtown Berkeley Public Library building is completed (pictured) International House Berkeley is established by YMCA official Harry Edmonds Selected historical image Naval Training Station, Yerba Buena Island, San Francisco (1928) image credit: Historic American Buildings Survey 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 on Floodplain, San Francisco-based string quartet the Kronos Quartet (pictured) plays instruments built by Walter Kitundu, including the beguèna maridhia, which is based on an Ethiopian 10-string lyre? ... that "A Supermarket in California" is a poem by Allen Ginsberg published in 1956 and dedicated to Walt Whitman in the centennial year of the first edition of Leaves of Grass? ... that despite playing the position of wide receiver in American college football, LaShaun Ward was the third leading rusher for the University of California Golden Bears in 2001? ... that the organizers of San Francisco's Trans March rerouted the event through the city's Mission District to draw attention to violence against transgender people? ... that San Francisco Chronicle pop music critic Joel Selvin (pictured) was an early member of the rock and roll band Rock Bottom Remainders, made up of authors and journalists? May/June 2009 Selected periodic event The San Jose Jazz Summer Fest (originally known as the San Jose Jazz Festival) is an annual music festival organized by non-profit San Jose Jazz, and held in downtown San Jose. The festival was established in 1990 and has grown to a 3-day weekend with jazz, Latin, salsa, R&B, blues (Bettye LaVette pictured), and other music styles. The main stage is at Plaza de Cesar Chavez. Quote “ San Francisco! – one of my two favorite cities. There is more grace per square foot in San Francisco than any place on earth! ” ~ Fulton J. Sheen *more quotes about San Francisco from Wikiquote Selected multimedia file Play media Warren Hall implosion, California State University, East Bay, Hayward, 2013 credit: Mercurywoodrose 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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