Mountain View, California, United States

🇺🇸 Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, in Silicon Valley. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Mountain View is one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley.

Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the location of many high technology companies. In 1956, William Shockley established Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, the first company to develop silicon semiconductor devices in Silicon Valley. Today, Mountain View houses the headquarters of many of the world's largest technology companies, including Google and Alphabet Inc., Unicode Consortium, Intuit, NASA Ames research centre, and major headquarter offices for Microsoft, Symantec, 23andMe, LinkedIn, Samsung, and Synopsys.

History The Mexican land grant of Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas was given in 1842 by Alta California Governor Juan Alvarado to Francisco Estrada. This grant was later passed on to Mariano Castro, who sold half of the land to Martin Murphy Jr. Eventually, the former land grant was developed as the cities of Mountain View and Sunnyvale.

The south-west shore of San Francisco Bay was settled by European-Americans in 1852 as a stagecoach station. This was after the United States acquired California. By the early 1900s, it was a shipping point for fruit and grain, as well as a centre of religious book publishing.

The early pioneers were commonly buried at the old cemetery between Mercy & Church, off Castro Street. This is now the site of the present city library and park, known as Pioneer Park.

History: Residents Reverend Henry Merrill Henderson, born in Maryland, arrived here at age 35 with his family in 1852; he was meeting relatives: the Ricketts and others who had migrated from Missouri and Kentucky. He was the first Baptist minister in town. He soon rode a circuit for preaching, going by horseback to Half-Moon Bay and McCarthysville for services.

Later that year, Seligman Weilheimer and his brother Samuel immigrated from Dossenheim, Baden, Germany. They settled on the next plot, and in 1856 built the first big general merchandise store in the settlement.

William Bubb bought 80 acres (32 ha) to farm in October 1851; he became a leader in town and died there in 1864. His heirs' descendants prospered, marrying into other pioneer families.

History: Advent of local aerospace and electronics industries The U.S. Navy's adjacent 1,000-acre (4.0 km²) Moffett Field Complex was constructed beginning after 1931; its development attracted many workers and it brought many economic opportunities. After World War II, the population grew significantly with the development of regional aerospace and electronics industries. Between 1950 and 1960, the population grew from 6,563 to 30,889, an increase of 370.7%.

Between 1929 and 1994, Moffett Field Naval Air Station operated in Mountain View. In 1940, the city was the base of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (now the NASA Ames Research Center), which had a strong influence on the development of aerospace and electronics industries.

History: Current economic climate Today, high technology is the foundation of the local economy. Few remnants are visible of the city's agricultural past.

In 1990, Kevin Duggan began his position as city manager. He built a relationship with Google, Inc., and issued a long-term lease to it and other technology companies. As of 2014, those leases generate over $5 million per year in city revenue. The Castro Street downtown area also benefited from a special tax district.

In 2016, the city's voters approved a rent control ordinance.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 12.3 sq mi (31.8 km²), of which 12.0 sq mi (31.1 km²) is land and 0.27 sq mi (0.7 km²) (2.26%) is water. The city borders Palo Alto and the San Francisco Bay to the north, Los Altos to the south, and Moffett Federal Airfield and Sunnyvale to the east.

Mountain View is located in the south-eastern and south western section of the San Francisco Peninsula., at the north end of State Route 85, where it meets U.S. Route 101. State Route 82 follows the route of the historic El Camino Real through Mountain View. The city is bounded to the north-west by Palo Alto, to the north by the Bay, to the south and south-west by Los Altos, and to the east by Sunnyvale and Moffett Federal Airfield.

To the west lie the Santa Cruz Mountains. The city was named for these, which separate it from the Pacific Ocean. The two ranges demarcate the Santa Clara Valley.

Neighborhoods Most of Mountain View consists of residential neighborhoods. Business parks are located mostly in the North Shoreline neighborhood, north of Highway 101 and east of Highway 85.

The Blossom Valley neighborhood comprises five smaller neighborhoods: Springer Meadows, Varsity Park, Blossom Valley Estates, Springer Trees, and Gest Ranch/. The neighborhood's ranch-style housing was built in the 1950s and 1960s on orchard land.

The Cuernavaca neighborhood is located off Crestview Drive near the Sunnyvale border. This neighborhood used to be the location of a cherry orchard, and later a nine-hole golf course and swim club before it was turned into housing, which was completed in 1989. Most of the housing in Cuernavaca is Spanish-style, with red tiled roofs.

The Monta Loma neighborhood is located between the bounds of San Antonio Road, Middlefield Road, Rengstorff Avenue and Central Expressway. Currently Monta Loma houses a collection of California-style mid-century modern houses by Joseph Eichler, John Calder Mackay, and Mardell Building Company.

Economy Mountain View is one of the major cities that make up Silicon Valley, and has many notable Silicon Valley companies either headquartered there or with a large presence. As of 2018, major tech companies such as Google and Mozilla were headquartered in Mountain View. In 2018, the comparison site CareerBliss ranked the city number 1 in the United States on its list of Happiest Cities to Work for 2018.

After voting to increase the minimum wage incrementally in 2015, in December 2017, the Mountain View City Council implemented a mandatory $15 minimum wage, to apply to employees who work two or more hours a week. At the start of 2018, Mountain View raised its minimum wage to $15. Starting on January 1, 2019, the minimum wage was to be "adjusted annually based on the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose regional Consumer Price Index". A proposal to slow down the rate of the wage increases by a year was defeated in a City Council meeting on December 4, 2018. Subsequently, on December 30, 2018, it was announced that Mountain View's minimum wage would rise to $15.65 on January 1, 2019, with the increase delayed by one year for companies with 25 or fewer employees. As of January 2020, the minimum wage in Mountain View is $16.05 per hour.

Economy: Top employers According to a recent Financial Report, the main employers in the city are: 1 Google /Alphabet; 2 Intuit; 3 El Camino Hospital; 4 LinkedIn; 5 Microsoft; 6 Waymo; 7 Pure Storage; 8 Palo Alto Medical Foundation; 9 Synopsys; 10 Samsung Electronics.

Economic past Due to its history as a centre for semiconductor manufacturing, Mountain View has seven sites on the Environmental Protection Agency's Final National Priorities List (NPL), a list of hazardous waste sites in the United States eligible for long-term remedial action financed under the federal Superfund program. The sites were formerly used by companies including Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, Raytheon, CTS Printex Inc., Spectra-Physics, Jasco Chemical, GTE and Teledyne. These seven sites make up a portion of the 22 NPL sites in Santa Clara County, which are included in the total of 94 sites in California.

Downtown Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit centre in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south. The transit centre links the Caltrain commuter rail and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) light rail and bus systems.

Four blocks with a concentration of restaurants, cafes, and shops extend south from the downtown station. The Michelin Guide-starred restaurant Chez TJ is located a block from Castro Street on Villa Street. Tied House, located next door, was one of the first brewpubs in the Bay Area, and was a popular stop in downtown until it closed in 2019.

The core of downtown is the plaza shared by City Hall, the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts (MVCPA) and the Mountain View Public Library. The plaza is used for many community gatherings and events, and features a collection of public art. Peninsula Youth Theatre and TheatreWorks are among the home companies of the MVCPA. The City Hall and MVCPA complex, designed by William Turnbull of San Francisco, opened in 1991. Behind those buildings is Pioneer Park, formerly the site of Mountain View's first cemetery.

The Mountain View Police Department is located two blocks away from Castro Street on Villa Street.

Since 1971, the city has held the annual Mountain View Art & Wine Festival on Castro Street by closing down the street to traffic for two days. There is a farmers' market in the Caltrain parking lot every Sunday morning. Every summer, once a month, the city celebrates Thursday Night Live by closing off Castro street to cars and providing live music events and car shows on Castro Street.

The entire length of El Camino in Mountain View is a low-density commercial area.

Transport The Downtown Mountain View Station is the transit centre for the city, connecting the public commuter rail, light rail, bus, and private shuttle systems. Mountain View is served by the Caltrain commuter rail system, which runs from San Francisco to Gilroy. The two Caltrain stations in the city are Downtown Mountain View Station and San Antonio Station. The city is also served by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), which operates various bus lines and the light rail system. There are a total of four stations in the city on the Orange Line VTA light rail line, with Downtown Mountain View Station serving as the northern terminus, while the other three stations are Whisman, Middlefield, and Bayshore/NASA. MVgo is a free shuttle service that runs three routes throughout Mountain View beginning and ending at Downtown Mountain View Station during morning and evening commute hours. Many large local employers (including Google, Microsoft, Apple Inc., and NASA Ames Research Center) operate employee shuttles that stop at the Downtown Mountain View Station. There is also a free community shuttle bus that serves 50 stops within Mountain View.

The three nearest major airports are San Jose International Airport (SJC), San Francisco International Airport (SFO), and Oakland International Airport (OAK), respectively. Moffett Federal Airfield is located just north of Mountain View, but it is restricted to government, military, and private use. The nearest general aviation airport is the Palo Alto Airport of Santa Clara County.