History of San Jose, California
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| History of San Jose, California | |
|---|---|
  Location in Santa Clara, California | |
| Location | San Jose, California |
| Coordinates | 37°18′15″N 121°52′22″W / 37.30417°N 121.87278°W |
| Official name | First Site of El Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe[1] |
| Designated | March 16, 1949 |
| Reference no. | 433 |
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San Jose, California, is the third largest city in the state, and the largest of all cities in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California, with a population of 1,021,795.[2]
Site chosen by Anza
For thousands of years before the arrival of
Late in 1775,
Founding
El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe (The Town of
In 1781, Governor Felipe de Neve issued the first rules regarding governance of secular pueblos (only two at that time; San José and Los Ángeles), the "Regulations for the Government of the Province of the Californias" (Reglamento para el gobierno de la provincia de Californias)[6]
In 1797, the pueblo was moved from its original location, near the present-day intersection of Hobson and San Pedro streets, to a location in what is now Downtown San Jose, surrounding Pueblo Plaza (now Plaza de César Chávez).[7]
In the ensuing years a number of Mexican Rancho Land Grants were confirmed within the lands now considered San Jose.
19th century
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During the
During the
On March 27, 1850, San Jose became the first
From 1858 to 1861, San Jose was a stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail stage line.
In 1881, because of a forceful campaign by editor J.J. Owen of the San Jose Mercury, the city council authorized the construction of the
In 1884,
20th century
In 1909, Dr. Charles Herrold began experimental radio broadcasts in downtown San Jose. His station was commercially licensed in 1921 as KQW, then moved to San Francisco, where it became KCBS in 1949.
The 1933
During World War II, San Jose experienced racial tension in neighborhoods where large populations of African Americans, Mexican Americans and Japanese Americans lived on the city's western and eastern edges. Most of the Japanese community were removed and interned in war detention camps in the course of the war. Anti-Mexican violence based on the earlier Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles took place in the summer of 1943 in San Jose. Large numbers of black people from the Southern states moved to San Jose to work in the city's growing wartime manufacturing industry, during the Second Great Migration.
San Jose was a conservative Republican bastion until the 1980s, when a political shift away from the more conservative agricultural heritage still shared by most of rural California to a more urban outlook, mirroring the voting patterns of the more densely populated urban centers of such formerly agricultural communities such as Los Angeles. San Jose now has a Democratic majority in party registration.
21st century
On May 26, 2021, a
Earthquakes
San Jose lies near several active
Transition from agriculture to technology
For nearly two centuries a farming community, San Jose produced a significant amount of fruits and vegetables until the 1960s, and many past and current names of teams, streets, buildings, and so on reflect its agricultural beginnings.
Silicon Valley
Urban sprawl
By the 1970s, urban sprawl had eliminated most of the orchards, and the Valley of Heart's Delight had been transformed into Silicon Valley.
The costs of uncontrolled growth—high municipal debt load, deteriorating public services (including double sessions at public schools and overtaxed fire and police services), and environmental degradation—triggered a populist revolt against Hamann's growth machine. In the late 1960s, several anti-growth candidates were elected to the City Council. Seeing the writing on the wall, Hamann retired. In 1971, Norman Mineta—who had been appointed to fill a vacant City Council seat by pro-growth Mayor Ron James but who proved to be an independent—was elected Mayor. During the early 1970s, a feminist-environmentalist electoral alliance consolidated a liberal, anti-growth majority on the City Council. In a final coup against the growth machine, voters elected Janet Gray Hayes as mayor in 1974. Since then, San Jose has been governed by a liberal-managerial regime focused on growth management, neighborhood services, and fiscal solvency.[12]
Subsequently, the city adopted a general plan that established an "urban service area" (also known as "urban growth boundary") within existing city boundaries, limited development in the eastern foothills, and deferred growth in Coyote Valley to the south. To the west, communities such as Campbell and Cupertino had incorporated as cities to avoid being annexed to San Jose, while expansion to the north was impossible because of San Francisco Bay. The city also adopted more rigorous planning practices and a "pay-as-you-grow" system of paying for new infrastructure. However, San Jose's new policies did not stop or even significantly restrict growth; rather, they directed growth towards incorporated areas and mitigated the costs of growth. The city's housing stock and population steadily increased during subsequent decades.[12]
Indeed, continued growth has created enormous challenges for the city and region. With the boom of the electronics industry, specifically personal computers and integrated circuits, the population of San Jose and Silicon Valley continued to grow rapidly. By 1980, the city's population was 629,442; it reached 782,248 by 1990; and at which point Santa Clara County as a whole had grown to 1,682,585 residents.[15] Because of rapid job growth and in-migration, housing costs in San Jose and the rest of the Bay Area rose faster than the national average in the 1980s and 1990s; between 1976 and 2001, San Jose's housing costs increased by 936%, the fastest growth in the nation over that time. The average 2003 home price in Santa Clara County was approximately 330% of the national average.[16]
In August 1989, San Francisco was surpassed for the first time in population by San Jose, and San Francisco is now the second largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area in population after San Jose.
In the early 1990s, San Jose and Santa Clara valley had received a heavy dose of negative press as a poorly planned and troubled suburban community, said the November 25, 1991 Time magazine article: "How gray is my valley" part of the special issue on California: The Endangered Dream. In response, the city has tried to direct growth inward and densify already urbanized areas. In 1994, the city council approved another general plan with the original 1974 urban growth boundaries intact. In 1998, city voters rejected a ballot measure that would have eased development restrictions in the foothills. Sixty percent of the housing built in San Jose since 1980 and over three-quarters of the housing built since 2000 have been multifamily structures, reflecting an orientation towards smart growth planning principles.[17]
Landmark status
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On March 16, 1949, the State Historic Preservation Office designated the First Site of El Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe as a California historical landmark #433. A description on the commemorative plaque reads: "Within a year after the opening of the first overland route from Mexico to Alta California, Governor Felipe de Neve authorized establishment of California's first civil settlement. Lieutenant José Joaquín Moraga arrived in the Santa Clara Valley with 14 settlers and their families on November 29, 1777 to found El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe near the present civic center."[1]
See also
- San Jose, California
- Las Californias
- History of California
- Spanish colonial pueblos and villas in North America
References
- ^ a b "Arroyo de San Joseph Cupertino". Office of Historic Preservation. Retrieved 2023-12-13.
- ^ (US Census Bureau 2019)
- ^ "Early History". National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 2007-06-05.
- ^ "The Basque surname was simply Anza, without 'de'". Web de Anza. Archived from the original on 2016-03-20. Retrieved 2016-09-28.
- ISBN 978-0-87919-137-5.
- ^ Spanish reprint plus English translation in Land of Sunshine magazine, volume 6, January 1897. Available online at Internet Archive (retrieved July 2018)
- ^ Archives & Architecture, Inc. (February 7, 2020). Historic Resource Project Assessment. San Jose Department of Planning, Building and Code Enforcement. p. 8. Retrieved October 9, 2022.
- ^ Gecker, Jocelyn; Chea, Terence (May 26, 2021). "8 dead in shooting at railyard serving Silicon Valley". Associated Press. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
- ^ "Mass Shooting Leaves 8 Dead at VTA Yard in San Jose: Sheriff". NBC Bay Area. 2021-05-26. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
- ^ Toppozada, T.R.; Real, C.R. (1981), Preparation of isoseismal maps and summaries of reported effects for pre-1900 California earthquakes, Open-File Report 81-262, United States Geological Survey, pp. 33–169
- ^ Officials unmoved by quake notoriety Plan to note change of 1906 epicenter lacking support
- ^ a b c d Flashback: A short political history of San Jose
- ^ "BAE Systems History". Archived from the original on 2007-02-20. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
- ISBN 0-9649217-0-7
- ^ For complete statistics regarding the population growth of San Jose please refer to the Historical Census Populations of California State, Counties, Cities, Places, and Towns, 1850–2000 Archived 2006-06-21 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ San Jose case study, part one: the urban-growth boundary
- ^ City of San Jose Planning: Building Permit History Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
Bibliography
External links
- History San Jose website, for History San Jose, the largest historical organization for the city
- "Happy Birthday San José", an article about the celebration of the founding of the city on the California Frontier Project website.