Berkeley Basic Data

City of Berkeley
—  City  —
Berkeley looking northwest as seen from the Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve.
The City of Berkeley highlighted within Alameda County.
Coordinates: 37°52′18″N 122°16′22″W / 37.87167°N 122.27278°W / 37.87167; -122.27278
Country	United States
State	California
County	Alameda
Incorporated	April 4, 1878
Government
- Type	Mayor and City Council
- Mayor	Tom Bates
- Councilmembers	District 1: Linda Maio District 2: Darryl Moore District 3: Maxwell Anderson District 4: Jesse Arreguin District 5: Laurie Capitelli District 6: Susan Wengraf District 7: Kriss Worthington District 8: Gordon Wozniak
- State Senate	Loni Hancock (D)
- State Assembly	Nancy Skinner (D)
- U. S. Congress	Barbara Lee (D)
Area
- Total	17.7 sq mi (45.9 km)
- Land	10.5 sq mi (27.1 km)
- Water	7.2 sq mi (18.8 km)
Elevation	0–1,320 ft (0–400 m)
Population (2000)
- Total	102,822
- Density	9,823.3/sq mi (3,792.5/km)
Time zone	PST (UTC−8)
- Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC−7)
ZIP code	94701–94710, 94712, 94720
Area code(s)	510
FIPS code	06-06000
GNIS feature ID	1658037
Website	http://www.cityofberkeley.info

Photos of Berkeley and surrounding area

Berkeley History

Early history

The site of today's City of Berkeley was the territory of the Chochen/Huichin band of the Ohlone people when the first Europeans arrived. Remnants of their existence in the area include pits in rock formations, which they used to grind acorns, and a shellmound, now mostly leveled and covered up, along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay at the mouth of Strawberry Creek. Other artifacts were discovered in the 1950s in the downtown area during remodeling of a commercial building, near the upper course of the creek.

This pit in the surface of a rock at Indian Rock Park is typical of those used by Ohlone Indians to grind acorns.

The first people of European descent (most of whom were born in America, and many of whom were of mixed ancestry) arrived with the De Anza Expedition in 1776. Today, this is noted by signage on Interstate 80, which runs along the San Francisco Bay shoreline of Berkeley. The De Anza Expedition led to establishment of the Spanish Presidio of San Francisco at the entrance to San Francisco Bay (the Golden Gate), which is due west of Berkeley. Luís Peralta was among the soldiers at the Presidio. For his services to the King of Spain, he was granted a vast stretch of land on the east shore of San Francisco Bay (the contra costa, "opposite shore") for a ranch, including that portion that now comprises the City of Berkeley.

Luís Peralta named his holding, "Rancho San Antonio." The primary activity of the ranch was raising cattle for meat and hides, but hunting and farming were also pursued. Eventually, Peralta gave portions of the ranch to each of his four sons. What is now Berkeley lies mostly in the portion that went to Peralta's son, Domingo, with a little in the portion that went to another son, Vicente. No artifact survives of the ranches of Domingo or Vicente, although their names have been preserved in the naming of Berkeley streets (Vicente, Domingo, and Peralta). However, legal title to all land in the City of Berkeley remains based on the original Peralta land grant.

The Peraltas' Rancho San Antonio continued after Alta California passed from Spanish to Mexican sovereignty after the Mexican War of Independence. However, the advent of U.S. sovereignty after the Mexican–American War, and especially, the Gold Rush, saw the Peralta's lands quickly encroached on by squatters and diminished by dubious legal proceedings. The lands of the brothers Domingo and Vicente were quickly reduced to reservations close to their respective ranch homes. The rest of the land was surveyed and parceled out to various American claimants (See Kellersberger's Map).

Politically, the area that became Berkeley was initially part of a vast Contra Costa County. On March 25, 1853, Alameda County was created by division of Contra Costa County, as well as from a small portion of Santa Clara County.

The area of Berkeley was at this period mostly a mix of open land, farms and ranches, with a small though busy wharf by the bay. It was not yet "Berkeley," but merely the northern part of the "Oakland Township" subdivision of Alameda County.

Late 19th century

In 1866, Oakland's private College of California looked for a new site. It settled on a location north of Oakland along the foot of the Contra Costa Range (later called the Berkeley Hills) astride Strawberry Creek, at an elevation about 500 ft (150 m) above the bay, commanding a fantastic view of the Bay Area and the Pacific Ocean through the Golden Gate.

According to the Centennial Record of the University of California, "In 1866…at Founders' Rock, a group of College of California men watched two ships standing out to sea through the Golden Gate. One of them, Frederick Billings, thought of the lines of the Anglo-Irish Anglican Bishop George Berkeley, 'westward the course of empire takes its way,' and suggested that the town and college site be named for the eighteenth-century Anglo-Irish philosopher and poet."

The College of California's College Homestead Association planned to raise funds for the new campus by selling off parcels of land adjacent to it. To this end, they laid out a plat and street grid that became the basis of Berkeley's modern street plan. Their plans fell far short of their desires, and collaboration was then begun with the State of California, which culminated in 1868 with the creation of the public University of California.

As construction began on the new site, more residences were constructed in the vicinity of the new campus. At the same time, a settlement of residences, saloons, and various industries grew around the wharf area called "Ocean View." A horsecar ran from Temescal in Oakland to the university campus along what is now Telegraph Avenue.

By the 1870s, the Transcontinental Railroad reached its terminus in Oakland. In 1876, a branch line of the Central Pacific Railroad, the Berkeley Branch Railroad, was laid from a junction with the mainline called Shellmound (now a part of Emeryville) into what is now downtown Berkeley. That same year, the mainline of the transcontinental railroad into Oakland was re-routed, putting the right-of-way along the bay shore through Ocean View.

There was a strong prohibition movement in Berkeley at this time. In 1876 the "mile limit law" was passed, which prevented sale or public consumption of alcohol within one mile (1.6 km) of the new University of California.. Then, in 1899 Berkeley residents voted to make their city an alcohol-free zone. Scientists, scholars and religious leaders spoke vehemently of the dangers of alcohol..

The first post office opened in 1872.

In 1878, the people of Ocean View and the area around the University campus, together with local farmers, incorporated themselves as the Town of Berkeley. The first elected trustees of the town were the slate of Denis Kearney's Workingman's Party, who were particularly favored in the working class area of the former Ocean View, now called "West Berkeley." The area near the university became known as "East Berkeley."

The modern age came quickly to Berkeley, no doubt due to the influence of the university. Electric lights were in use by 1888. The telephone had already come to town. Electric streetcars soon replaced the horsecar. A silent film of one of these early streetcars in Berkeley can be seen at the Library of Congress website: "A Trip To Berkeley, California"

Early 20th century

Berkeley's slow growth ended abruptly with the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. The town and other parts of the East Bay somehow managed to escape serious damage from the massive temblor, and hundreds if not thousands of refugees flowed across the Bay.

In 1908, a statewide referendum that proposed moving the California state capital to Berkeley was defeated by a margin of about 35,000 votes. A legacy of this ballot measure that survives was the naming of streets in the vicinity of the proposed capitol grounds for the counties of California.

In 1909, the citizens of Berkeley adopted a new charter, and the Town of Berkeley became the City of Berkeley. Rapid growth continued up to the Crash of 1929. The Great Depression hit Berkeley hard, but not as hard as many other places in the U.S., thanks in part to the University.

On September 17, 1923, a major fire swept down the hills toward the University campus and the downtown section. Some 640 structures burned before a late afternoon sea breeze stopped its progress, allowing firefighters to put it out.

The next big growth occurred with the advent of World War II, when large numbers of people moved to the Bay Area to work in the many war industries, such as the immense Kaiser Shipyards in nearby Richmond. One who moved out, but played a big role in the outcome of the War was U.C. Professor and Berkeley resident J. Robert Oppenheimer. During the war, an Army base, Camp Ashby, was temporarily sited in Berkeley.

The 1950s and 1960s

The postwar years saw moderate growth of the City, as events on the U.C. campus began to build up to the recognizable activism of the sixties. In the 1950s, McCarthyism induced the University to demand a loyalty oath from its professors, many of whom refused to sign the oath on the principle of freedom of thought. In 1960, a U.S. House committee (HUAC) came to San Francisco to investigate the influence of communists in the Bay Area. Their presence was met by protesters, including many from the University. Meanwhile, a number of U.C. students became active in support of the Civil Rights Movement. Finally, the University in 1964 provoked a massive student protest by banning distribution of political literature on campus. This protest became the Free Speech Movement. As the Vietnam War rapidly escalated in the ensuing years, so did student activism at the University, particularly that organized by the Vietnam Day Committee.

Berkeley is strongly identified with the rapid social changes, civic unrest, and political upheaval that characterized the late 1960s. In that period, Berkeley—especially Telegraph Avenue—became a focal point for the hippie movement, which spilled over the Bay from San Francisco. Many hippies were apolitical drop-outs, rather than students, but in the heady atmosphere of Berkeley in 1967–1969 there was considerable overlap of the hippie movement and the radical left. An iconic event in the Berkeley Sixties scene was a conflict over a parcel of University property south of the contiguous campus site that came to be called "People's Park."

People's Park with Unit 2 in the background

The battle over disposition of People's Park resulted in a month-long occupation of Berkeley by the National Guard on orders of then-Governor Ronald Reagan. In the end, the park remained undeveloped, and remains so today. A spin-off, "People's Park Annex," was established at the same time by activist citizens of Berkeley on a strip of land above the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway construction along Hearst Avenue northwest of the U.C. campus. The land had also been intended for development, but was turned over to the City by BART and is now Ohlone Park.

1970s to present

Shattuck Avenue at Center Street in downtown Berkeley as seen in 1973.

The 1970s saw a decline in the population of Berkeley, partly due to an exodus to the suburbs. Some moved because of the rising cost of living throughout the Bay Area, and others because of the decline and disappearance of many industries in West Berkeley.

From the 1980s to the present, Berkeley has seen rising housing costs, especially since the mid-1990s. In 2005–2007, sales of homes began to slow, but average home prices, as of 2010 remain, among the highest in the nation.

Though many think of the 1960s as the heyday of liberalism in Berkeley, it remains one of the most overwhelmingly Democratic cities in the United States. The era of large public protest in Berkeley waned considerably with the end of the Vietnam War in 1974. One person who rose in prominence during the late sixties and into the seventies was Ron Dellums, a self-described socialist and nephew of C.L. Dellums, an African American labor leader. He first served on the Berkeley City Council, and later became a federal representative for the district that includes Berkeley. He was elected Mayor of Oakland in 2006.

In 2006, the Berkeley Oak Grove Protest began, protesting construction of a new sports center annex to Memorial Stadium at the expense of a grove of oak trees on the UC campus. The protest ended in September 2008 after a lengthy court process.

In 2007–08, Berkeley received media attention due to demonstrations against a Marine Corps recruiting office in downtown Berkeley and a series of controversional motions by Berkeley's City Council regarding opposition to Marine recruiting. (See Berkeley Marine Corps Recruiting Center controversy.)

City Information

Never Married	(50.8%)
Married	(33.2%)
Separated (Married)	(1.8%)
Widowed	(4.6%)
Divorced	(9.5%)
Races
White Non-Hispanic	(55.2%)
Black	(13.6%)
Hispanic	(9.7%)
Chinese	(7.4%)
Two or more races	(5.6%)
Other race	(4.6%)
Japanese	(2.3%)
Ancestries
German	(11.1%)
English	(10.0%)
Irish	(9.0%)
Russian	(4.2%)
Italian	(4.2%)
Polish	(2.9%)
Schooling
High School	(92.2%)
Bachelors	(64.3%)
Graduates	(34.3%)