San Jose, California

Explore San Jose, California and the surrounding area. Below you can find community information, including vital statistics, information on local schools as well as resources for finding real estate for sale and homes for sale in San Jose.

San José is the largest city in the Bay Area, located roughly 50 miles south of San Francisco and 390 miles north of Los Angeles.

POPULATION: 953,679*
San José is the third largest city in California, following Los Angeles and San Diego. It is the 10th largest city in the U.S.

#1 IN TECHNOLOGY EXPERTISE
The San José area is home to the largest concentration of technology expertise in the world--more than 6,600 technology companies employing more than 254,000 people.

CLIMATE
Temperatures vary from an average of 50 degrees in January to an average of 70 degrees in July. San José boasts an average of more than 300 sunny days per year, and has a mean annual rainfall of 14.4 inches.

ELEVATION
The highest elevation is 4,372 at Copernicus Peak in the Diablo Range; the lowest elevation is sea level.

Geography

San Jose lies near the San Andreas Fault; a major source of earthquake activity in California. The most serious earthquake, in 1906, damaged many buildings in San Jose as described earlier. Earlier significant quakes rocked the city in 1839, 1851, 1858, 1864, 1865, 1868, and 1891. The Daly City Earthquake of 1957 caused some damage. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 also did some damage to parts of the city. The other faults near San Jose are the Monte Vista Fault, South Hayward Fault, Northern Calaveras Fault, and Central Calaveras Fault.

The Guadalupe River runs from the Santa Cruz Mountains (which separate the South Bay from the Pacific Coast) flowing north through San Jose, ending in the San Francisco Bay at Alviso. Along the southern part of the river is the neighborhood of Almaden Valley, originally named for the mercury mines which produced mercury needed for gold extraction from quartz during the California gold rush as well as mercury fulminate blasting caps and detonators for the U.S. military from 1870 to 1945.

The lowest point in San Jose is at sea level at the San Francisco Bay in Alviso; the highest is 4,372 feet (1,333 m) at Copernicus Peak, Mount Hamilton, which is technically outside the city limit. Due to the proximity to Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton, San Jose has taken several steps to reduce light pollution, including replacing all street lamps with low pressure sodium lamps. To recognize the city's efforts, the asteroid 6216 San Jose was named after the city. Some residents object to the deep yellow color of the streetlights, saying they are distracting because they are the same shade of yellow as traffic lights and other illuminated traffic warnings.

Economy

San Jose considers itself "the Capital of Silicon Valley." As such, its economy rises and falls with high-tech employment in the Bay Area. During the peak of the tech bubble, employment, housing prices, and traffic congestion peaked, but all eased as the economy slowed during the first few years of the 21st century. As of 2006, the city reported 405,000 jobs within the city limits and an unemployment rate of 4.6%. San Jose had the highest median household income of any city with a population over 300,000 in 2000, and currently has the highest median income of any city with over 225,000 people.

The city lists 25 companies with 1,000 employees or more, including the headquarters of Adobe Systems, BEA Systems, Cisco, and eBay, as well as major facilities for Flextronics, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Hitachi and Lockheed Martin. Sizable government employers include the city, Santa Clara County, and San José State University.

The cost of living in San Jose and the surrounding areas is among the highest in California and the nation. Housing costs in the city are the primary reason for the high cost of living, although the costs in all areas tracked by ACCRA are above the national average. Despite the high cost of living, San Jose households have the highest disposable income of any large American city. San Jose residents produce more U.S. patents than any other city, the average worker productivity in San Jose is double the national average, and 35% of venture capital funds in the U.S. are invested in San Jose and Silicon Valley companies.

The median income for a household in the city was the highest in the US for any city with more than a quater million residents with $70,243 annually. The median income for a family was $74,813. Males had a median income of $49,347 versus $36,936 for females. The per capita income for the city was $26,697. About 6.0% of families and 8.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.3% of those under age 18 and 7.4% of those age 65 or over.

Education

Colleges and universities

San Jose is home to several colleges and universities. The largest and most well known is San José State University, which was founded by the California Legislature in 1862 as the California State Normal School and is the original campus of the California State University system. Located in downtown San Jose since 1870, the university's 30,000 students in bachelor's and master's degree programs are primarily commuters from many areas in the South Bay. National Hispanic University, with an enrollment of 600, offers associate and bachelor's degrees and teaching credentials to its students, focusing on Hispanic students. Silicon Valley College offers bachelor's and associate degrees useful for workers in high technology industries. Lincoln Law School of San Jose offers law degrees, catering to working professionals. The San Jose campus of Golden Gate University offers business bachelor and MBA degrees. San Jose's community colleges, San Jose City College and Evergreen Valley College, offer associate degrees, general education units to transfer to CSU and UC schools, and adult and continuing education programs.

The University of California, Santa Cruz operates Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton. In addition, San Jose residents attend several other area universities, including Santa Clara University, De Anza College in Cupertino, Stanford University in Palo Alto, Carnegie Mellon West in Mountain View and the University of California, Berkeley.

Primary and secondary education

Most San Jose students go to schools in the San Jose Unified School District. Prior to 1954, California law required cities and school districts to have the same boundaries. When San Jose began expanding, rural school districts became one of the major opponents, as their territory and tax base was taken by the city. The city's legislators pushed a bill through the California Legislature, removing that requirement, and ending much of the opposition. The result is a patchwork of local school districts in the areas annexed after 1954. Public education in the city is provided by four high school districts, fourteen elementary districts, and four unified school districts (which provide both elementary and high schools).

In addition to the main San Jose Unified School District, the unified school districts are Milpitas Unified School District, Morgan Hill Unified School District, and Santa Clara Unified School District.

The following districts use the "feeder" system:

• Campbell Union High School District receives students from:
  • Cambrian
  • Campbell Union
  • Luther Burbank
  • Moreland
  • Union School District.

• East Side Union High School District receives students from:
  • Alum Rock Union
  • Berryessa Union
  • Evergreen Elementary
  • Franklin-McKinley
  • Mount Pleasant Elementary
  • Oak Grove
  • Orchard Elementary

• Fremont Union High School District receives students from:
  • Cupertino Union School District.

• Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District receives students from
  • Los Gatos Union School District.

Private schools in San Jose are primarily run by religious groups. The Catholic Diocese of San Jose has the second largest student population in the Santa Clara County, behind only SJUSD; the diocese and its parishes operate several schools in the city, including four high schools: Archbishop Mitty High School, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Notre Dame High School, and Presentation High School [2]. There are two Baptist high schools, Liberty Baptist School and White Road Baptist Academy. [3] Valley Christian High School is a protestant high school in the North Valley neighborhood. There is also the nonsectarian K-12 Harker School.

Attractions, parks, gardens, and other outdoor recreational sites

• Almaden Quicksilver County Park, 4,147 acres (17 km²) of former mercury mines in South San Jose
• Alum Rock Park, 718 acres (2.9 km²) in East San Jose, the oldest municipal park in California
• Emma Prusch Farm Park, 43.5 acres (176,000 m²) in East San Jose. Donated by Emma Prusch to demonstrate the valley's agricultural past, it includes a 4-H barn (the largest in San Jose), community gardens, a rare-fruit orchard, demonstration gardens, picnic areas, and expanses of lawn. [4]
• Kelley Park, including diverse facilities such as Happy Hollow Park & Zoo (a child-centric amusement park), the Japanese Friendship Garden, History Park at Kelley Park, and the Portuguese Historical Museum within the history park
• Kirk Park, home to the San Jose Young People's Theater
• Overfelt Gardens, including the Chinese Cultural Garden
• Plaza de César Chávez, a small park in Downtown, hosts outdoor concerts and the Christmas in the Park display.
• Raging Waters, water park with water slides and other water attractions. This sits with in Lake Cunningham Park
• San Jose Municipal Rose Garden, 5½ acre (22,000 m²) park in the Rose Garden neighborhood, featuring over 4,000 rose bushes