East Palo Alto, California

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Area
City of East Palo Alto, California
Location of East Palo Alto, California
Country	United States
State	California
County	San Mateo
Mayor	Ruben Abrica
- City	6.7 km² (2.6 mi²) km²
- Land	6.6 km² (2.5 mi²) (99.22%) km²
- Water	0.1 km² (0.04 mi²) (0.78%) km²
Population
- City (2000)	29,506
- Density	4,467.6/km² (11,585.5/mi²)/km²
Time zone	PST (UTC-8)
- Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC)
Website: http://www.ci.east-palo-alto.ca.us

East Palo Alto (often called EPA) is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 29,506 (31,915: 2003 estimate). It is situated on the San Francisco Peninsula, roughly halfway between the cities of San Francisco and San Jose. To the east is the San Francisco Bay, and to the west the prosperous city of Palo Alto. Many assume that East Palo Alto is merely the eastern side of Palo Alto, but East Palo Alto is in fact a separate city in Santa Clara County's neighboring San Mateo County, with an entirely different demographic makeup. Though the two cities are separated only by San Francisquito Creek, they are worlds apart culturally and economically. (Interestingly, although they're in different counties, East Palo Alto and Palo Alto share both telephone area codes and postal ZIP codes.)

Although half of East Palo Alto's residents were African Americans in 1990, Latinos quickly moved in and now form about three-fifths of the total population, while the proportion of African Americans has dwindled to about 20%. A sizeable Pacific Islander population also resides in East Palo Alto, including Tongans and Samoans.

East Palo Alto has an unenviable reputation for crime and poverty, a reputation well deserved during the 1980s and early 1990s (in 1992, the city had the highest per-capita murder rate in the country with 42 murders[1]). Since then the city's crime problems have somewhat subsided, although the enormous prosperity which lavished the Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s largely passed East Palo Alto by, and the Norteño and Sureño gangs contest the area. Eventually, however, the Peninsula's shortage of land and soaring property prices meant that even East Palo Alto became an option for urban regeneration.

Significant gentrification occurred in East Palo Alto from around 2000, with the construction of a large shopping center named Ravenswood 101 (including branches of Home Depot and Best Buy, and a controversial IKEA store) and several upscale housing communities (intended for high-earning Silicon Valley workers). This gentrification has faced opposition from local residents. Some residents charge that it serves to price locals out of one of the region's only affordable communities while providing only low-paying jobs in the retail developments and consuming an increasing proportion of the tiny city's land area (2.5 square miles).

East Palo Alto also includes a small piece of land across the Bayshore Freeway from the shopping center, a roughly triangular area between Highway 101 and the San Francisquito Creek, which includes a former two-block-long retail business district known as Whiskey Gulch. (The name dates back to the time that Stanford University, in Palo Alto to the west, was dry and prohibited alcohol sales within a radius of one mile from the campus: Whiskey Gulch was just outside the limits, and was home to a number of liquor stores and bars.) The city has torn down Whiskey Gulch and replaced it with the University Circle office complex. A 200-room Four Seasons hotel opened in University Circle in 2006 after numerous delays to serve the Silicon Valley market. The new hotel is being promoted as the most lavish and luxurious full-sized hotel available in the mid-Peninsula and West Valley area, but has had problems with settling into the bay landfill onto which it has been built (evidence of which was not noticed until windows built for it would not fit into their panes).

[edit] Geography

37°28′1″N, 122°8′23″W (37.467038, -122.139699)^GR1 in San Mateo County.

Despite its name, East Palo Alto lies almost entirely north, and not east, of Palo Alto. It is bordered on the west by Menlo Park and Palo Alto, and to the east by the San Francisco Bay. (The San Francisquito Creek defines its western edge.) To the north are Ravenswood Point and the western end of the Dumbarton Bridge in Menlo Park.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.7 km² (2.6 mi²). 6.6 km² (2.5 mi²) of it is land and 0.1 km² (0.04 mi²) of it (0.78%) is water.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census^GR2 of 2000, there were 29,506 people, 6,976 households, and 5,273 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,467.6/km² (11,585.5/mi²). There were 7,091 housing units at an average density of 1,073.7/km² (2,784.3/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 26.98% White, 23.03% African American, 0.83% Native American, 2.23% Asian, 7.63% Pacific Islander (mainly Tongan and Samoan immigrants), 34.73% from other races, and 4.56% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 58.79% of the population.

There were 6,976 households out of which 47.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.2% were married couples living together, 19.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 24.4% were non-families. 18.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 4.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 4.20 and the average family size was 4.64.

In the city the population was spread out with 35.0% under the age of 18, 13.4% from 18 to 24, 32.6% from 25 to 44, 14.0% from 45 to 64, and 5.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 26 years. For every 100 females there were 106.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 107.9 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $45,006, and the median income for a family was $44,342. Males had a median income of $26,631 versus $27,044 for females. The per capita income for the city was $13,774. About 13.5% of families and 16.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.6% of those under age 18 and 10.9% of those age 65 or over.