Mountain View, California
City
City Hall & Performing Arts Center
Flag Seal
Location within Santa Clara County
Mountain View city map, California, U.S.
Coordinates: 37°23′10″N 122°05′02″W / 37.38611°N 122.08389°W / 37.38611; -122.08389
Country	United States
State	California
County	Santa Clara
Incorporated	November 7, 1902[1]
Government
• Type	Council–manager[2]
• Mayor	Pat Showalter[2]
• Vice mayor	Lisa Matichack[2]
• City manager	Kimbra McCarthy[3]
• Supervisor	Joe Simitian[4]
• State Assembly Member	Marc Berman[5]
Area [6]
• Total	12.236 sq mi (31.691 km2)
• Land	11.958 sq mi (30.971 km2)
• Water	0.278 sq mi (0.719 km2)  2.26%
Elevation [7]	105 ft (32 m)
Population  (2020)[8]
• Total	82,376
• Estimate  (2022)[9]	81,059
• Rank	US: 439th CA: 103rd
• Density	6,780/sq mi (2,617/km2)
Time zone	UTC–8 (Pacific (PST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC–7 (PDT)
ZIP Codes[10]	94035, 94039, 94040, 94041, 94042, 94043
Area code	650
FIPS code	06-49670
GNIS feature IDs	0277611,[7] 2411186
Sales tax	9.125%[11]
Website	mountainview.gov

Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains,^[12] the population was 82,376 at the 2020 census.^[8]

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. 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 Center, and former or existing headquarters for Microsoft, Symantec, 23andMe, LinkedIn, Samsung, Quora and Synopsys.

History

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The fertile land between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the shores of the southern San Francisco Bay once supported multiple villages of the indigenous Ohlone people. Spanish missionaries utilized the land for sheep pastures.^[13]

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 southwest 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 center of religious book publishing.^[14]

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.

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[15]

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[16] 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.^[14]

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.^[17]

In 2016, the city's voters approved a rent control ordinance.^[18][19]

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 12.236 square miles (31.69 km²), of which 11.958 square miles (30.97 km²) is land and 0.278 square miles (0.72 km²) (2.26%) is water.^[6]

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 by the Bay, northeast by East Palo Alto, California at Baylands Park, Palo Alto, to the south and southwest by Los Altos, and to the east by Sunnyvale and Moffett Federal Airfield.

The Santa Cruz Mountains, the origin of the city's name, lie to the west. This range separates Mountain View from the Pacific Ocean and, together with the Diablo Range to the south-east, form 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 subdivision known as Miramonte Oaks which borders Los Altos. This would be one of the more exclusive areas, this development was built in 1963 to about 1965. The other neighborhood's ranch-style housing were built in the 1950s and 1960s on orchard land.^[20]

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.^[21] Most of the housing in Cuernavaca is Spanish-style, with red tiled roofs.^[21]

The Monta Loma neighborhood is located between the bounds of San Antonio Road, Middlefield Road, Rengstorff Avenue and Central Expressway.^[22] Currently Monta Loma houses a collection of California-style mid-century modern houses by Joseph Eichler, John Calder Mackay, and Mardell Building Company.^[22]

Climate

Mountain View has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csb: dry-summer subtropical).^[23] Summers are warm and dry, while winters are cool and wet. However, both summers and winters are somewhat moderated due to its relative proximity to the Pacific, although it has a lesser maritime influence than San Francisco further north on the peninsula.

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 2024, major tech companies such as Google^[26] and Intuit^[27] were headquartered in Mountain View.^[28] 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.^[29]

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.^[30] At the start of 2018, Mountain View raised its minimum wage to $15.^[31] 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."^[30] A proposal to slow down the rate of the wage increases by a year^[32][33] was defeated in a City Council meeting on December 4, 2018.^[34] 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.^[35] As of January 2024, the minimum wage in Mountain View is $18.75 per hour.^[36]

Top employers

According to the City's 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report,^[37] the largest employers in the city are:

Economic past

Due to its history as a center 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.^[38]

Demographics

2020 census