Mountain View
Vibrant, varied, youth, and well run are all words that come to mind when I think of the lower Peninsula community of Mountain View.
An article published in the Los Altos Town Crier several months back offers the following statistics about Mountain View:
- 2008 Average Age: 38.1 years
- 2008 Median Income: $81,200
- Race/Ethnicity: 57.5% White, 25.3% Asian, 11.4% Latino or some other race declared, 1.6% Black.
- Education: Approximately 60% of Mt. View residents between ages 25 and 64 have a bachelor’s degree or higher and an additional 20% have at least some college or an associate’s degree.
- Housing: Units grew a modest 3% between 2000 and 2008 from 32,432 to 33,475 units. In 2008, approximately 41% of Mt. View households owned their own home. The city is a good mix of singles and families.
Approximately, 58,000 jobs, concentrated in the information sector and the professional, scientific, and technical services sectors. Top businesses include Google, El Camino Hospital, Intuit, Microsoft, Synopsys, Veritas and KPMG. ” The city benefits from strong industry revenues. The result shows in its parks, its Community Center and generally, its downtown vibrancy.
Mountain View has benefited greatly from its relationship with its industry partners, but perhaps no more than with their relationship with Google. When Slater Elementary school closed down for reduced enrollment, Google invested millions in the campus and took it over as Google’s day care facility. Google provides free Wifi to all of Mt. View’s citizens.
If your heart says live in San Francisco, but your commute or desire for sunshine or more space to raise a child requires that you live in either Peninsula or South Bay, Palo Alto or Mountain View are the two towns that offer the most cultural activities. Mountain View’s downtown scene is the envy of many a Silicon Valley community. With an abundance of restaurants, it is teeming with patrons at lunch and dinner. The public transportation with CalTrans and Light Rail provide very convenient public transportation from Mt. View to both downtown San Jose and San Francisco. Mountain View also boasts many larger shopping centers and a large variety of markets serving various cultures. The Center for Performing Arts downtown is a great venue for watching local productions and various forms of entertainment. The library is top rate with a great ambiance.
There are many parks offering something for everyone. Downtown, Eagle Park, the site of the former downtown high school, has a large field for soccer and other outdoor activities and an aquatic center where anyone can come swim laps, take lessons or compete on a swim team. Shoreline park has a golf course, nature preserve boat dock for paddlers, canoe goers and windsurfers and a cafe. There is a restored Victorian home/museum called the Rengstorff House that is can be rented out for private functions that is rumored to be hunted. Numerous other parks throughout the town provide a skate board park, a well maintained football field, several baseball fields, dog parks, large parks such as Cuesta park and so much more. This town is an abundance of public offerings.
The schools are top rate and have a strong collaboration with the City of Mt. View to maintain great facilities. Mt. View’s primary Elementary School District is the Mountain View Whisman School District for K-8. It includes the Stevenson PACT K-5 School where most parents volunteer in the classroom and/or other support functions and Castro, with dual language English/Spanish immersion programs. A portion of Mountain View on the north side, feeds to the Los Altos Elementary District. Both Mt. View and Los Altos combine at the high school level to form the Mt. View Los Altos High School District with the northern most students from both towns feeding to Los Altos High and the southern located students feeding to Mt. View High.
The city provides a large range of housing, from affordable apartments to higher-end housing in one of the best school systems. There is literally something for everyone with respect to housing. For people wanting the absolute convenience of the downtown scene and the most charming of neighborhoods, there is the downtown Mountain View area. The best part is between Castro, Calderon, Evelyn and El Camino Real with a strong part also extending past Calderon to Highway 85. Tree-lined streets frame distinctive homes that ooze in charm. There are also a variety of newer townhouses that are a convenient walk to the downtown.
People with bigger families whose primary focus is raising children, tend to end up on the West side of El Camino Real, where lot sizes tend to be larger and the elementary schools have historically scored higher on standardized tests. Monte Loma at the north end of town is another distinctive neighborhood noted for its Echler and Eichler-like architecture and the tight community with its own web site and many neighborhood social functions. There is really something for everyone at Mt. View.
