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The San Francisco Bay Area Portal

California Bay Area county map
California Bay Area county map

The San Francisco Bay Area (referred to locally as the Bay Area) is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses the major cities and metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, along with smaller urban and rural areas. The Bay Area's nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Home to approximately 7.68 million people, the nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a network of roads, highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels, and commuter rail. The combined statistical area of the region is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 43rd-largest urban area in the world with 8.80 million people.

The Bay Area has the second-most Fortune 500 companies in the United States, after the New York metropolitan area, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The area ranks second in highest density of college graduates, after the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and performs above the state median household income in the 2010 census; it includes the five highest California counties by per capita income and two of the top 25 wealthiest counties in the United States. Based on a 2013 population report from the California Department of Finance, the Bay Area is the only region in California where the rate of people migrating in from other areas in the United States is greater than the rate of those leaving the region, led by Alameda and Contra Costa counties. (more...)

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YouTube is a video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005 and has been owned by Google since late 2006. The site allows users to upload, view, and share videos, and it makes use of Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology to display a wide variety of user-generated and corporate media video. Available content includes video clips, TV clips, music videos, and amateur content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos.

Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, but media corporations including CBS, the BBC, Vevo, Hulu, and other organizations offer some of their material via YouTube, as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can watch videos, and registered users can upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old. YouTube, LLC was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion in November 2006 and now operates as a Google subsidiary. (more...)

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Frederick Campbell Crews (born 1933) is an American essayist, literary critic, author, and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley. He received popular attention for The Pooh Perplex, a book of satirical essays parodying contemporary casebooks. Initially a proponent of psychoanalytic literary criticism, Crews later moved away from, and in the early 1980s rejected psychoanalysis, going on to criticize Sigmund Freud's scientific and ethical standards. Crews became a prominent participant in the "Freud wars" of the 1980s and 90s, which debated the reputation, scholarship and impact on the 20th century of the founder of psychoanalysis.

Crews has published a variety of skeptical and rationalist essays, including book reviews and commentary for The New York Review of Books, on a variety of topics including Freud's work and recovered memory therapy, both of which were published as separate collections. Crews has also published several successful handbooks on the English language. (more...)

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San Francisco /sæn frənˈsɪsk/, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural center and a leading financial hub of the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California.

The only consolidated city-county in California, San Francisco encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km2) on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,867 people per square mile (6,898 people per km2). It is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated major city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in California, after Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose, and the 14th-most populous city in the United States—with a Census-estimated 2013 population of 837,442. The city is also the financial and cultural hub of the larger San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical area, with a population of 8.5 million. (more...)

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The Bay Area by year

1933
Interior mural at Coit Tower
Interior mural at Coit Tower
The Alley, today
The Alley, today

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North Beach, San Francisco, North East corner of Broadway and Columbus (1973). Carol Doda's Condor Club, Big Al's, Roaring 20s and Hungry I strip clubs.
image credit: Michael Holley

Did you know...

San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds
San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds

Previous Did you know...

Issue no. 4
Issue no. 4

 • ... that as of November 2013, two "Google barges" were docked in Treasure Island, San Francisco?
 • ... that Isaac Friedlander (pictured, right) and his South Carolina-born wife Priscilla were known for their parties in which they brought a flavor of "Old South" culture to San Francisco?
 • ... that Circle Magazine (pictured, left) was published from 1944 to 1948 by George Leite, at his Berkeley, California bookstore, daliel's?


January - March 2014

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Christopher Goodwin in character at the opening of the Tales of the City musical
Christopher Goodwin in character at the opening of the Tales of the City musical

Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon is America's longest-running musical revue. The show began its run in 1974, at Club Savoy Tivoli and has since moved to the larger Club Fugazi in the North Beach district of San Francisco. The show was created by Steve Silver (1944-1995) and continues under the direction of his widow, Jo Schuman Silver, with frequent changes and spoofs of pop and political culture. Performers wear disproportionately large hats/wigs and gaudy costumes while performing satirical renditions of popular songs. (Christopher Goodwin in character at the opening of the Tales of the City musical, pictured)

Quote

~ San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown
*more quotes about San Francisco from Wikiquote

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Bay Area regions, geographic features and protected areas

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You are invited to participate in the San Francisco Bay Area task force, a task force dedicated to developing and improving articles about the San Francisco Bay Area.

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San Francisco in 1904, 2 years before the earthquake
image credit: Library of Congress

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