Northern District of California San Francisco and Oakland Divisions
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Northern District of California San Francisco and Oakland Divisions The United States District Del Norte Court of the Northern District of California is comprised of three divisions: San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. This report focuses Humboldt on the San Francisco and Oakland Divisions. The San Francisco and Oakland courthouses call jurors from the following counties: San Mendocino Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Lake Alameda, Contra Costa, Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma Napa Humboldt, and Del Norte Counties. With Santa Rosa Napa Petaluma a population of 1,584,983, Alameda is the Contra Costa Marin largest county in the venue, representing San Rafael San Francisco San Francisco Daly City Alameda roughly 29 percent of the venue’s total San Mateo Redwood City population. It is followed by Contra Costa San Mateo County, which has a population of 1,096,068. Juror lists are pulled from voter registration rolls and records from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The Northern District and the rest of California became formally integrated into the United States in 1848, at the end of the Mexican-American War. That same year, the region’s fame and population exploded as a result of the California gold rush. The Transcontinental Railroad, completed in 1868, had its westernmost stop in Oakland, which by the mid-19th century had become an important California seaport. The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 led to a large influx of refugees to the East Bay. Trade and investments poured in from the east coast, and the region continued to thrive throughout the mid-19th century. San Francisco remained the largest American city west of the Mississippi River until 1920, when it was outpaced by Los Angeles. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a huge influx of Chinese immigrants, who came first to work in the gold mines and later on the Transcontinental Railroad. To this day, San Francisco has one of the largest Chinese populations outside of China. Many www.thefocalpoint.com | © The Focal Point LLC 2018 large corporations still operating today were founded during San Francisco’s mid-19th century population explosion, including Wells Fargo Bank, Levi Strauss & Co, and Ghirardelli Chocolate Company. Until the late 19th century, Alameda and Contra Costa Counties were largely rural areas, comprised of farms and orchards. However with the rise in population in the early 20th century and the increase in public transportation options, Alameda and Contra Costa Counties became suburban feeders for nearby San Francisco. In the early 20th century, San Francisco developed into a powerful financial center. In fact, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed after the stock market crash of 1929. During the Great Depression that followed, San Franciscans used city bonds to build the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, both of which are now world-renowned. Throughout World War II, San Francisco was the main point of departure and supply point for the war in the Pacific. The Bay Bridge connecting Oakland and San Francisco was completed in 1936, and by the early 1970’s, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) connected the East Bay to San Francisco and the San Francisco Peninsula, providing Bay Area residents with even more commuting options. A recent study of San Francisco employees found that over 265,000 workers commute to San Francisco County from outlying counties, and 45 percent of these commuters come from Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. During the dotcom-boom of the 1990s, software companies and entrepreneurs flocked to San Francisco, reshaping the city’s social and economic landscape. With high-tech hub Silicon Valley located just 35 miles south of the center of San Francisco, the venue continues to be heavily influenced by the tech industry and very hospitable to entrepreneurial businesses. The city of San Francisco comprises about 15 percent of the venue’s population. With over 840,000 residents, it is the thirteenth largest city in the United States. It is also one of the most diverse U.S. cities: Approximately 35 percent of its citizens were born outside of the U.S., and nearly 112,000 are not U.S. citizens. The continuous influx of immigrants from both outside the United States and the African-American war industry workers from the Deep South who traveled to the area in the 1940s, have contributed to the region’s ethnic diversity. This trend has slowed in recent years and a recent study indicates that the ethinic diversity in the city is reversing. A recent study by PolicyLink and the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California, found that by 2040 white residents are expected to outnumber minority residents in San Francisco, while minority residents will make up the majority in surrounding counties like Alameda and Contra Costa. Approximately 45 percent of San Francisco County residents speak a language other than English at home. As of 2014, San Francisco ordiance requires three foregin languages (Chinese, Spanish, and Tagalog) to be used in addition to English for official city interactions with the public. San Francisco is one of the nation’s largest “sanctuary cities”, which have policies in place to help protect undocumented immigrants. The largest immigrant populations are of Hispanic and Asian origin. The Asian population across the entire venue is 20 percent, and it is 33 percent in San Francisco County, compared to 13 percent www.thefocalpoint.com | © The Focal Point LLC 2018 statewide. In fact, approximately 26 percent residents of San Francisco speak an Asian language at home. The region also has a large LGBT community, with approximately 6 percent of its residents identifying as such. Moreover, San Francisco has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any city in the U.S. Population San Francisco/Oakland Division California Statewide Total Population 5,478,791 38,421,464 White 45.4% 38.7% Hispanic 22.2% 38.4% Black 6.5% 5.6% Asian 20.6% 13.5% The educational attainment in this venue as a whole and San Francisco County in particular significantly exceeds the statewide and national averages. While just fewer than 40 percent of California residents have a high school degree or less, only 29.8 percent of residents in the division do. Moreover, 31.4 percent of California residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 42.9 percent in the venue as a whole and 53.8 percent in San Francisco. There is also great diversity within the venue. For example, in the city of Oakland 19.6 percent of the population does not have a high school diploma. In comparison, only 4.3 percent of the population in neighboring Berkeley has not graduated high school. As the home of the University of California, Berkeley, it is not surprising that 71 percent of the population of the city of Berkeley have a Bachelor’s or post-graduate degree. In addition to UC Berkeley, the venue is home to a number of colleges and universities including: California State University, East Bay; College of Alameda; Mills College; San Francisco State University; University of California, San Francisco; University of California Hastings College of Law; and University of Northern California. Education San Francisco/Oakland Division California Statewide High School or Less 29.8% 38.9% Some College or Associate’s Degree 27.3% 29.6% Bachelor’s Degree 26.0% 19.8% Graduate or Professional Degree 16.9% 11.6% Since the social revolutions of the 1960s, San Francisco County has been a Democratic stronghold. Indeed, the last Republican presidential nominee to win San Francisco was Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. 58 percent of voters are registered Democrats, and 7 percent are registered Republicans. Despite its liberal slant, San Francisco also has the highest percentage of unaffiliated voters of any county in California (31%). The rest of the venue is also solidly Democratic with the exception of tiny Del Norte County, which tends to vote Republican in both presidential and www.thefocalpoint.com | © The Focal Point LLC 2018 congressional elections. A few affluent areas of Contra Costa County—such as the city of Danville—have more registered Republicans than Democrats. 2016 Presidential Election Clinton Trump Alameda County 79.3% 14.9% Contra Costa County 68.9% 25.4% Del Norte County 37.2% 54.8% Humboldt County 58.3% 32.4% Lake County 47.8% 44.1% Marin County 78.8% 15.9% Mendocino County 60.4% 31.2% Napa County 64.8% 29.6% San Francisco County 85.5% 9.4% San Mateo County 76.4% 18.7% Sonoma County 70.7% 22.8% The venue is not only one of the most highly educated parts of California, it is also one of the wealthiest and most expensive. The median household income of the venue as a whole ($77,414) significantly exceeds the statewide average of $63,599. Real estate in the Bay Area is among the most expensive in the nation. The median value of owner-occupied housing units in San Francisco ($799,600) is almost double that of the statewide median ($413,853). As a result, the home ownership rate in San Francisco is only 36.4 percent, compared to 54.3 percent across California. San Francisco continues have the highest average rent at $3,441 and Contra Costa County is the lowest at $2,341. The Bay Area also encompasses significant economic diversity. Unemployment rates in the Bay Area are generally lower than of the the state at 2.2 percent as of December of 2017. However, Del Norte County has an unemployment rate of 7.2 percent. Also notable is the fact that Contra Costa County is home to two of the 25 wealthiest cities in California: Alamo and Danville.