Mountain View is a city located in Santa Clara County, California, United States, named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains. From its origins as a stagecoach stop, it grew to a large suburb with a pedestrian-friendly downtown, free wi-fi, and a population of 74,066. 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.

Situated in the southern end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mountain View is home to many high technology companies. In 1956, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, the first company to develop silicon semiconductor devices in what came to be known as Silicon Valley, was established in the city by William Shockley. Today, many of the largest technology companies in the world are headquartered in the city, including Google, Mozilla Foundation, Symantec, and Intuit. The original Byte Shop computer store was opened at 1063 El Camino Real, Mountain View by Paul Terrell, and the first 50 Apple I computers were sold from that location. The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority integrates the city with the neighboring cities of Palo Alto, Los Altos, and Sunnyvale.

The 2010 United States Census reported that Mountain View had a population of 74,066. The population density was 6,034.8 people per square mile. The racial makeup of Mountain View was 56.0% (41,468) White, 26.0% (19,232) Asian, 2.2% (1,629) African American, 0.5% (391) Pacific Islander, 0.5% (344) Native American, 9.8% (7,241) from other races, and 5.1% (3,761) from two or more races. Non-Hispanic Whites numbered 32,638 (44.1%) while there were 16,071 Hispanic or Latino residents of any race (21.7% of the population).

The census reported that 73,801 people (99.6% of the population) lived in households, 145 (0.2%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 120 (0.2%) were institutionalized.

There were 31,957 households, out of which 8,731 (27.3%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 13,806 (43.2%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 2,456 (7.7%) had a female householder with no husband present, 1,253 (3.9%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 1,928 (6.0%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 280 (0.9%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 10,961 households (34.3%) were made up of individuals and 2,471 (7.7%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31. There were 17,515 families (54.8% of all households); the average family size was 3.01.

The population was spread out with 14,594 people (19.7%) under the age of 18, 5,401 people (7.3%) aged 18 to 24, 28,577 people (38.6%) aged 25 to 44, 17,647 people (23.8%) aged 45 to 64, and 7,846 people (10.6%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35.9 years. For every 100 females there were 103.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 103.5 males.

There were 33,881 housing units at an average density of 2,760.6 per square mile (1,065.9/km²), of which 13,332 (41.7%) were owner-occupied, and 18,625 (58.3%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.3%; the rental vacancy rate was 4.4%. 32,002 people (43.2% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 41,799 people (56.4%) lived in rental housing units.

Mountain View is home to both public and private schools.

Public

The public elementary (Bubb, Castro, Huff, Landels, Mistral, Monta Loma, Stevenson, and Theuerkauf) and middle schools (Crittenden and Graham) are governed by the Mountain View-Whisman School District.Springer Elementary, although located within the borders of Mountain View, is governed by the Los Altos School District. The public high schools are governed by the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District and consist of Alta Vista High School, Mountain View High School, and Los Altos High School.Mountain View High and Los Altos High each contain approximately 50% Los Altos residents and 50% Mountain View residents. Some Mountain View residents attend Almond Elementary and Egan Junior High in the Los Altos School District.

Mountain View taxed a large portion of its most valuable commercial and industrial properties in the Shoreline Regional Park Community at very low relative levels, and until the creation of a joint-powers agreement (JPA) in 2006, none of those property taxes reached the local schools. After the creation of the JPA, the Shoreline Regional Park Community shared less than $1 million per year with the elementary and high school districts.

A citizen-supported parcel tax, largely aimed at reducing class size, was recently renewed with an overwhelming positive vote.The current ratio of students to full-time-equivalent teachers in the Mountain View public elementary schools is 20.4 to one.

Private

Notable private schools in Mountain View include: Khan Lab School, a laboratory school associated with Khan Academy; Saint Francis High School, a Roman Catholicsecondary school; German International School of Silicon Valley(GISSV), a PK-12 German-English bilingual international school; and Yew Chung International School of Silicon Valley, a PK-12 Chinese-English bilingual international school.

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