Cupertino, California
Cupertino is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 60,381 as of the 2020 census, decreasing by 1,671 to a Census-estimated 58,710 by 2024. The city is the home of Apple Inc., headquartered at Apple Park.
Named for a local creek, which Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza's cartographer had named after Saint Joseph of Cupertino, Cupertino was officially incorporated in 1955, though it saw economic activity in the early 19th century. The area was originally an agricultural community producing prunes, apricots and cherries, with a winery joining the ranks by the 19th century. Cupertino grew immensely during the 1950s due to the suburban housing boom experienced after the Second World War, concurring with the earliest roots of Silicon Valley developing near Cupertino. By the 1960s, office parks were being built and technology companies were setting up shop in the city, most notably Apple and Hewlett-Packard.
Cupertino remains a cornerstone of Silicon Valley. The economy is dominated by technology companies, including large ones like Apple, Inc as well as medium-sized companies and startups.
Etymology
Cupertino was named after Arroyo ''San José de Cupertino. The creek had been named by Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza's cartographer, who named it after Saint Joseph of Cupertino. The name Cupertino first became widely used when John T. Doyle, a San Francisco lawyer, and historian, named his winery on McClellan Road Cupertino. After the turn of the 20th century, Cupertino displaced the former name for the region, which was West Side''.History
In the 19th century, Cupertino was a small rural village at the crossroads of Stevens Creek Road and Saratoga-Mountain View Road. For decades, the intersection was dominated on the southeast corner by the R. Cali Brothers Feed Mill, which is replaced today with the Cali Mill Plaza and City Hall. Back then, it was known as the West Side and was part of Fremont Township. The primary economic activity was fruit agriculture. Almost all of the land within Cupertino's present-day boundaries was covered by prune, plum, apricot, and cherry orchards. A winery on Montebello Ridge overlooking the Cupertino valley region was also in operation by the late 19th century.Soon railroads, electric railways, and dirt roads traversed the West Side farmlands. Monta Vista, Cupertino's first housing tract, was developed in the mid-20th century as a result of the electric railway's construction.
After World War II, a population and suburban housing boom dramatically shifted the demographics and economy of the Santa Clara Valley, as the "Valley of Heart's Delight" was beginning to transform into "Silicon Valley". In 1954, a rancher, Norman Nathanson, the Cupertino-Monta Vista Improvement Association, and the Fact Finding Committee, began a drive for incorporation. On September 27, 1955, voters approved the incorporation of the city of Cupertino. Cupertino officially became Santa Clara County's 13th city on October 10, 1955.
A major milestone in Cupertino's development was the creation by some of the city's largest landowners of VALLCO Business and Industrial Park in the early 1960s. Of the 25 property owners, 17 decided to pool their land to form VALLCO Park, 6 sold to Varian Associates, and two opted for transplanting to farms elsewhere. The name VALLCO was derived from the names of the principal developers: Varian Associates and the Leonard, Lester, Craft, and Orlando families. A neighborhood outdoor shopping center and, much later, the enclosed Vallco Fashion Park, briefly renamed Cupertino Square, were also developed. The fashion park was eventually bulldozed in the early 21st Century and is expected to become a mixed-use neighborhood.
By the 1980s, Apple Inc. and Hewlett-Packard were the primary technology companies with major presences in Cupertino.
Housing developments were rapidly constructed in the following years as developers created neighborhoods, including Fairgrove, Garden Gate, Monta Vista, Seven Springs, and other developments. The city is known for its high real estate prices.
2010 saw HP consolidate its Bay Area workforce in its hometown of Palo Alto, and the company proceeded to close its campus within Cupertino. The city estimated that the closure of the campus would lead to 3,000 to 3,500 employees being relocated. Apple eventually bought the campus site from HP for an undisclosed price and prepared to use the land to build Apple Park.
Geography
Cupertino is at the southern end of San Francisco Bay. The eastern part of the city, located in the Santa Clara Valley, is flat, while the western part rises into the Santa Cruz Mountains. Cupertino borders San Jose and Santa Clara to the east, Saratoga to the south, Sunnyvale and Los Altos to the north, and Loyola to the northwest.Several streams run through Cupertino on their way to south San Francisco Bay, including : Permanente Creek, Stevens Creek, San Tomas Aquino Creek and its Smith Creek, the Regnart Creek and Prospect Creek tributaries of Calabazas Creek, and Saratoga Creek.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of, 99.99% of it land and 0.01% of it water.
Climate
The average day in Cupertino has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, with warm to hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters.Neighborhoods
Cupertino is made up of numerous subdivisions, most of them developed since the 1960s. Most of Cupertino's contemporary properties were developed around 1960. The area between Stevens Creek Boulevard, Miller Avenue, Bollinger Road, and Lawrence Expressway contains 224 Eichler homes, built during the 1950s. Two of the newest parts of Cupertino are among its oldest housing tracts. Monta Vista and Rancho Rinconada were developed outside of the city's boundaries in the 1950s and before. Rancho Rinconada was annexed in 1999 and the last part of Monta Vista was annexed in 2004. The neighborhood of Seven Springs is at the southwestern tip of Cupertino and was developed in the late 1980s. The newest and most northwestern neighborhood, Oak Valley, borders Rancho San Antonio Park and was developed around the turn of the millennium.Cupertino is known for its high housing prices as the majority of residential properties are multimillion-dollar homes as of the priciest housing market peak of 2022, with the entry-point into a single-family home at around 2 million dollars in the Cupertino HS area, and the entry point at around 2.6 million dollars in the Monta Vista HS area. Many smaller homes start from the high $2 millions, mid-size homes start from the mid $3 millions, and larger executive homes start from mid $4 millions and can go up to as much as $7 million, as of the 2022 peak. However, townhouses and condos with similar square footage are relatively less expensive, owing mainly to negligible lot sizes and the many common walls and areas.
Demographics
63 percent of Cupertino's population was of Asian ancestry in 2010, compared to 32 percent in Santa Clara County overall. Moneys Best Places to Live, "America's best small towns", ranked Cupertino as #27 in 2012, the second highest in California. In 2014, Movoto Real Estate ranked Cupertino the seventh "happiest" suburb in the United States, ranking highly in the categories of income, safety, marriage, and education.In 2015, Forbes ranked Cupertino as one of the most educated places in the U.S. in respect to the percentage of high school and college graduates.
2020
The 2020 United States census reported that Cupertino had a population of 60,381. The population density was. The racial makeup of Cupertino was 22.3% White, 0.6% African American, 0.2% Native American, 70.2% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 1.5% from other races, and 5.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.9% of the population.The census reported that 99.4% of the population lived in households, 0.2% lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 0.4% were institutionalized.
There were 20,615 households, out of which 43.9% included children under the age of 18, 69.4% were married-couple households, 2.3% were cohabiting couple households, 16.3% had a female householder with no partner present, and 12.0% had a male householder with no partner present. 15.9% of households were one person, and 8.4% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.91. There were 16,406 families.
The age distribution was 23.9% under the age of 18, 7.7% aged 18 to 24, 24.4% aged 25 to 44, 28.7% aged 45 to 64, and 15.3% who were 65years of age or older. The median age was 41.4years. For every 100 females, there were 99.1 males.
There were 21,701 housing units at an average density of, of which 20,615 were occupied. Of these, 59.2% were owner-occupied, and 40.8% were occupied by renters.
In 2023, the US Census Bureau estimated that 55.1% of the population were foreign-born. Of all people aged 5 or older, 36.8% spoke only English at home, 1.8% spoke Spanish, 16.7% spoke other Indo-European languages, 43.0% spoke Asian or Pacific Islander languages, and 1.6% spoke other languages. Of those aged 25 or older, 97.2% were high school graduates and 83.1% had a bachelor's degree.
The median household income in 2023 was $231,139, and the per capita income was $106,821. About 3.2% of families and 4.3% of the population were below the poverty line.