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Additionally, the Fresno area also has large [[Ukrainian]] and [[Armenians|Armenian]] populations.
Additionally, the Fresno area also has large [[Ukrainian]] and [[Armenians|Armenian]] populations.

Fresno's major criticism is that the county and city lack high-paying full-time jobs, cannot pull itself into consideration as a major California city, and suffers from the types of crime seen only in places with much greater populations.


== Education ==
== Education ==

Revision as of 17:24, 11 July 2006

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Fresno, California
Flag of Fresno, California
Flag
Nickname: 
Raisin Capital of the World
Location in the state of California
Location in the state of California
CountyFresno
Government
 • MayorAlan Autry
Population
 (2005)
 • Total464,727 (city proper)
 1,002,284 (metro area)
Time zoneUTC-8 (PST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-7 (PDT)
Websitehttp://www.ci.fresno.ca.us/

Fresno is the county seat of Fresno County in the U.S. State of California. Estimates by the California Department of Finance (2005) approximate a city population of 464,727 and a metropolitan area of 1,002,284. Fresno is the sixth-largest city in California and the largest inland city in the state. It is located at 36°47' North, 119°48' West, in the San Joaquin Valley portion of California's expansive Central Valley. Its ZIP Code is 937xx.

Government

Fresno City Hall

Actor Alan Autry was elected Mayor of Fresno in November, 2000. His first term was from January, 2001 to January, 2005. He was re-elected on March 2, 2004 with over 72 percent of the vote, and his second term will last until January, 2009.

The City Council consists of seven members, elected by district, as follows.

  • District 1 (west-central) - Tom Boyajian
  • District 2 (northwest) - Brian Calhoun
  • District 3 (southwest) - Cynthia Sterling
  • District 4 (east-central) - Larry Westerlund
  • District 5 (southeast) - Mike Dages
  • District 6 (northeast) - Jerry Duncan
  • District 7 (central) - Henry T. Perea

Geography

Fresno is located at 36°46′54″N 119°47′32″W / 36.78167°N 119.79222°W / 36.78167; -119.79222Invalid arguments have been passed to the {{#coordinates:}} function (36.781549, -119.792113)Template:GR.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 271.4 km² (104.8 mi²). 270.3 km² (104.4 mi²) of it is land and 1.1 km² (0.4 mi²) of it (0.42%) is water.

Fresno is about 60 miles south of Yosemite National Park. It is the closest major city to the park. Because it sits at the junction of Highways 41 and 99 (41 is the park's southern access road, and 99 branches east from Interstate 5 to serve the urban centers of the San Joaquin Valley), the city is a major gateway for visitors coming from Los Angeles. The city also serves as an entrance into Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks via Highway 180.

Fresno has two large public parks. Woodward Park which features the Shinzen Japanese Gardens, numerous picnic areas and several miles of trails.The park is located in North Fresno and is adjacent to the San Joaquin River Parkway

Roeding Park is located near downtown Fresno. It is home to the Chaffee Zoological Gardens, Rotary Playland and Rotary Storyland.

There are several smaller parks as well.

Demographics

As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2000, there were 427,652 people, 140,079 households, and 97,915 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,582.2/km² (4,097.7/mi²). There were 149,025 housing units at an average density of 551.3/km² (1,427.9/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 50.17% White, 8.36% Black or African American, 1.58% Native American, 11.23% Asian (mostly Hmong), 0.14% Pacific Islander, 23.36% from other races, and 5.16% from two or more races. 39.87% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 140,079 households out of which 40.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.1% were married couples living together, 17.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.1% were non-families. 23.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.99 and the average family size was 3.57.

In the city the population was spread out with 32.9% under the age of 18, 11.8% from 18 to 24, 28.8% from 25 to 44, 17.2% from 45 to 64, and 9.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 28 years. For every 100 females there were 96.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.0 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $32,236, and the median income for a family was $35,892. Males had a median income of $32,279 versus $26,551 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,010. About 20.5% of families and 26.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 36.5% of those under age 18 and 10.7% of those age 65 or over.

An October 2005 study by the Brookings Institution, entitled "Katrina's Window: Confronting Concentrated Poverty Across America" ranked Fresno as the city with the most concentrated level of poverty in the United States.[1] The study was prompted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, in which the economic and racial divides of American cities became clearly visible.

Fresno is also home to California's largest Hmong community. In East Fresno, many neighborhoods are 40-50% Hmong.

Additionally, the Fresno area also has large Ukrainian and Armenian populations.

Fresno's major criticism is that the county and city lack high-paying full-time jobs, cannot pull itself into consideration as a major California city, and suffers from the types of crime seen only in places with much greater populations.

Education

4-Year Institutions:

2-Year Institutions

Origins and history

The County of Fresno was formed in 1856. It was named for Fresno Creek, which in turn was named for the abundant mountain ash trees lining the stream. Fresno is the Spanish word for ash tree. The county was much larger than it is today, comprising its current area plus all of what became Madera County and parts of what are now San Benito, Tulare, Kings, Inyo, and Mono counties.

The center of settlement was not then at what became Fresno, but to the northeast, at Millerton near Fort Miller. Millerton, then on the banks of the free-flowing San Joaquin River, became the county seat. Other early county settlements included Firebaugh's Ferry, Scottsburg, and Elkhorn Springs.

The San Joaquin River flooded on Christmas Eve, 1867, inundating Millerton. Some residents rebuilt, others moved. Flooding also destroyed the town of Scottsburg that winter. Rebuilt on higher ground, Scottsburg was renamed Centerville.

In 1867, Anthony Easterby purchased land bounded by the present Chestnut, Belmont, Clovis and California avenues. Unable to grow wheat for lack of water, he hired Moses J. Church in 1871 to build an irrigation canal. Church then formed the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company, a predecessor of the Fresno Irrigation District.

In 1872, the Central Pacific Railroad established a station near Easterby's farm for its new Southern Pacific line. Soon there was a store. Around the station and the store grew the town of Fresno Station, later called Fresno. Many Millerton residents, drawn by the convenience of the railroad and worried about flooding, moved to the new community. Fresno became an incorporated city in 1895.

Two years after the station was established, county residents voted to move the county seat from Millerton to Fresno. When the Friant Dam was completed in 1944, the site of Millerton became inundated by the waters of Millerton Lake. In extreme droughts, when the reservoir shrinks, ruins of the original county seat can still be observed.

In the nineteenth century, with so much wooden construction and in the absence of sophisticated firefighting resources, fires often ravaged American frontier towns. The greatest of Fresno's early-day fires, in 1882, destroyed an entire block of the city. Another devastating blaze struck in 1883.

The "Fresno Municipal Sanitary Landfill" was the first modern landfill in the United States, and incorporated several important innovations to waste disposal, including trenching, compacting, and the daily covering of trash with dirt. It was opened in 1937 and closed in 1987. It is now a National Historic Landmark.

Before World War Two, Fresno had many ethnic neighborhoods, including Little Armenia, German Town, Little Italy, and China Town. During that war, Fresno was a assembly center for the relocation of many Japanese Americans. (See: Japanese internment in the United States)

In 1995, the FBI's Operation Rezone sting resulted in several prominent Fresno and Clovis politicians being charged in connection with taking bribes in return for rezoning farmland for housing developments. Before the sting brought a halt to it, housing developers could buy farmland cheaply, pay off council members to have it rezoned, and make a large profit building and selling inexpensive housing. Sixteen people were eventually convicted as a result of the sting [8].

Cultural and commercial attractions

Fresno Metropolitan Museum

The Met displays traveling exhibitions, shows from its own collection, lectures and other outreach programming. The museum also has a science center called the Reeves ASK Science Center that was developed in partnership with San Francisco's Exploratorium. The museum's historic home in The Fresno Bee Building is currently closed for renovations, and is scheduled to reopen in Fall of 2006. In the meantime, the Reeves ASK Science Center has been relocated to 933 Van Ness Avenue in downtown Fresno. The Met participates in Fresno's ArtHop program, and hosts outreach events and fundraisers on an annual basis, including First Friday Films, Christmas at the Met and a science-education based Bubble Festival. www.fresnomet.org

Arte Américas

Arte Américas is a local Latino cultural center. Arte Américas was founded in 1987 by artists and teachers to "make the Central Valley a flourishing place for Latino arts." It presents exhibit of visual arts. [9]

Fresno Art Museum

The museum is located in Radio Park, and puts up a rotating series of exhibits. It participates in the monthly Art Hop, and has a variety of film programs, including classic films, anime, and international selections.

Fresno Grand Opera

The Fresno Grand Opera produces internationally-acclaimed opera and world-class concerts.

Fresno Philharmonic

The city supports a well respected regional philharmonic orchestra.

Arts Council’s monthly Art Hop

Fresno Arts Council holds a monthly Art Hop that features many artists in the Fresno area and is held every first Thursday of the month from 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.. One of the biggest art events takes place during the annual Rogue Performance Festival in March.

Save Mart Center

The Save Mart Center is a newer professional-level indoor arena (cap:18,000) completed in 2003, located at the Shaw Avenue and Hwy 168 interchange in NE Fresno. It has hosted a wide range of music acts, from The Rolling Stones to Andrea Bocelli, as well as a huge variety of other events. It is currently the home of the Fresno State Men's & Women's Basketball teams and the Fresno Falcons hockey team of the ECHL. The arena was recently ranked among the top 25 in the world for number of tickets sold.

Forestiere Underground Gardens

The Forestiere Underground Gardens ([10]) in northwest Fresno near Highway 99, are unusual manmade creations built by Baldasare Forestiere over a period of 40 years. For a fictionalized account of Forestiere and his lonely obsession, see the short story "The Underground Gardens" by T. Coraghessan Boyle, published in The New Yorker, (May 25, 1998).

Fresno Reel Pride

Fresno Reel Pride is one of the oldest and largest LGBT film festivals in the United States. Now located in the historic Tower Theatre and at the nearby Starline, Reel Pride is a celebration of gay and lesbian cinema and has been recognized as a premiere cultural event in central California. Fresno Reel Pride presents an annual five-day film festival each September in addition to special film screenings throughout the year.

Neighborhoods

Downtown

For many years downtown was a neglected area of the city. Since the 1990's, it has gone through a dramatic change and is starting to show significant signs of growth and private investment. The historic Warnors Theatre is located on Fulton Street.

Sunnyside

One of Fresno's first affluent areas, Sunnyside is located on Fresno's far east side, bounded by Clovis Avenue to the West. While now considered less affluent than other sections of Fresno, it is still home to notable residents.

Old Fig Garden

A historic community set among mature trees, Old Fig Garden has long been Fresno's most prestigious neighborhood. The Fig Garden is an area of approximately 6 square miles which was once on the northern fringe of Fresno, but the city has since incorporated all of the surrounding land, making Fig Garden a county "island." The city's annual "Christmas Tree Lane" is found on a section of Van Ness Boulevard during the holiday season.

Tower District

Centered around the Historic Tower Theatre, just North of Downtown Fresno, this vibrant and culturally diverse area of shops and homes has been restored after a significant decline in the mid-1990's. The neighborhood features restaurants and nightclubs, as well as many independent shops and bookstores.

Huntington Boulevard

Homes from the early 20th century line this boulevard in the heart of the historic Alta Vista Tract. The surrounding streets, Kerckhoff and Balch Avenues, have homes from the Arts and Crafts era which, like the downtown, are being renovated and brought back to their historic roots. During Christmas, the homes along the boulevard are adorned with lights and decorations. The nation's tallest living Christmas Tree, located at Huntington and 6th Street, is the highlight of the event. This area is near the Fresno Fairgrounds and within walking distance of much of downtown.

Van Ness Extension

Van Ness Avenue transforms from a downtown "main street" into a boulevard that leads to Fresno's most expensive and expansive estates. As it passes through the Tower District and Old Fig Garden there are many historic homes and estates of gradually increasing profile to be seen.

Woodward Park

The Woodward area is in North-East Fresno. Home to one of the city's largest parks, it is one of Fresno's most rapidly growing communities. Woodward Park has twice failed to incorporate itself as its own city.

Professional sports

Club Sport Founded League Stadium (or Arena) Logo
Fresno Grizzlies Baseball 1998 Pacific Coast League Grizzlies Stadium Fresno Grizzlies logo
Fresno Falcons Hockey 1946 ECHL Save Mart Center Fresno Falcons logo
Central Valley Coyotes Arena Football 2002 af2 Selland Arena Indiana Fever logo
Fresno Heatwave Basketball 2003 ABA Selland Arena Indianapolis Indians logo

Notable residents

(In alphabetical order)

Media

Newspaper

Television

Sister Cities

Fresno has 4 sister cities (aka "twin towns"):

Transportation

Highways

Fresno is served by a main north/south freeway California State Highway 99. Other highways include the recently-completed California State Highway 168 that leads to the city of Clovis and Huntington Lake, California State Highway 41 that comes into Fresno from the south via Paso Robles, and California State Highway 180 that comes from the west via Mendota.

Fresno is known for being the largest American city not directly linked to an Interstate highway. Perhaps in light of this, but probably more because of increasing traffic on Interstate 5 on the west side of the Central Valley, much discussion has been made to upgrade CA-99 to interstate standards and, eventually, incorporate it into the interstate system, most likely as Interstate 9. Major improvements to signage, lane width, median separation, vertical clearance, and other concerns must be performed for a significant portion of the existing highway before it can even be considered for redesignation as I-9.

Airports

Fresno Yosemite International Airport is the largest airport, and site of commercial airline service. The airport serves an estimated 1.2 million passengers annually on both domestic and international flights.

Historic Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH) is located 1 1/2 miles west of Downtown Fresno. Built in the 1920's, it is one of the oldest operational airports in California. The airport currently serves as a general aviation airport.

Sierra Sky Park is located in Northwest Fresno. It is a privately owned airport, but is open to the public. The airport was America's first aviation community. Extra-wide streets surrounding the airport allow for residents of the community to literally "drive" their airplane home!

Rail

Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak. The main passenger rail station is the recently renovated historic Santa Fe Railroad Depot located in Downtown Fresno.

References

"Lessons learned from Rezone can't be forgotten", By Jim Boren, The Fresno Bee, December 15, 2002

External links

Template:Mapit-US-cityscale

Template:USLargestCities

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