Talk:Contra Costa County, California

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Untitled[edit]

Wondering how to edit this U.S. County Entry?
The WikiProject U.S. Counties standards might help.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rambot (talk • contribs) 21:32, 26 July 2003 (UTC)[reply]

Linking[edit]

63.197.235.94 - I reverted your re-edits of my corrections. Please note that if a name in a link (especially an unsatisfied link to be later filled in) is overspecified it will not be likely to be found by article title. As city names tend to be not unique, these are always followed by the state name. However, well known major cities usually have a redirect - so that you may enter San Francisco and will get to the article San Francisco, California.

I have also satisfied the links, mostly with external references that I found by simple search engine and page navigation. I do not have time now for your Alameda County, California changes, so these are also reverted.

For example - Blackhawk Auto Museum. Only one of these - Blackhawk Auto Museum Blackhawk both incorrect and rather useless, as it is unlikely to be entered in an article search, and while more technically correct, Blackhawk Auto Museum, Blackhawk does not improve the situation much and Blackhawk Auto Museum, Blackhawk, California is even worse.

San Ramon train Museum is improperly capitalized - If the title seen at the site is capitalized, then this would be San Ramon Train Museum. There is no such museum, but there is a "San Ramon Valley Museum" located in a refurbished train station.

Lindsay Wildlife Museum Walnut Crk - no, we do not abbreviate Creek, and if we were to use the name for disambiguation purposes, it would be Lindsay Wildlife Museum, Walnut Creek. The city name is not required at this time.

Generically, if there is only one of something, say Fubar Towers located in Walnut Creek, California, Fubar Towers works fine. Now suppose there is discovered a Fubar Towers in some remote location. Fubar Towers then becomes a disambiguation page, pointing to the renamed original, now Fubar Towers (California), or some such (someone more expert than myself should be consulted concerning this name).

Rather than create twenty unsatisfied links as you have recently done, it would be better to write one article. You even broke the one link that I fixed (Mount Diablo) by putting editing it back to Mount Diablo State Park Danville Walnut Crk.

Your copying of display text from Mount Diablo State Park to Mt. Diablo State Park resulted in a junk article - no pictures. Besides, this is not the way it is done. Go to the Mt. Diablo State Park article and click on edit to see how it is done using a REDIRECT command. Just as with programming, it is bad to do the same thing in two locations - fixing anything is double the work, articles may diverge, and what the user gets is dependent upon the wording used.

So please think about studying and writing one article - for example, where is the San Ramon Valley Museum, what does it exhibit, include some pictures, link to the external web site so the viewer may get current operating hours, etc. Then link to the article from the appropriate places, replacing any external link references (replace single bracketing with double bracketing). By the way, if you are using a Macintosh you may turn on the built-in on-the-fly spell checker, which works when editing article text.

Also, It would be best if you registered as a user - you will find a lot of help in our community. It is also possible to communicate privately by e-mail. Your addition of information will be welcome if it does not degrade the article through too many misspellings, bad link names, bad link syntax, etc. I will try to get back to the Alameda article re-insert the material with proper links.

Best wishes, -- Leonard G. 05:58, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

(Trolling for 63.197.235.94) - Please stop entering unsatisfied links. Do some internet research to find the appropriate external link for park, museum, etc info. To see how a these links are written, use the edit button and read, then cancel or simply navigate elsewhere. I restored your previous edits in this article after correcting them. You are going all over the place, Philo, Mendocino, Animal, etc. and are making a lot of work for others. I prefer to believe that your work is well intentioned and not vandalism, though others have doubts. Failure to listen and modify your actions may result in your IP address being blocked. -- Leonard G. 03:49, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Native American section[edit]

Unlike the nomadic native American of the Great Plains it appears that these tribes did not incorporate warfare into their culture but were instead generally cooperative. Within these cultures the concept of individual or collective land ownership was nonexistent.

These sound like they could be "noble savage" factoids. Can anyone cite a source? -- Beland 21:01, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As the culture and its values was not respected by either the first Spanish colonizers (who considered the natives both heathans to be converted to Christianity and easily enslavable labor) nor the second U.S.A occupiers (who did their best to exterminate them)

This is more than a little one-sided. -- Beland 21:01, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But it is factual - In the early days of California statehood there were actually "Black Sundays", the sport on this day off was to ride out and hunt and kill any free natives. I'll get some sources Leonard G. 21:12, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
See also California 4th Grade Mission Project.
Certainly in other areas, there was hostility and violence on both sides, and disease also played a major role in facilitating the military subjugation of native peoples. I'd be interested to hear what various historians have to say about the influence of these factors in this particular area. -- Beland 01:50, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have removed the NPOV dispute tag, after removing the assertions about how the natives were treated by the Spanish and Americans who settled in the area. The discussion has been stale since March with no further editing or offer of evidence to support the idea that natives in Contra Costa County specifically suffered from Spanish oppression or American extermination beyond that generally true of all natives in California. This leaves little to dispute in the section.

To those who wish to edit the discussion of this section further, please remember that the article in question is about Contra Costa County specifically, not the treatment of indigenous populations in California by Spanish, Mexican and American settlers. --DSYoungEsq 23:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion[edit]

Can anyone fill in the modern history of the native tribes, including the various casino controversies? -- Beland 01:50, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The "Technical innovators" and "Corporate headquarters" sections pique one's interest, but seem incomplete. Can anyone name any of the specific companies involved? -- Beland 01:57, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Early post-war period[edit]

Can anyone cite sources for the reasons behind suburban expansion in this period? This paragraph sounds like an off-hand analysis. -- Beland 01:51, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Much of the suburban expansion can be attributed to several factors:
White flight from urban areas becoming populated by Negro workers from the southern US employed as shipyard workers during WW ||. Although some of this flight may be attributed to cultural and racial bias, the primary driving factor was parental concern for obtaining a quality education - a bias that still exists and has been deepened by the extensive volunteering of both time and money to suburban school systems, combined with reduced support for public schools in general, much a consequence of Proposition 13.
The growth of the suburbs was aided by the rise of the personal automobile as a commuting device and the willingness and ability of the Dept. of Transportation to create state highways, these eventually becoming our modern freeway system. This was made possible by an excess of funding from gasoline taxes dedicated to road building and maintenance and a rather arrogant attitude on the part of CDOT (now CalTrans).
The availability of relatively cheap land, enabling the construction of large-lot subdivisions (1/4 acre). These could be relatively cheap to construct owing to relatively flat land not requiring extensive grading, they did not require sidewalks, and most of these suburban streets were not required to meet modern standards as to width, 33 ft widths being typical, nor modern drainage standards.
Relatively low costs due lower standard of habitability than now expected - despite a more severe climate than that of the immediate bay area, these houses were neither insulated nor air conditioned. While not economical to operate in the modern sense, natural gas for heating was relatively cheap and a fireplace was a standard amenity.
General prosperity in the post war period, especially among second and third generation immigrant families of European origins.
Prior to California's Proposition 13, most families would make several "upgrade" moves over a period of 12 to 16 years, living in from three to five owned houses. With constantly increasing housing values, equity built in one house could be used to found the down payment on the next, more expensive house. This was also an era of steadily rising standards of living, with wages outpacing the cost of living. To an certain extent the upgrade move was wise under these circumstances, as newer suburban housing increased in value faster than that older established neighborhoods, and prices in the later could sometimes stagnate if the social structure of the communities were not improving. Proposition 13 in the long run has significantly changed these dynamics, with fewer moves, more investment in improvements, and extensive gentrification in the more urban housing regions.
Attractiveness of the inland suburban lifestyle as compared to urban districts formerly established as "streetcar suburbs" of San Francisco. A typical move from Oakland to Walnut Creek would exchange a 50 year old two bedroom one bath 800 sq. ft. house with detached single car garage on a 2,500 sq. ft. lot for a new 1,200 sq. ft three bedroom one bath house with attached two car garage on a 10,000 sq. ft lot. This would prove to be especially attractive to families in the thick of the postwar "baby boom", where a working father, a stay-at-home mother, and three of four children would be considered a normal sized family. While such houses appear quite modest by modern housing standards, with small rooms and very limited closet space, these comprised a significant increase in habitability for the larger families that were becoming prevelant at the time.
Sources: personal experience. I have lived in the region since my birth (late 1930's) and have observed what I have stated.
Leonard G. 02:02, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This is still great stuff, but can anyone incorporate more of it with reliable sources instead of this editor's obviously original research? 2600:1004:B16D:C243:B126:ED85:98AF:55D6 (talk) 02:57, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cities and Town list and Countybox list[edit]

Anybody want to add this very small community between Crockett and Rodeo to the cities and towns list? I believe Selby may be a census-designated place. Correct me if I'm wrong. --68.127.152.9 09:46, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • i agree all localities should be included if they are named and are a community, however i think it is even more important that North Richmond be added, it has a population of 14,000. Qrc2006 07:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


The "Places by population and race" and "Places by population and income" expandable tables are missing column headers that explain what each column describes. I assume the columns follow the order of the table above (Population, race, and income), but it would be much clearer with headers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.53.249.122 (talk) 16:12, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I noticed this same thing, There are numbers and percentages in both of the tables, with no indication of what those numbers mean. The tables are useless without headers. 73.127.147.187 (talk) 17:31, 5 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Time Zone[edit]

Why does the time zone display as 'mountain' even though it says 'Pacific' in the text?68.223.77.240 17:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC) This an error the correct time zone should be Pacific. This error seems to be propagated across several of the California counties articles in the "time zone" section.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.32.182 (talk) 16:34, 26 July 2007[reply]

Good catch. Tracking that one down was interesting; looks OK now. --rich<Rich Janis 23:17, 1 August 2007 (UTC)>[reply]

Looking good, needs references[edit]

This article is looking pretty good in terms of how much information is provided. However, at this point it has no inline references (footnotes, citations) which would really help when you come to a statement that seems to be controversial. For example, it says that "all of the bayside portions opposite San Francisco, and Northern portions of Santa Clara County were given up to form Alameda County in 1853." But isn't Richmond on the bay? Or is this saying that Richmond is not opposite San Francisco? Anyway, good work. --Tinned Elk 23:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mount Diablo section[edit]

Another point. This article is long. I would like to suggest that the Mt. Diablo portion of the article be shortened to Wikipedia:Summary Style, and make sure that the material in the Contra Costa Article is in sync with the main Mount Diablo article. Having two long discussions tends to let them get out of sync. I can work on this if no one else is interested. --Tinned Elk 00:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 Done I made sure that all info listed in this article was in the main article and summarized most important info here. --Tinned Elk 21:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for File:ContraCostaCountySeal.jpg[edit]

File:ContraCostaCountySeal.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 05:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

County Pension Woes[edit]

I'd like to see mention of the huge pension/health care liability discussed recently for the county. The county's plan is CCCERA for Contra Costa County Employees' Retirement Association. Here is an older link [1], think it is now $2.6 billion.--Billymac00 (talk) 06:42, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Realignment of sections[edit]

I'm entering this as a justification for my recent changes to the Contra Costa County article, so that any and all discussion regarding these changes can be facilitated if necessary.

First, I NEVER do anything in Wiki without a good reason. The changes that I just made are for the purpose of bringing this article in-line with all other California county articles. Relocating the "Transportation infrastructure" section higher in the article served a two-fold purpose; first, to have the afore-mentioned uniformity between articles, and second, because when one reads about these adjacent places, the next logical question is "well how do I get there from here?"

I have been working on the transportation sections of all California county articles since 2006, mainly because I've driven most of these routes in my lifetime, and know where they lead... Edit Centric (talk) 19:17, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ranchos[edit]

The current Rancho text seems to be too detailed for this page. I have added a simplified list of Contra Costa ranchos, and am suggesting deleting the old text (rest of this section). But leave that to others. Emargie (talk) 03:43, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removed paragraph about Alameda County[edit]

I took out this paragraph:

Some of the inner suburbs accessible from highway 24 (such as Rockridge in north Oakland, Alameda County), in turn have become gentrified, offering easier access and shorter commutes to businesses that remained or established in San Francisco, particularly financial organizations.

First, it references a neighborhood in Oakland for some reason, which is not in Contra Costa County. Secondly, these assertions are opinions, rather than encyclopedic facts. I will try to find some better material for this section.

I am new to editing Wikipedia, so let me know if I have done anything wrong. I should 'be bold', right?

Tarastar42 (talk) 15:57, 16 June 2010 (UTC)tarastar42[reply]


Marijuana[edit]

Anyone mind writing up about marijuana laws and medical marijuana laws/dispensaries in contra costa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.116.49.238 (talk) 03:51, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Urban decay at the fringes[edit]

this paragraph appears as little other than conjecture, opinion and appears to explain its points solely by inference. Complaining about the economic inequalities seen in the county - which to be fair, are vast - seems to have little factual relevance to the article as a whole. None of the claims put forth are cited nor are they substantiated.


Bravotango (talk) 01:20, 8 September 2011 (UTC)bravotango[reply]

Pleasant Hill[edit]

Seems to be missing from the chart. Will have to fix it later if someone else doesn't get to it. Bastique ☎ call me! 00:36, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sheriff Dept[edit]

If you help out in the Sheriff Dept and the sheriff gives you permission to do some thing get it in writting. They are very willing to turn on you and treat there volunteers like a criminal. Just saying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.119.68.26 (talk) 16:29, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Contra Costa County name origin[edit]

In the interest of full disclosure, let me tell you that I don't go around looking for factual inaccuracies in Wikipedia, but when I believe I have found one, I usually feel compelled to look further on the subject.

For this entry, I took issue with a statement that appears twice regarding the origins of the name "Contra Costa", as it did not sound right that it would translate directly into "opposite shore or coast". I'm not a native Spanish speaker, but a quick dictionary search (wordreference.com or dictionary.com) seems to prove my point.

'Contra' is either a preposition or a noun, but not an adjective. 'Costa' is 'coast'. While the English word 'opposite' is also a preposition, its Spanish translation (as a preposition) would be 'enfrente de, frente a'; or 'in front of' in English. The English adjective 'opposite' could only be translated in Spanish (also as an adjective) as 'contrario'. Therefore, if the county was to be named due to its geographical location opposite San Francisco's coast, it should have been named 'Costa Contraria'. While 'Contra Costa' passes the same idea, it doesn't change the fact that it is, from a strict linguistic perspective, wrong.

I'm not trying to change the name of the county. I just thought it would be best to define on an encyclopedic entry that its name is a freely-adapted Spanish expression, not an actual one.

Furthermore, the only referenced source for the county's name origins links to the county's website. I could not find where on that website this information is located, but I could find an article by Jose Ignacio Rivera[1] on another website that corroborates what is stated on this entry.

I kindly ask any native Spanish speaker to provide us an explanation for why 'Contra Costa' can be accepted as a correct translation for "opposite shore/coast". In case it cannot be accepted, but tolerated, I think it would be a sensible move to point it on the article.

I know this smells like original research, but I did not invent Spanish and its rules. I'm barely pointing out that 'contra costa' does not mean 'opposite shore' unless we're willing to broadly stretch the actual meaning of the words.

Ebacci EN (talk) 03:41, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Right on! 2600:1004:B16D:C243:B126:ED85:98AF:55D6 (talk) 02:51, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This contention seems rather dogmatic, especially coming from a non-speaker or non-native speaker who hasn't checked with a native informant. Languages vary from speaker to speaker, by geography and social groups, and over time. Native informants 250 years after the naming of the area, from wherever, can't really shed that much light on the origin of a name bestowed in the 18th century.

The idea that "Contra Costa" means the opposite side of the Bay seems pretty reasonable. According to this web page http://www.mdia.org/site/history/contra-costa-county-name-origin It was a Spanish explorer in 1770 who first talked about the "opposite side of the bay", and the name stuck. So maybe at that time, or in that guy's dialect, "contra" could be used like an adjective. Who knows, maybe the guy was a Portuguese, Basque or Croatian serving on a Spanish ship and his Spanish wasn't perfect. Point is, if it happened this way, somebody speaking Spanish on a Spanish ship said this, and others didn't think it was too weird to repeat. That would seem to make it an actual, rather than a "freely-adapted", expression. Anyway, who cares? It wouldn't be the only Spanish place name in California that's a bit incorrect or ungrammatical; Mission Viejo, for instance, should be Mission Vieja. Supposedly.

My documentation is even sketchier, but I thought "contra" was used in Spanish to describe situations where you had to tack instead of sail directly to a place. For example, if you the prevailing winds are going south, you have to tack far enough north first before catching that wind to take you south. I don't know about the winds in the bay, but I had heard that it was the Contra Costa because you couldn't sail straight there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.130.122.16 (talk) 21:17, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, if we're going to be this pedantic about grammar, maybe you shouldn't refer to yourself as behaving "kindly" when you ask for input from Spanish speakers. You're asking them to "kindly" help you out; you're not being kind!  :-| 71.93.172.99 (talk) 15:40, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ http://www.mdia.org/site/history/contra-costa-county-name-origin

External links modified[edit]

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"Indian" population[edit]

So, just about how many "Indians" (Native Americans) were there in the area in 1850? Only a few thousand? 32,000? 60,000 or more? The single paragraph about this would seem to suggest all of the above, which is obviously impossible, and seriously needs editing by someone with reliable sources. 2600:1004:B16D:C243:B126:ED85:98AF:55D6 (talk) 02:54, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Crime section (section 5) has wrong indentation[edit]

Looks like the tables in the preceding section on politics are screwing up the formatting of the section header for the Crime section, causing it to appear to the right of the politics tables. I'm not familiar enough with the markup to fix it. -- SpareSimian (talk) 09:52, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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