Talk:Contra Costa County, California

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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 coping 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)

Contents 1 Native American section 2 Expansion 3 Early post-war period 4 Cities and Town list and Countybox list

[edit] Native American section

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)

[edit] Expansion

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

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)

[edit] Early post-war period

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)

[edit] Cities and Town list and Countybox list

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)

• 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)