Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the Amador Valley, it is an upscale suburb in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 79,871 at the 2020 census. In 2005 and 2007, Pleasanton was ranked the wealthiest middle-sized city in the United States by the Census Bureau.

Pleasanton is home to the headquarters of Safeway, Workday, Ellie Mae, Roche Molecular Diagnostics, Blackhawk Network Holdings, Veeva Systems, and Simpson Manufacturing Company. Other major employers include Kaiser Permanente, Oracle, and Macy's. Although Oakland is the Alameda County seat, a few county offices are located in Pleasanton.

The Alameda County Fairgrounds are located in Pleasanton, where the county fair is held during the last week of June and the first week of July. Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park is located on the west side of town.

History

Pre-contact The Amador-Livermore Valley, where Pleasanton is located, was home to tribes in the Ohlone language group, mainly speaking Chochenyo. As of the 1770s seven tribes were present in the valley: the Causen, Pelnen, Seunen, Ssaoan, Ssouyen, Taunan, and Yulien. Each had a territory about 10 miles across, living in villages of 60-90 people. The total population of the valley was about 2000-2500 people.

1700s The first Spanish expedition reached the Amador-Livermore Valley in 1772. Native people from the valley began to join Mission Santa Clara, founded in 1777, in small numbers by the 1790s. Large groups began joining missions after Mission San Jose was founded in 1797.

1800s After Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, the missions were secularized, the Native people being emancipated and the land given in the form of ranchos to Spanish and Mexican colonists. Pleasanton is located on the lands of the Rancho Valle de San José and Rancho Santa Rita Mexican land grants.

Alisal

Before the establishment of Pleasanton in the 1850s, an earlier settlement in the location was called Alisal. It was located on the lands of the Rancho Santa Rita near the site of a Native American ranchera, around the Francisco Solano Alviso Adobe called El Alisal (The Sycamores), one of the earliest houses built in the valley in 1844. It is still standing and serves as the centerpiece of the Alviso Adobe Community Park. Alisal, nicknamed "The Most Desperate Town in the West", was one of the settlements located along La Vereda del Monte that was a haunt and refuge of bandits and desperados in the era following the beginning of the California Gold Rush. Main Street shootouts were not uncommon. Banditos such as Claudio Feliz and Joaquin Murrieta ambushed prospectors on their way back from the gold rush fields and then sought refuge in Alisal. In the 1860s Procopio, Narciso Bojorques and others took refuge there. Alisal Elementary School reflects the city's original name.

Founding The Rancho Valle de San José grant had been given to Agustín and Juan Pablo Bernal and their brothers-in-law Antonio Suñol and Antonio Maria Pico. In order to safeguard the grant from squatters during the Gold Rush in the 1840s-1850s, the Bernal family moved from San José to live on their ranch along with John Kottinger, an Austrian immigrant and a lawyer who had married into the family.

"Pleasanton" was chosen as the town's name in the 1860s by John W. Kottinger, an Alameda County justice of the peace, who named it after his friend, Union army cavalry Major General Alfred Pleasonton. A typographical error by a recording clerk in Washington, D.C., apparently led to the current spelling.

1900s In 1917, Pleasanton was the backdrop for the film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, starring Mary Pickford. The town was once home to Phoebe Apperson Hearst, who lived in a 50-room mansion on a estate, now the site of Castlewood Country Club.

Radum Plant was a sand and gravel plant opened in 1931 by Henry J. Kaiser Co., at Radum train station, one mile east of Pleasanton.

After World War II, Pleasanton changed from being primarily focused on farming and ranching to being a bedroom community and a place for corporate headquarters due to major growth of the Bay Area.

Geography Pleasanton is adjacent to Hayward, Livermore, and Dublin. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (0.61%) is water. On the east side of town on Stanley Blvd. near the Livermore border is Shadow Cliffs Regional Park, a lake that permits swimming, fishing, and boating. On the west side is the Pleasanton Ridge with two parks, Pleasanton Ridge and Augustin Bernal Park. Much of Pleasanton is drained by the Arroyo Valle and Arroyo Mocho watercourses. Pleasanton lies along the route of the historic First transcontinental railroad.

Climate Pleasanton features a Mediterranean climate, featuring hot, dry summers and mild to cool winters with occasional rainfall (Köppen climate classification Csa). The highest recorded temperature was in 1950. The lowest recorded temperature was in 1990.

Demographics

Racial and ethnic composition +Pleasanton city, California – Racial and ethnic compositionRace / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)Pop 2000Pop 2010Pop 2020% 2000% 2010% 2020White alone (NH)48,25342,73834,33275.81%60.81%42.98%Black or African American alone (NH)8451,1161,3321.33%1.59%1.67%Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)1471431370.23%0.20%0.17%Asian alone (NH)7,38716,20931,50011.60%23.06%39.44%Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone (NH)741251100.12%0.18%0.14%Other race alone (NH)1431534720.22%0.22%0.59%Mixed race or Multiracial (NH)1,7942,5374,1062.82%3.61%5.14%Hispanic or Latino (any race)5,0117,2647,8827.87%10.34%9.87%Total63,65470,28579,871 100.00%100.00%100.00%

2020 census As of the 2020 census, Pleasanton had a population of 79,871. The median age was 41.4 years. 24.0% of residents were under the age of 18 and 15.5% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 95.6 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 92.9 males age 18 and over.

98.9% of residents lived in urban areas, while 1.1% lived in rural areas.

There were 28,527 households in Pleasanton, of which 39.6% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 64.7% were married-couple households, 11.4% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 20.0% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 18.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

There were 29,624 housing units, of which 3.7% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 0.6% and the rental vacancy rate was 5.3%.

+ Racial composition as of the 2020 census Race Number Percent White 36,046 45.1% Black or African American 1,396 1.7% American Indian and Alaska Native 300 0.4% Asian 31,636 39.6% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 120 0.2% Some other race 2,828 3.5% Two or more races 7,545 9.4%

2023 ACS 5-year estimates In 2023, the US Census Bureau estimated that the median household income was $186,206, and the per capita income was $86,151. About 2.8% of families and 5.5% of the population were below the poverty line.

Economy

Pleasanton experienced a major economic boom starting in the early 1980s, largely associated with the development of a number of business parks, the largest of which is the Hacienda Business Park. These host a number of campus-like clusters of low-rise and medium-rise office buildings. Pleasanton has been successful in attracting a number of corporate headquarters, such as those of Safeway, Blackhawk Network Holdings, Workday, Simpson Manufacturing, The Cooper Companies and Shaklee. Despite an increase in office space vacancy rates in 2000–2004, economic development has remained strong through the middle of the decade.

Pleasanton was also the headquarters of the former PeopleSoft, Inc. (which was acquired by Oracle Corporation), Documentum (which was acquired by EMC Corporation), Thoratec (now part of Abbott), E-Loan (which was acquired by Popular), Spreckels Sugar Company (which was acquired by Imperial Holly), Ross Stores (which moved to nearby Dublin in 2014), Patelco Credit Union (also moved to Dublin) and the home loan operation of Providian (which was acquired by Washington Mutual, itself later acquired by JPMorgan Chase). Oracle occupies two buildings of the former PeopleSoft campus. In addition, Pleasanton is the site of a large AT&T campus.

Other companies with major operations in Pleasanton include Hitachi High Technologies America, Inc., Cisco Systems, QASource, Sage Software (Accpac, etc.), CooperVision, Clorox, Fireside Bank (closed in 2012), Roche, BMC Software, Zoho Corporation, Applied Biosystems, EMC Corporation, Portrait Displays, Inc. and Broadcom Inc.

In retail operations, Pleasanton has one major regional mall (Stoneridge Shopping Center) and a number of other shopping centers. In addition to the business parks and retail centers, Pleasanton is known for its downtown, which is home to a number of fine-dining, casual, and ethnic restaurants, specialty retailers, and service businesses. A redesign of Main Street in the 1990s emphasized pedestrian traffic and outdoor dining.

In 2005, the median household income in Pleasanton was $101,022, the highest income for any city with a population between 65,000 and 249,999 people. Similarly, for 2007, the median household income rose to $113,345, also the highest in the category. According to City-Data.com, the median household income had risen to $121,622 by 2013, compared to a statewide median of $60,190.

According to the Bay East Association of Realtors, the median price of a detached single family home was $1,795,000 as of August 2021. According to Zillow.com, the median home value in Pleasanton was $1,500,415 as of September 2021.

Top employers According to the city, as of July 2024 the top fifteen employers in Pleasanton are:

# Employer Employees1Workday5,3992Kaiser Permanente3,0193Pleasanton Unified School District1,3734Safeway1,3485Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley1,1246Veeva Systems9457Roche Molecular Diagnostics9278Oracle Corporation882910x Genomics60010Life Technologies57911ICE Mortgage Technology54812SMM Facilities Inc44213Blackhawk Network Holdings38314Clorox Services Company36915Sensiba San Filippo, LLP331

Arts and culture

Events and festivals Pleasanton maintains regular events for the community. Every Saturday morning a farmers' market is set up along Angela Street, off Main Street. There are several parades during the year, commemorating Christmas, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day, as well as kicking off the beginning of the Alameda County Fair and soccer season.

First Wednesday Beginning in the late 1990s, the Pleasanton Downtown Association organized the popular First Wednesday celebrations from May through September of each year. On the first Wednesday of summer months, Main Street was blocked to traffic and adopted a street fair atmosphere. Each First Wednesday celebration was given a theme and planned with related activities. At this local event, businesses and organizations from downtown and around the Tri-Valley set up booths in the center of the street. A local band performed in the Inklings coffee house parking lot, which was closed off for dancing. The parking lot was also set up as a beergarden, with beer and wine available for consumption. In 2017, the association announced it was discontinuing the events, and was considering other types of events in future years.

Friday Concerts in the Park