Connecticut

Minor league baseball teams:.
. Ranked by per capita income:.
. The three largest Protestant denominations in Connecticut are: Baptist (5% of the total state population), Episcopalian (4%), Methodist (4%). The Lake Alvord Bridge was designated a civil engineering landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in the 1970's. There are also growing populations of other religions, making the state more diverse. Ironically, the city's few reinforced concrete structures, including the Lake Alvord Bridge, survived the 1906 earthquake and fire in remarkable shape, vindicating Ransome's faith in the method.

New Haven once had a significant Jewish population, but it has mostly fled elsewhere, although there is still a large concentration in the suburban towns west of New Haven. Ransome left San Francisco a few year's later, frustrated and bitter at the building community's indifference to concrete construction. There is a significant Jewish population in the state, mostly concentrated in the "Gold Coast" towns between Greenwich and New Haven and in the Hartford suburb of West Hartford. E.L. The religious affiliations of the people of Connecticut are:. The face of the bridge was scored and hammered to resemble sandstone. Females made up approximately 51.6% of the population, with 48.4% male. Ransome is believed to have used his patented cold-twisted square steel bar for reinforcement, placed longitudinally in the arch and curved in the same arc.

6.6% of its population were reported as under 5, 24.7% under 18, and 13.8% were 65 or older. The bridge was constructed as a single arch 64-feet wide with a 20-foot span. The five largest ancestries in the state are: Italian (18.6%), Irish (16.6%), English (10.3%), German (9.9%), African American (9.1%). Ransome, the great 19th century innovator in reinforced concrete design, mixing equipment, and construction systems. Racially, Connecticut is:. Known as the Lake Alvord Bridge, it was built in 1889 by Ernest L. 10.9% of the population is foreign-born. Moore.

Its population has grown 6% from its 1990 levels. Other famous San Franciscans include philanthropist Gordon Getty, publisher William Randolph Hearst, and co-founder of Intel Corporation and the author of Moore's law, Gordon E. As of the 2003, the population of Connecticut was 3,483,372. US Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, former Governors of California Jerry Brown and Pat Brown, US Senator Dianne Feinstein, former US Secretaries of Defense Robert McNamara and Caspar Weinberger, and gay rights activists Harvey Milk and Jose Sarria were or are San Franciscans who made names for themselves in politics. Connecticut's first recorded invention was a lapidary machine, by Abel Buell of Killingworth, in 1765. Simpson, and baseball legend Joe DiMaggio are all sportspeople with San Francisco connections. Between the birth of the US patent system in 1790 and 1930, Connecticut had more patents issued per capita than any other state; in the 1800s, when the US as a whole was issued one patent per three thousand population, Connecticut inventors were issued one patent for every 700-1000 residents. Baseball player Barry Bonds, American football legend O.J.

In the late 1700s, the Connecticut government engaged in financial incentives for building and operating textile mills. Photographer Ansel Adams, writer Anne Rice, comedian Gracie Allen, actor and director Clint Eastwood, "mother" of Modern Dance Isadora Duncan, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, author Jack London, musician Carlos Santana, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, personality Courtney Love, and actor/comic Robin Williams are examples of notable arts and entertainment figures who have lived in the city. Holland led to submarine production by the Electric Boat Company in Groton beginning in 1924, which continues to this day. Many notable people have grown up in or have lived as adults in San Francisco. Simon Lake produced submarines for the US Navy in Bridgeport, beginning in 1913, and the work done by John P. There are now plans in the works to build a major cruise ship terminal/mall similar to Pier 39. The first military submarine, the Turtle, was built in Connecticut in 1775 by David Bushnell; since then, Connecticut has remained a world leader in the manufacture of these specialized ships. Most of the port's activities are now mostly for commuter ferries that leave from the Ferry Building, cruise ship docking, and tourism.

The first recorded steam powered boat in America was built by South Windsor's John Fitch in 1786. Many of the piers remained derelict for years until recently, when the port converted many of the piers to office space and sold them. Connecticut also became an innovative leader in the shipbuilding industry. The advent of container shipping made San Francisco's pier based port obsolete, as much of the city's container traffic is now limited to a small port in the south-east corner of the city, or sent across the bay to the Port of Oakland. When the safety bicycle was developed in the 1880s, he was in a perfect position to benefit from the subsequent craze. The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the west coast. He subsequently began the first bicycle manufacturing in America, Columbia Bicycles, and set about marketing the vehicle, setting up a system of distributorships with fixed prices, hiring doctors to tout cycling as healthy exercise, and founding cycling magazines. Other large airports in the region include Oakland International Airport, 32.2 km (20 miles) from San Francisco and San Jose International Airport, 70.8 km (44 miles) from San Francisco.

Albert Pope of Hartford saw a bicycle in Philadelphia in 1876 and was immediately enthralled with the concept of an "ever-saddled horse that eats nothing and requires no care". Rail extensions there include BART. Another area of industry where Connecticut excelled was in bicycle manufacturing, and its spin-off, the earliest automobile manufacturing. It is the only major international hub airport in California other than LAX in Los Angeles. During the late 1990s economic boom, SFO was the sixth busiest international airport in the world, but has since fallen off of the top ten during the economic depression of 2000-2001. Gilbert Company, manufacturers of Erector Sets as well as other educational toys such as chemistry sets, microscopes, toy trains, etc. San Francisco International Airport dubbed SFO, is located 12.9 km (8 miles) south of the city in San Mateo County on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. Even the world of toys was dominated by the A. C. The Phoenix symbolizes the city's emergence from the ashes of several devastating fires in the early 1850's.

The name Bridgeport on heavy industrial machinery continues to be a guarantee of high quality around the world, for people who have no idea that it is a city in Connecticut. Above is a rising phoenix and behind is the bay with sailing ships. Fellows of Torrington designed the first flat turret lathe, and in 1896 built a gear shaper which permitted the manufacture of effective and reliable gear transmissions for the soon-to-come automobile industry. The seal, which was adopted in the 1850's, depicts two working men, on one side a miner and on the other a sailor with a sextant. Edwin R. Underneath the phoenix it has a motto written in Spanish: "Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra," which translates into: "Gold in Peace, Iron in War.". Billings perfected the drop hammer for metal forging in the 1870s and designed the copper commutator central to the operation of electrical generators and motors. The flag depicts an arising Phoenix, symbolic of the City's recovery from the 1906 fire.

Charles E. Other fictional works set in San Francisco include The Joy Luck Club, The Maltese Falcon, and Tales of the City. Edward P. Bullard designed the vertical boring mill in 1883. Landmarks from the city in that game include the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, City Hall, the Transamerica Pyramid, cable cars, and Chinatown. Cushman, invented the self-centering Cushman Universal Chuck in 1862. The city is featured in the popular video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as the fictional city San Fierro. Simon Fairman invented the lathe chuck in West Stafford in 1830, and his son-in-law, Austin F. Doubtfire, The Game, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Pacific Heights, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, The Presidio, Dirty Harry, Bullitt, Twisted, and Vertigo.

Lincoln company of Hartford. Movies set in the city include Basic Instinct, The Conversation Edtv, Mrs. Pratt and Amos Whitney invented a thread milling machine in 1865; Whitney also perfected various measurement instruments and Pratt designed the original milling machine manufactured by the George S. San Francisco has been the setting for numerous television programs, such as Dharma & Greg, Full House, The Streets of San Francisco, Charmed, The Midnight Caller and, more recently, Monk. Francis A. It is the world's most popular destination for Gay Tourists and hosts the world's largest Gay pride parade and festival in June. Christopher Spencer invented the automatic lathe turret for machining screws, as well as the variable cam cylinder used to control the turret. Due to the high number of Gay people in the Castro District and Noe Valley and the city's history with Gay Rights, San Francisco is known as the "Gay Mecca".

Another Colt engineer, William Mason, patented 125 inventions for manufacture of firearms, as well as steam pumps and power looms. The Bohemian Grove an exculsive retreat for the rich and powerful, is located north of the city in Sonoma County while it maintains a club within city limits. Machinist Elisha Root first designed machinery for the Collins Company of Collinsville which manufactured axes which became world-famous, then was hired by Colt in 1849 to modernize firearm production by designing precision drop hammers, boring machines, gauges, jigs, etc., and improving the milling machines designed by Francis A. Pratt for the George S. Lincoln company in Hartford; the resulting Lincoln Miller became world-famous, selling over 150,000 machines. The Sierra Club is headquarted in the city. In 1818, Simeon North designed America's first milling machine. Ironically, the Republican Party have also held 2 conventions in the city while San Francisco's liberalism was budding in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Hardware and tools continue to be manufactured by Stanley Corporation in New Britain, despite having almost moving elsewhere for financial reasons. Connecticut was a major area for development and manufacture of machine tools. This started with the beat generation or beatniks in the North Beach area and the San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950s to the hippie culture and the Summer of Love in the Haight Ashbury in the 1960s and early 1970s, to rave culture in the 1990s.

Similarly, Connecticut industry became well known in allied fields. It is also the primary support base for the Green Party. The American Clock and Watch Museum is located in Bristol, Connecticut. It is the unofficial center and capitial of left-wing activity in the United States. It is a loyal stronghold for the Democratic Party as it held a convention here in 1920 and again in 1984. Welch Company), the New England Clock Company, the Ansonia Clock Company, Gilbert Clocks, Ingraham Clocks, the New Haven Clock Company, Welch Clocks, Sessions Clocks, and the Waterbury Clock Company, which became Timex Corporation, and is the sole Connecticut survivor of this once flourishing field, now decimated by lower costs of production elsewhere, in the United States and overseas. Following World War II, San Francisco became a nerve center of alternative culture and lifestyle in the United States that is still dominant in the city's culture today. N. The American Indian Film Institute which organizes the annual American Indian Film Festival is based in San Francisco.

Another area where precision manufacture led to industrial dominance for Connecticut was in the manufacture of clocks, watches, and other timepieces, by Eli Terry and his apprentice Seth Thomas, the Forestville Manufacturing Company (which became the E. San Francisco's Ballet and Opera are the some of the oldest continuning performing arts companies in the United States. Christopher Spencer designed the Spencer repeating rifle which played an important role for union troops at the Battle of Gettysburg. In terms of performing arts, San Francisco boasts the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet. Christian Sharps designed the Sharps breech-loading rifle which in 1854 began to be manufactured in Hartford by the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company. Between Portola and Glenview streets lies San Francisco's high school SOTA (School of the Arts), dedicated to the performing arts. Wesson designed the first repeating rifle in Norwich in the early 1850s, which went into production by the New Haven Arms Company (which later became the Winchester Repeating Arms Company), and, just across the border in Massachusetts, the Springfield Armory. Smith also patented a metallic rifle cartridge in 1854. Museums include San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and the Cable Car Museum, along with offbeat museums such as Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum and the Tattoo Art Museum.

Horace Smith and Daniel B. Some of the most notable landmarks are the Transamerica Pyramid and Golden Gate Bridge. Root to modernize production, making Colt weapons the first in the world with truly interchangeable parts. A large fresh-water lake, Lake Merced, is located in the south west corner of the city near San Francisco State University and Fort Funston. Colt's Manufacturing Company hired Elisha K. Buena Vista Park located in the Haight-Ashbury, is the city's oldest, established in 1867. In 1836, Samuel Colt invented the revolver design which continues to be used to this day. Another notable park is The Presidio, which is just one part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which also includes Alcatraz.

The Savage Revolving Fire Arm Company manufactured pistols between 1859 and 1866, and the Sage Ammunition Works manufactured ammunition between 1864 and 1867. The best-known, as well as biggest, park is Golden Gate Park which is 174 acres larger than New York's Central Park. After this period, firearm manufacturing declined in Middletown, but briefly revived during the Civil War. Related topics: Maps of San Francisco, California. Johnson built a factory, also on the Pameacha River, which was to sell rifles to the government until 1825. The cornerstone of this development is the new SBC Park baseball stadium and an extension of the University of California, San Francisco medical school. D. A new neighborhood is being developed at the far eastern end of South of Market that is being called Mission Bay.

Johnson and J. The South of Market neighborhood was one of the epicenters of the dot-com boom of the 1990s thus being a showcase of contemporary urban development. In 1812, John R. Arguably, the point of gravity in terms of demographic and land use change is moving east & south. The factory later manufactured muskets and rifles until 1845, after which the United States government started government armories in Massachusetts and West Virginia partially modeled after Starr's. The Castro neigborhood has the world's highest concentration of Gays. Starr initially manufactured swords, about 5,000 a year; including presentation swords for the state of Tennessee and War of 1812 heroes, colonel Richard M. Johnson, General Edmond P. Gaines, and General andrew Jackson. Haight-Ashbury gained prominence during the 1960s as one of the prominent concentrations of hippies.

Even more successful was Colonel Nathan Starr Jr., whose factory (built of stone quarried from the river) was about the same size as North's, and located across the river half a mile northeast. Russian Hill is probably most noted for the top end of that portion of Lombard Street that is sometimes referred to as "the crookedest (most winding) street in the world". Also in 1810, Colonel Simeon North built a pistol factory in Middletown on the West River, now the Coginchaug River, also winning a contract from the secretary of war, which led to enlarging his factory to 8,500 square feet (790 m²); he built about 10,000 pistols a year, up until just before the [Civil War]], designing America's first milling machine. The predominantly latino Mission District is one of the oldest neighborhoods, as it was the site of one of the twenty one missions in California. In 1810, Oliver Bidwell built the first pistol factory in the United States on the Pameacha River in Middletown, winning a contract with the United States war department for handmade pistols. It also boasts a budding Vietnamese community in the Tenderloin neighborhood, an Italian community in North Beach, a French Quarter and a Russian community in the Richmond district. Middletown, Connecticut was the major supplier of pistols to the United States government during the War of 1812, with numerous gun manufacturers in the area. Like many large cities in the US, San Francisco has a Japantown and Chinatown; both are among the largest and oldest in the US.

Between 1800 and 1860, Connecticut manufacturers applied the system to the manufacture of economically priced high quality firearms, leading to Connecticut's nickname "the arsenal of democracy". There are also a number of private art schools that operate across the city. This development changed "made in the United States" from a phrase connoting shoddy workmanship and expensive maintenance, into a world standard for high quality, and the entire system became known as the American system of manufacturing. Private schools include:. The development by Eli Whitney of the system of precision manufacturing of interchangeable parts and the assembly line in the late 1700s, however made Connecticut into a major center of manufacturing. Public Universities include:. While manual labor was valued, learning and study was also prized and many schools were founded, with Yale the most significant. Despite its limited geographical space, San Francisco is home to a multitude of Universities and Colleges.

As in most of New England, the residents believed that industry, in all senses of the word, not only strengthened individual moral fiber, but also served to make the colony independent and free to pursue its own religious and philosophical beliefs. San Francisco also boasts of legendary venues such as The Fillmore and The Warfield. Manufacturing was aided by a plenitude of resources, including water power, wood for fires and building material, and iron ore, while transportation benefited from several excellent natural harbors, and navigable rivers leading all the way to Massachusetts. Major areas of nightlife in San Francisco are: in North Beach, the Mission District, and South of Market. It rapidly developed trade and manufacturing as the farmers, and then the merchants and manufacturers themselves, became affluent enough to start buying things. San Francisco also has great nightlife ranging from bars to lounges to clubs. Connecticut began, as most communities at the time, as a farming economy. Records aside, the race is best known for its colorful costumes and celebratory community spirit (it was initiated after the disastrous 1906 earthquake as a way to boost the city's spirits).

Its industrial outputs are transportation equipment (especially helicopters, aircraft parts, and nuclear submarines), heavy industrial machinery and electrical equipment, fabricated metal products, chemical and pharmaceutical products, and scientific instruments. The city is also the home of the annual Bay to Breakers footrace, which holds the world records for greatest number of participants in a footrace (110K in 1986) as well as longest consecutively running footrace (annually since 1912). The agricultural output for the state is nursery stock, eggs, dairy products, cattle, and tobacco. College sports include the University of San Francisco Dons. The recent establishment of two very large and lucrative Indian casinos in the southeastern region of the state has led to a large influx of money in that area, as well as statewide in general. The basketball and ice hockey teams were once based out of San Francisco and played out of the Cow Palace located at the southern border with Daly City. Connecticut is an important center of the insurance and financial industries, largely in Hartford and in Fairfield county. The regional National Hockey League team, the San Jose Sharks play in San Jose.

Exacerbating this problem, the state has a high cost of living, due to a combination of expensive real estate, expensive heating for the winters, the need to import much food from warmer states, and the dependence on private automobiles for mobility. The regional National Basketball Association team, the Golden State Warriors play across the bay in Oakland. As evident from the dichotomy in income figures described above, this problem has yet to be successfully solved. San Francisco is the home of the San Francisco 49ers National Football League team and the San Francisco Giants Major League Baseball team. As a result, the middle class largely fled the urban areas for the suburbs, taking stores and other tax-paying businesses with them, and leaving only the urban poor in the now impoverished Connecticut cities. A small fleet of commuter ferries operate from the Embarcadero to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County. The state did not have an income tax until 1991, making it an attractive haven for high earners fleeing the heavy taxes of New York State, but putting an enormous burden on Connecticut property tax payers, particularly in the cities with their more extensive municipal services. In addition, a commuter rail service, Caltrain, operates between San Francisco, San Jose, California and Gilroy, California.

This is due to Fairfield County having become a bedroom community for higher paid New York City workers seeking a less urban lifestyle, as well as the spread of businesses outwards from New York City having reached into southwestern Connecticut. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is the regional transit system, which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through an underwater tunnel, and the San Mateo County, California communities on the San Francisco Peninsula. [2] (http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/regional/statelocal.htm) There is, however, a great disparity in incomes through the state; although New Canaan has the highest per capita income in America, Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven are three of the ten cities with the lowest per capita incomes in America. Muni is the city-owned public transit system which operates the Muni Metro light rail system, the F Market heritage streetcar line and the famous San Francisco cable car system (see above), together with buses and electric trolleybuses. The per capita income for 2003 was $42,972, 2^nd in the United States. San Francisco has the most extensive and best connected public transit system on the west coast and one of the most diverse in the country. The total gross state product for 2003 was $172 billion. Going northbound, 101 uses arterial streets, Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge across to Marin County. Interstate 280 which also begins and ends in the city and goes southbound towards Silicon Valley and Highway 1 which bisects the westside of the city as a arterial thoroughfare.

See [1] (http://www.kurumi.com/roads/ct/index.html) for a very complete and in-depth discussion of Connecticut roadways, current, past, and future. The major highways in San Francisco are Interstate 80 which begins at the Bay Bridge and goes eastbound; US 101 which begins where 80 ends/begins off and goes southbound towards the Silicon Valley. Funds to relieve the situation, either by enhancing commuter rail, increasing highway capacity, or both, are lacking, and the problem is noted as one hindering further economic development for the state. Similarly, the Golden Gate Bridge is the only direct road access to Marin County from San Francisco. As a result, commuter rail is also heavily crowded, along with parking facilities and traffic at the stations. The Bay Bridge is the only link that provides road direct access to the east bay from San Francisco. At rush hours, multiple backups tens of miles long are common, and the daily radio broadcasts of where crashes have completely blocked traffic are a fact of life for commuters in the area. Because of its unique geography, and the "Freeway Revolt", San Francisco is one of the few major cities in the US next to Boston and New York City that has opted for European style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of major highways.

I-95 from south of New Haven to the New York border is one of the most congested highways in the United States due to increasing population density, increasing business in the New York area, and a general increase in American driving, and the congestion spills over to clog the parallel Merritt Parkway. Related topics: Maps of San Francisco, California. Other major arteries in the state include State Routes 8 and 25 (http://www.nycroads.com/roads/CT-8/|) and US Route 7. Out of the total population, 13.5% of those under the age of 18 and 10.5% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line. A series of terrible crashes at these plazas eventually led to abandonment of the whole toll system in 1988. 11.3% of the population and 7.8% of families are below the poverty line. This road and I-95 were originally toll roads; they relied on a system of toll plazas at which all traffic would stop and pay an incremental fare, rather than the alternative system of providing drivers a ticket where they entered the highway and charging them when they exited. The per capita income for the city is $34,556.

The other major interstate traffic arteries in Connecticut are the Merritt Parkway and Wilbur Cross Parkway, which together form Connecticut State Route 15, running from the Hutchinson River Parkway in New York State parallel to I-95 before turning north of New Haven and running parallel to I-91, finally becoming a surface road in Berlin, Connecticut. Males have a median income of $46,260 versus $40,049 for females. The Interstate highways in the state are I-95 (the Connecticut Turnpike) running southwest to northeast along the coast, I-84 running southwest to northeast in the center of the state, I-91 running north to south in the center of the state, and I-395 running north to south near the eastern border of the state. The median income for a household in the city is $55,221, and the median income for a family is $63,545. The glaciers carved valleys in Connecticut running north to south; as a result, many more roadways in the state run north to south than do east to west, mimicking the previous use of the many north-south rivers as transportation. For every 100 females there are 103.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 103.1 males. In practice, most Connecticut residents find public transportation not fully adequate for all their needs and either own a private vehicle or have access to one. The median age is 36 years.

(In an episode of the American television show Miracles, the protagonist took a train from Boston directly to Hartford, causing Connecticut residents to joke that that would really have been a miracle.) Bus service is supplied by Connecticut Transit, owned by the Connecticut Department of Transportation. In the city the population is spread out with 14.5% under the age of 18, 9.1% from 18 to 24, 40.5% from 25 to 44, 22.3% from 45 to 64, and 13.7% who are 65 years of age or older. There is railway service along the coastline from New York City to Boston, including commuter rail service between New Haven and New York and a new commuter service along the coastline north of New Haven, with spur service running northwards to cities such as Hartford. The average household size is 2.30 and the average family size is 3.22. Transportation in Connecticut is predominantly via highway. 38.6% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.8% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The eight regions of Connecticut are:. There are 329,700 households out of which 16.6% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.6% are married couples living together, 8.9% have a female householder with no husband present, and 56.0% are non-families.

Fairfield County's "Gold Coast", for example, is often derided by residents of the rest of the state as being more similar to New York than to New England, and many of the residents go for years or even decades without ever traveling to other regions of the state, considering themselves more attached to New York City and its suburbs in eastern New York State. The ethnic makeup is 19.6% Chinese, 8.8% Irish, 7.7% German, and 6.1% English. Each region boasts varied qualities which distinguish it within the state, and at times there are minor cultural frictions between the regions and their major cultural centers as each competes for tourists, new residents, and internal state pride. 14.10% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. The state of Connecticut can be said to be sub-divided into eight general regions which generally correspond with the eight counties of the state, though there are differences in the boundaries. The racial makeup of the city is 49.66% White, 7.79% African American, 0.45% Native American, 30.84% Asian, 0.49% Pacific Islander, 6.48% from other races, and 4.28% from two or more races.
. There are 346,527 housing units at an average density of 2,865.6/km² (7,421.2/mi²).

See also: Geology of Connecticut. The population density is 6,423.2/km² (16,634.4/mi²), making it the second densest city (and fifth densest county) in the country [3] (http://gislounge.com/features/aa041101c.shtml). Forests, rivers, lakes, waterfalls and a sandy shore add to the state's beauty. As of the census² of 2000, there are 776,733 people, 329,700 households, and 145,068 families residing in the city. Near the green may stand a small white church, a town meeting hall, a tavern and several colonial houses. See also: List of Mayors of San Francisco, California. Many towns center around a small park, known as a "green", e.g. New Haven Green. The headquarters of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme Court of California, and the First Appelate District of the California Courts of Appeal are in San Francisco.

Connecticut's rural areas and small towns in the northeast and northwest corners of the state contrast sharply with its industrial cities, located along the coastal highways from the New York border to New Haven, then northwards to Hartford, as well as further up the coast near New London. The current President of the Board of Supervisors is Aaron Peskin. The state, although small, has regional variations in its landscape and culture from the wealthy estates of Fairfield County's "Gold Coast" to the rolling mountains and farms of the Litchfield Hills and the casinos of Southeastern Connecticut. The current mayor is Gavin Newsom. See: List of Connecticut rivers. One good place to read about San Francisco politics is at The Usual Suspects, at [2] (http://www.SFUsualSuspects.com). The Connecticut River cuts through the center of the state, flowing into Long Island Sound, Connecticut's outlet to the Atlantic Ocean. Due to its implementation, there was no December runoff election. (Although the city offices are, by state law, non-partisan, there are still considerable political differences among candidates that may generally be identified as being aligned with various parties.).

There is an ongoing civic pride and economic competition between Hartford and New Haven, which stems back to the days when the two cities shared the state's capital, and even back to when New Haven and Hartford were two separate colonies. In the Board of Supervisors race in November 2004, Instant Runoff Voting worked well, with many winners known on election night and all winners within a couple of days. In all, there are a total of 169 incorporated towns in Connecticut. A recent electoral innovation that was to be implemented for the November 2003 elections, but was not prepared in time, is the use of ranked preference voting, also known as instant runoff voting. The state capital is Hartford, and the other major cities include New Haven, New London, Norwich, Stamford, Waterbury, Torrington and Bridgeport. While most cities in California are General Law Cities, San Francisco is one of a few Charter Cities, theoretically giving the city's voters additional control over governmental structures and allowing the city to exercise considerable control over some lands not located in the city such as those associated with San Francisco International Airport and the Hetch Hetchy water and power system. Connecticut is bordered on the south by Long Island Sound, on the west by New York State, on the north by Massachusetts, and on the east by Rhode Island. The eleven members of the Board are elected to represent eleven districts in the city; current elected members are listed in the table on the right.

Connecticut currently has five representatives in the House. It is governed by a mayor, who runs the executive branch of the city, and a Board of Supervisors, which comprises the legislative branch. Lieberman (Democrat). San Francisco is both a city and a county, and is the only one of California's 58 counties to possess that distinction. Dodd (Democrat) and Joseph I. LucasArts is located in Marin County, though the company plans to relocate to the Presidio in the next few years. senators are Christopher J. ChevronTexaco (fomerly of San Francisco) and IPIX are based in San Ramon, Safeway is based in Pleasanton, and C & H Sugar Company is based in Crockett.

Jodi Rell (Republican) and the two U.S. Outside of Silicon Valley, in the East Bay, Pixar Animation is located in Emeryville. The current governor of Connecticut is M. Hewlett Packard is in Palo Alto near Stanford University. One, Naugatuck, is a merged town-borough. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale. Google is headquartered (at the "Googleplex") in Mountain View. Cisco Systems and Adobe Systems are headquartered in San Jose. There are also 9 incorporated boroughs, eight of which provide additional services to a section of town. Sun Microsystems, Intel, Applied Materials, and McAfee are headquartered in Santa Clara.

The sole exception is the City of Groton, which is a subsection of the Town of Groton. Electronic Arts and Oracle Corporation are based in Redwood City. Most cities are coterminal with their namesake towns and have a merged city-town government. Apple Computer and Symantec are based in Cupertino. There are 169 incorporated cities and towns across the state. Some 65 km (~ 40 miles) south of San Francisco is the Silicon Valley, which holds much of the computing business in the world. The state judicial system and the associated state marshal system, however, are still divided by county, and the eight counties are still widely used for purely geographical purposes, e.g. in weather reports. Many major American and international banks and venture capital firms have all set up their regional headquarters in the city.

Unlike most other states, Connecticut does not have county governments or county seats; rather, there is only the state government and the governments of the local municipalities. The Pacific Exchange, a regional stock exchange, is located in the financial district. Prior to that, New Haven and Hartford alternated as capital. Mint. Hartford has been the sole capital of Connecticut since 1875. Federal Reserve as well as major production facilities for the U.S. The traditional abbreviation of the state's name is "Conn.". It is the home of the twelfth district of the U.S.

Its first constitution, the "Fundamental Orders", was adopted on January 14, 1639, while its current constitution, the fourth for Connecticut, was adopted in 1965. West Coast. The first Europeans to settle permanently in Connecticut were English Puritans from Massachusetts in 1633. Because of the California gold rush, San Francisco became and remains the banking and financial center of the U.S. Connecticut is one of the original 13 states. The geographical center of the city is on the east side of Grandview Avenue between Alvarado and Twenty-third Streets. The name "Connecticut" comes from an Algonquin Indian word meaning "on the long tidal river". The city itself is often reputed to be roughly a seven mile by seven mile square, but in fact it is slightly smaller, 46.7 mi², of which .33 mi² are the Farallon Islands.

Main article: History of Connecticut. The total area is 79.86% water. USS Connecticut was named in honor of this state. 120.9 km² (46.7 mi²) of it is land and 479.7 km² (185.2 mi²) of it is water. Connecticut was one of the thirteen colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city and county has a total area of 600.7 km² (231.9 mi²). Connecticut is a state of the United States, part of the New England region, as well as the southernmost state in New England and one of the wealthiest states in the country. The fog is less pronounced during the month of September, which is generally the warmest, most summer-like month of the year.

New Britain Rock Cats. Thus, the summer temperatures are significantly lower in San Francisco than in other parts of inland California. Norwich Navigators. The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland mean that San Francisco's western half is often shrouded in fog during the months of July and August. Bridgeport Bluefish. The Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the city is particularly cold year round. Their departure to North Carolina caused great controversy and resentment. Snow is virtually unheard of.

Until 1997, the National Hockey League had a franchise in Hartford, the Hartford Whalers. Rain in the summer is extremely rare, but winters can often be very rainy. Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League. The weather is remarkably mild all year round, with a so-called Mediterranean climate characterized by cool, foggy summers and relatively warm winters; average daily high temperatures in the summer typically range from 15 -20 degrees Celsius (the upper 60s to low 70s Fahrenheit), while in the winter it virtually never reaches freezing. Connecticut Sun of the Women's National Basketball Association. Surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's climate is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean. Old Lyme, Connecticut $41,386. Coit Tower, a notable landmark dedicated to San Francisco's firefighters, is located at the top of Telegraph Hill.

Madison Center, Connecticut $42,046. Along with New Orleans' streetcars, San Francisco's cable cars are one of only two mobile United States National Monuments. Cornwall, Connecticut $42,484. It is still possible to take a cable car ride up and down Nob and Russian Hills. Bridgewater, Connecticut $42,505. San Francisco is also famous for its Cable cars (narrow gauge, 1067 mm (3'6")), which were designed to carry residents up those steep hills. Essex, Connecticut $42,806. Not to be missed are the beautiful homes and area of the city known as Pacific Heights as well as victorians in the Haight-Ashbury and the "painted ladies" of Alamo Square and the Castro.

Lyme, Connecticut $43,347. On top of Mount Davidson is a 31.4 meter (103 foot) tall cross built in 1934. Fairfield, Connecticut $43,670. About 1.2km (1 mile) south of Mount Sutro is San Francisco's highest mountain, Mount Davidson, which is over 282 meters (over 925 feet) high. Sharon, Connecticut $45,418. Nearby are the equally well known Twin Peaks, which are a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points. Woodbridge, Connecticut $49,049. Dominating this area is Mount Sutro, which is the site of Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio transmission tower, that is a well known landmark to city residents.

Redding, Connecticut $50,687. Near the geographic center of the city and away from the downtown area are a series of less populated hills. Groton Long Point, Connecticut $51,066. Three of San Francisco's notable hill neighborhoods are Nob Hill, Russian Hill, and Telegraph Hill, all located near Downtown. Avon, Connecticut $51,706. San Francisco is famous for its hills and the streets which run straight up and down them. Ridgefield, Connecticut $51,795. Such land is extremely unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction during earthquakes causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.

Essex Village, Connecticut $51,928. Entire neighborhoods of the city such as the Marina and Hunters Point were created and sit on man made landfill (made up of mud, sand, and rubble from past earthquakes) and other reclaimation projects over the San Francisco Bay when flatland became scarce. Easton, Connecticut $53,885. New buildings must be built to very high structural standards, while many dollars must be spent to retrofit the city's older buildings and bridges. Georgetown, Connecticut $55,029. The threat of another major earthquake like the 1906 one plays a major role in the city's infrastructure development. Roxbury, Connecticut $56,769. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, which also did significant damage to parts of the city, is also famous for having interrupted a World Series baseball game between the Bay Area's two Major League Baseball teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics.

Fenwick, Connecticut $60,625. The Daly City Earthquake of 1957 caused some damage. Wilton, Connecticut $65,806. Earlier significant quakes rocked the city in 1851, 1858, 1865, and 1868. Deep River Center, Connecticut $72,261. The most serious earthquake, in 1906, is mentioned above. Westport, Connecticut $73,664. San Francisco lies near the San Andreas Fault; a major source of earthquake activity in California.

Greenwich, Connecticut $74,346. On June 5th, the mayors of 100 cities, including the mayor of San Francisco, signed an accord that made their cities more compliant with the Kyoto Protocol. Weston, Connecticut $74,817. In 2005, San Francisco hosted the United Nations annual World Enivronment Day, the first time it has been held in the US. Darien, Connecticut $77,519. While somewhat controversial, the law will go into effect on July 1, 2005. New Canaan, Connecticut $82,049. Other California cities have enacted similar outdoor smoking bans (though not as far-reaching), but San Francisco's new anti-smoking policy is significant considering the city's size and cultural influence on the rest of the state and the nation.

Non-Religious – 6%. California's statewide smoking bans already being some of the toughest in the nation, the new policy in San Francisco represents an even stricter stance on public smoking. Other Religions – 3%. San Francisco's history of innovative ordinances was seen again with the 2004 decision to ban outdoor smoking in all city-owned parks, plazas and public sports venues, amongst other outdoor areas. Other Christian – 1%. Newsom also helped enact a strong new homeless policy, "Care Not Cash," in which the checks that homeless people previously received were replaced with vouchers for housing. Protestant – 34%. The California Supreme Court later invalidated these licenses.

Roman Catholic – 50%. to issue same-sex marriage licenses in February, 2004. 2.2% Mixed race. The newly elected Mayor Newsom, who won by a close margin, burst onto the national political scene when, in defiance of state law, he led San Francisco to become the first city in the U.S. 0.3% American Indian. The 2003 mayoral election of Matt Gonzalez versus Gavin Newsom was notable in that it was between a candidate of the progressive left and a moderate liberal, conservative candidates having had a hard time in the city. 2.4% Asian. Though top officials were formally indicted, they were soon exonerated, but with considerable damage to their reputations, and having brought the city nationwide ridicule.

9.1% Black. The resulting scandal was dubbed "Fajitagate" after it was alleged that high-ranking officers within the Police Department had tried to cover up the incident. 9.4% Hispanic. In November of 2002, three off-duty police officers (one the son of the assistant chief) allegedly assaulted two civilians over a bag of steak fajitas. 77.5% White non-Hispanic. The success of Craigslist stands as a testament to the over-production of the dot-com era. Southeastern Connecticut. Craig Newmark founded the website Craigslist based in his San Francisco home.

The Quiet Corner. South of Market, where many dot com companies were located, had been bustling and crowded with few vacancies, but by 2002 was a virtual wasteland of empty offices and for-rent signs. Lower Connecticut River Valley. By 2001, the boom was over, and many people left San Francisco. Greater Hartford. The resulting backlash resulted in a progressive majority winning control of the Board of Supervisors in the 2000 election. Greater New Haven. The rising rents forced many people and businesses to leave, and this caused considerable tension in the city's politics.

Naugatuck River Valley. During the dot-com boom of the 1990s, large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer software professionals moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, and changed the social landscape as once poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. Litchfield Hills. Known in most of the United States as the "World Series Quake," but in California and by seismologists as the Loma Prieta earthquake, it caused significant destruction and loss of life throughout the greater bay area. Gold Coast. The quake also caused extensive damage in the Marina District and the South of Market. The damage to these freeways was so extensive, that they were eventually demolished.

The quake severely damaged many of the city's freeway's including the Embarcadero Freeway and the Central Freeway. On October 17, 1989, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter magnitude scale struck on the San Andreas Fault near Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz mountains, approximately 70 miles south of San Francisco, during game 3 of the 1989 World Series. Present mayor Gavin Newsom's policy on the homeless is the controversial "Care Not Cash" program where he plans to end the city's generous welfare policies towards the homeless and instead wants the homeless to be put in affordable housing and attend city funded drug rehabilitation and job training programs. His successor, Willie Brown, was able to largely ignore the problem, riding on the strong economy into a second term.

And it did displace them - to the rest of the city. Jordan launched the "MATRIX" program the next year, which aimed to displace the homeless through aggressive police action. Mayor Art Agnos (1988-92) was the first to attack the problem, and not the last; it is a top issue for San Franciscans even today. Agnos allowed the homeless to camp in the Civic Center park, which led to its title of "Camp Agnos." The failure of this lenient policy led to his being replaced by Frank Jordan in 1992. During the 1980s, homeless people began appearing in large numbers in the city, the result of factors that were affecting the country at large, combined with San Francisco's attractive environment and generous welfare policies, economic and social changes, and the availability of addictive drugs are often cited as reasons for the growth of the problem.

This law has become a standard in many of the world's cities today, and pushed skyscraper construction to the South of Market district where it is still ongoing. Similar to the freeway revolt in the city decades earlier, a "skyscraper revolt" forced the city to enact height restriction limits on tall buildings. This was met with widespread opposition with the city's residents who felt that the skyscrapers ruined views and destroyed San Francisco's unique character. Under former Mayor, and now US senator, Diane Feinstein, San Francisco underwent "Manhattanization" when many of the large skyscrapers present in the Financial District and residential condominiums were built across the city in the late 1970s through the 1980s.

San Francisco has more gays and lesbians than any other US city. Today, the gay population of the city is estimated to be at about 15%, and gays remain an important force in the city's politics. In the 1980s, the AIDS virus wreaked havoc on the gay community there. Because of the rise of this new population, as well as the overall change in ethnic and cultural demographics, tensions arose in the city, and these tensions led to tragedy in 1978 when a conservative member of the Board of Supervisors and a former cop, Dan White, murdered San Francisco's first openly gay elected official, Supervisor Harvey Milk and the city's mayor George Moscone on November 27 (see "Twinkie Defense").

In the 1970s, large numbers of gay people moved to San Francisco's Castro district, which previous to their arrival, had been abandoned by Irish-Americans who moved en masse to the more affluent and culturally homogenous suburbs. When drugs and violence began to become a serious problem in the Haight, many lesbians and gays simply moved "over the hill", to the Castro. These lesbians and gays were the prime movers of Gay Liberation and often lived communally, buying (like their straight counterparts) decrepit Victorians in the Haight and fixing them up. The late 1960s also brought in a new wave of lesbians and gays who were more radical and less mainstream and who had flocked to San Francisco not only for its gay-friendly reputation, but for its reputation as a radical, left-wing epicenter.

On the rave scene, the city was the first to host the Love Parade outside its birthplace of Berlin, Germany in 2004. During the 1980s and 1990s San Francisco became a major focal point in the North American--and international-- punk and rave scene. Another peculiar development is that the Church Of Satan was founded and made its headquarters in San Francisco in 1966. At this time, the "San Francisco sound" emerged as an influential force in rock music, with such acts as the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead achieving international prominence, blurring the boundaries between folk, rock and jazz traditions and further developing the lyrical content of rock.

Thousands of young people poured into the Haight-Ashbury district of the city during 1967, which was known as the Summer of Love. During the latter half of the following decade, the 1960s, San Francisco was the center of hippie culture. Some of the story of the evolving arts scene of the 1950s is told in the article San Francisco Renaissance. San Francisco has often been a magnet for America's counterculture. During the 1950s, City Lights Bookstore in the North Beach neighborhood was an important publisher of Beat Generation literature.

His planning led to the creation of Embarcadero Center, the Embarcadero Freeway, Japantown, the Geary Street superblocks, and Yerba Buena Gardens. He began levelling entire areas in San Francisco's Western Addition and Japantown neighborhoods. Enacting eminent domain whenever necessary, he set upon a plan to tear down huge areas of the city and replace them with modern construction. Critics accused Herman of racism for what was perceived as attempts to create segregation and displacement of African-Americans. Many African-Americans were forced to move from their homes near the Fillmore jazz district to newly constructed projects such as the near the naval base Hunter's Point or even to cities such as Oakland. Justin Herman began an aggressive campaign to renew blighted areas of the city.

In the 1950s San Francisco hired Harvard graduate Justin Herman to head the redevelopment agency for the city and county. The neighborhoods once covered by these freeways have been rebuilt, and the restoration of the Embarcadero, San Francisco's historic bay waterfront, as a public space has been especially successful. Over the course of several referenda, San Francisco's residents elected not to rebuild either structure. In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed the Embarcadero Freeway and portions of the so-called Central Freeway.

Although some minor modifications have been allowed to the ends of existing freeways, the city's anti-freeway policy has remained in place ever since. In 1959, the Board of Supervisors voted to halt construction of any more freeways in the city, an event known as the Freeway Revolt. Caltrans tried to minimize displacement (and its land acquisition costs) by building double-decker freeways, but the crude state of civil engineering at that time resulted in construction of some embarrassingly ugly freeways which ultimately turned out to be seismically unsafe. However, Caltrans soon encountered strong resistance in San Francisco, for the city's high population density meant that virtually any right-of-way would displace a large number of people.

During the early 1950s, Caltrans commenced an aggressive freeway construction program in the Bay Area. The Treaty of San Francisco which established peaceful relations with Japan, was drafted and signed there six years later in 1951. The United Nations Charter was also drafted in San Francisco in 1945. During World War II, San Francisco was the major mainland supply point and port of embarkation for the war in the Pacific.

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was opened in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937. On July 22, 1916 a bomb exploded on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade, killing 10 and injuring 40. In 1915, the city hosted the Panama-Pacific Exposition, officially to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, but also as a showcase of the vibrant completely rebuilt city less than a decade after the Earthquake. Unwilling to evict the remains of San Francisco's most prominent founding citizens, however, the above-ground Columbarium of San Francisco was allowed to remain, whose 30,000 deceased residents are the only permitted within the city to this day.

In 1912, this time with no excuse other than the rising value of real estate, all remaining cemeteries in the city were evicted to south of the city limit, where in the modern-day town of Colma the dead now outnumber the living more than ten-thousand to one. [1] (http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/10737701.htm) See also: 1906 San Francisco earthquake. With the centennial of the disaster approaching, a city supervisor sponsored a resolution to amend the death toll, noting "there is evidence to show the number was suppressed for political reasons" (namely that the city's reputation would have suffered). Many residents were trapped between the water on three sides and the approaching fire, and a mass evacuation similar to that of the later Battle of Dunkirk to safety across the Bay saved thousands.

The official reported death toll was 478, but most historians agree the true tally was much higher, probably over 3,000. Water mains ruptured throughout San Francisco, and the fires that followed burned out of control for days, destroying the vast majority of buildings in the city. The quake is estimated by modern scientists to have reached 8.25 on the Richter scale. On April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake resulted from the rupture of over 270 miles of the San Andreas Fault, from San Juan Bautista to Eureka, centered immediately offshore of San Francisco.

A fifteen-block section of Chinatown was quarantined while city leaders squabbled over the proper course to take, but the outbreak was finally eradicated by 1905. Burials moved to the undeveloped area just south of the city limit, now the town of Colma, California. Mistakenly believing that interred corpses contributed to the transmission of plague, and possibly also motivated by the opportunity for profitable land speculation, city leaders banned all cemeteries within the city. In 1900, a ship from China brought with it rats infected with bubonic plague.

Norton. One of most colorful figures of late 19th century San Francisco was "Emperor" Joshua A. The Sisters of Mercy were contracted to run San Francisco's first county hospital at the height of the cholera epidemic, and in 1857, the order opened its own charity hospital, Mercy Hospital of San Francisco, which is still in operation today at its original location on Stanyan Street. The responsibility for caring for the indigent sick had previously rested on the state, but faced with the San Francisco cholera epidemic, the state legislature devolved this responsibility to the counties, setting the precedent for California's system of county hospitals for the poor still in effect today.

As the city's rapid gold-rush area population growth had significantly outstripped the development of infrastructure, including sanitation, a serious cholera epidemic quickly broke out. Carolina) docked in San Francisco. Sam or the S.S. In autumn of 1855, a ship bearing refugees from an ongoing cholera epidemic in the far east (authorities disagree as to whether this was the S.S.