Today, high technology is the foundation of the local economy. Few remnants are visible of the city’s agricultural past.

In 1990, Kevin Duggan began his position as city manager. He built a relationship with Google, Inc., and issued a long-term lease to it and other technology companies. As of 2014, those leases generate over $5 million per year in city revenue. The Castro Street downtown area also benefited from a special tax district.

In 2016, the city’s voters approved a rent control ordinance.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 12.3 sq mi , of which 12.0 sq mi is land and 0.27 sq mi (2.26%) is water. The city borders Palo Alto and the San Francisco Bay to the north, Los Altos to the south, and Moffett Federal Airfield and Sunnyvale to the east.

Mountain View is located in the south-eastern and south western section of the San Francisco Peninsula., at the north end of State Route 85, where it meets U.S. Route 101. State Route 82 follows the route of the historic El Camino Real through Mountain View. The city is bounded to the northwest by Palo Alto, to the north by the Bay, to the south and southwest by Los Altos, and to the east by Sunnyvale and Moffett Federal Airfield.

To the west lie the Santa Cruz Mountains. The city was named for these, which separate it from the Pacific Ocean. The two ranges demarcate the Santa Clara Valley.

Neighborhoods

Most of Mountain View consists of residential neighborhoods. Business parks are located mostly in the North Shoreline neighborhood, north of Highway 101 and east of Highway 85.

The Blossom Valley neighborhood comprises five smaller neighborhoods: Springer Meadows, Varsity Park, Blossom Valley Estates, Springer Trees, and Gest Ranch. The neighborhood’s ranch-style housing was built in the 1950s and 1960s on orchard land.

The Cuernavaca neighborhood is located off Crestview Drive near the Sunnyvale border. This neighborhood used to be the location of a cherry orchard, and later a nine-hole golf course and swim club before it was turned into housing, which was completed in 1989. Most of the housing in Cuernavaca is Spanish-style, with red tiled roofs.

The Monta Loma neighborhood is located between the bounds of San Antonio Road, Middlefield Road, Rengstorff Avenue and Central Expressway. Currently Monta Loma houses a collection of California-style mid-century modern houses by Joseph Eichler, John Calder Mackay, and Mardell Building Company.

Economy

Mountain View is one of the major cities that make up Silicon Valley, and has many notable Silicon Valley companies either headquartered there or with a large presence. As of 2018, major tech companies such as Google and Mozilla were headquartered in Mountain View. In 2018, the comparison site CareerBliss ranked the city number 1 in the United States on its list of Happiest Cities to Work for 2018.

After voting to increase the minimum wage incrementally in 2015, in December 2017, the Mountain View City Council implemented a mandatory $15 minimum wage, to apply to employees who work two or more hours a week. At the start of 2018, Mountain View raised its minimum wage to $15. Starting on January 1, 2019, the minimum wage was to be “adjusted annually based on the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose regional Consumer Price Index.” A proposal to slow down the rate of the wage increases by a year was defeated in a City Council meeting on December 4, 2018. Subsequently, on December 30, 2018, it was announced that Mountain View’s minimum wage would rise to $15.65 on January 1, 2019, with the increase delayed by one year for companies with 25 or fewer employees. As of January 2020, the minimum wage in Mountain View is $16.05 per hour.