Dividing the rich and the poor in Silicon Valley is a near-dry, roughly 50 feet in length creek, named San Francisquito. The city manager, Carlos Martinez, describes that "This creek comes from the Santa Cruz Mountains." Today, the creek is just a messy tangle of vines, bushes and trees but two different worlds exist on each of its side.
The techie grounds are found in Palo Alto and Menlo Park, home to billionaires like the founders of Google- Larry Page, Facebook - Mark Zuckerberg and the family of Apple's co-founder-the late Steve Jobs. It is not unusual for people living here to spend millions for single-family homes.
On the other side of the creek lies East Palo Alto, a small town notorious for poverty, gangs and murder. In here, almost one-fifth of the residents are living below the poverty line. With the growth of the tech industry happening on its opposite end, with the cost of living rising and with people being pushed out of their cities, East Palo Alto has been attempting to maintain the balance between "gentrification and preserving its roots." Such roots are quite short as East Palo Alto was incorporated only in 1983, making it as one of the youngest cities in California. From the time that it was established, hopes were up that its local government could provide what the residents of its neighbour, Palo Alto, are already enjoying- houses, jobs, safety and health care. True indeed, it has been working to reach those objectives.
The town underwent some progress. From being considered as the murder capital of the United States way back in 1992, records gathered shows it only had 5 murders last year. What's even more, new houses and shopping centers were built and toxic waste sites were cleaned up.
East Palo Alto is a small town that covers only 2.5 square miles and has a population of more or less 30,000 residents.
