Access to Open Space

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The San Francisco Bay Area, which consists of nine counties, is home to approximately 7.75 million people. Of these nine counties, Santa Clara County has the largest population.

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This is a densely populated area. According to the 2020 census, Santa Clara County is the 6 ^th  most populous county in California. With a total area of 1,304 square miles, the county has a population of 1,936,259 people.

Importantly, this population is not evenly distributed in space across the county; the main population centers, including the City of San Jose, are clustered around the southern end of the San Francisco Bay. There are two smaller population clusters in the south of the county centered around the cities of Morgan Hill and Gilroy.

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• Click inside any census tract to see a popup with more details of its population.
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• Swipe left to reveal a map of the population density classified into discrete categories. The categories shown in this map are classified according to the geometric interval method which highlights extreme values, both large and small.
• Click inside any tract to popup details of its population.
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Today, the bulk of Santa Clara County’s population is concentrated in urban areas. In fact, 95% of the county's population lives in cities. The growing urban population has only increased the need for more publicly accessible open space.

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Most of the the Bay Area's population is concentrated in urban areas which lie within city limits. However, as you explore the data, you will see that although the urban areas fall mostly within city limits, they do not correspond exactly with the boundaries established by the city limits.

The top ten cities in Santa Clara County in descending order of population size are listed in the table below.

• Swipe left to reveal an overlay showing the limits of the cities in Santa Clara County.
• Click within any city boundary to display a popup with that city's information.
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Historically the Santa Clara Valley was known as "The Valley of Heart's Delight." In the Spring the valley used to be filled with many thousands of acres of blooming fruit trees. Today, rapid development and growing urbanization has consumed much of this formally agricultural and rural land. However, small areas of the county are still classified as "prime farmland" and "farmland of local importance."

This map illustrates the extent of the urban areas and shows the remaining farmland within the county. Sadly, increasing pressure for development threatens many of the remaining rural areas and farmland.

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Much of the land in the county is either already urbanized or permanently protected from development. However, some of the few remaining rural and farmland areas are threatened with a high risk of development.

This map highlights those areas facing the greatest risk of development.

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Fortunately, Santa Clara County already enjoys a wide range of publicly accessible open space preserved, owned, and managed by a variety of public agencies.

Watch the video below to take an aerial tour of the open space areas managed by the Midpeninsular Regional Open Space District. The district, which covers part of Santa Clara County, manages 62,000 acres and 2 open space preserves.

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• Click on any open space area to explore the data.
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Publicly accessible open space areas are not evenly distributed in space across the county. While residents of urban areas have access to many smaller open spaces, larger open space areas are typically located in more rural areas further outside the city limits.

This map shows the total open space area for each census tract.

Watch the video below to see how the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority has protected over 16,000 acres of beautiful open space, agricultural lands, watersheds, and wildlife habitat in Santa Clara County.

• Click on any census tract to popup summary information for open space within that tract.
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Open space coverage offers one measure of the accessibility of open space areas. Coverage is the ratio of the area of land dedicated to open space divided by the total land area calculated for each census tract.

In general, as this map illustrates, open space coverage tends to be lower in urban census tracts and higher in non-urban census tracts. Explore these differences by clicking on the buttons below to view and compare the statistics for urban and non-urban census tracts.

• Select one of the buttons above to filter the data displayed in the map.
• Click on any census tract to popup details of open space coverage for that tract.
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A second measure of accessibility is the area of open space per person calculated for each census tract.

This map shows that, in general, the open space per person is lower in urban census tracts and higher in non-urban census tracts. This pattern occurs because large open space areas are often located in non-urban census tracts which typically have lower population densities. Explore these differences by clicking on the buttons below to view and compare the statistics for urban and non-urban census tracts.

• Select one of the buttons above to filter the data displayed in the map.
• Click on any census tract to get more information on the ratio of the tract's total open space area to its population.
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A third measure of accessibility is the distance from any point in the county to its corresponding closest open space area.

This map shows the distance to the closest open space area across the county. You will see that residents in the northeast corner of the county must travel the furthest to reach publicly accessible open space.

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A fourth measure of accessibility is the average distance to the closest open space area calculated across all points within each census tract.

This measure is more useful for urban areas where each census tract typically covers a smaller area and open space areas are often smaller and more numerous. For more rural areas, particularly large non-urban census tracts, this average measure can hide significant variation in accessibility within each census tract. Explore these differences by clicking on the buttons below to view and compare the statistics for urban and non-urban census tracts.

• Select one of the buttons above to filter the data displayed in the map.
• Click on any census tract to see the average distance residents of that tract must travel to reach their closest open space area.
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