http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/santaclara/text.htm
Early History
". . .the physical geography of Santa Clara County, situated between the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west and the Diablo Mountain Range to the east, was formed quite recently in geological history. Santa Clara Valley was created by the sudden growth of the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Mountain Range, during the later Cenozoic era. This was a period of intense mountain building in California when the folding and thrusting of the earth's crust, combined with active volcanism, gave shape to the present state of California. Hence, Santa Clara Valley is a structural valley, created by mountain building, as opposed to an erosional valley, or one which has undergone the wearing away of the earth's surface by natural agents. The underlying geology of the Santa Cruz Mountains was also formed by the sediment of the ancient seas, where marine shale points to Miocene origin. Today one can still find evidence of this in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where shark's teeth and the remains of maritime life are still found as high as Scott's Valley, a city nestled in the mountains.
The Santa Cruz Mountains and Diablo Mountain Range created a sheltered valley. Located south of the San Francisco Bay, Santa Clara Valley offered shelter from the cold, damp climate of the San Francisco region and coastal areas west of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and was no doubt inviting to the first human inhabitants. Historically, the Ohlone Indians were the first documented inhabitants of the Santa Clara Valley region, although the oak lined hills and valley undoubtedly had known earlier Indian inhabitants and migrations, now lost to history and prehistory. Archeological discoveries place Ohlone Indian settlements in the region as early as 8000 BC.
Sometime around 4000 years ago, according to anthropologists, the ancestral Ohlone, along with the culturally interrelated people of the greater Sacramento/ San Joaquim Delta regions, developed a system of social ranking and institutional religions. Within the greater San Francisco Bay region, people of social prominence were interred in what has become known as the "shellmounds." The anthropologist J.P. Harrington, working in the Ohlone region from 1921-1939 with the last fluent elderly speakers of the Ohlone languages, preserved what is now known about the earliest known inhabitants of Santa Clara Valley. Aside from the Ohlone, who were considered a Coatanoan tribe, the Yokut people dwelt to the east in modern Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties. The northern San Francisco Bay was home to both the coastal Miwok and Winton, and other tribes lived in the surrounding regions. Descendants of Santa Clara's original Ohlone inhabitants are still in the region today.
The European presence in the region began with the English explorer and privateer Sir Francis Drake, who landed on July 17,1579, in the San Francisco Bay Area and claimed the region for England. After Drake's departure it took nearly two centuries before any European power settled the region. The arrival of the Spanish to "Llano de los Robles"-Plain of the Oaks-started when Russian exploration into California alarmed the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico City. The Russians had settled Alaska and were exploring the West Coast for trading posts within striking distance of the rich Spanish mines. They were a presence at Fort Ross in Northern California from 1812-1841. José de Gálvez, the visitor-general of New Spain (Mexico), wanted to increase New Spain's territory for the Spanish crown. He sent the Spanish forward into Alta California (present day California). Encountering the native Ohlone people, the Spanish gave them the name of Costeños, or People of the Coast. José Francisco Ortega gave Santa Clara the name "Llano de los Robles" in 1769 as he scouted the region on the behalf of Captain Gaspar de Portola. On April 2, 1776, near the Carquinez Straits (North-East Bay), Father Font documented the following account of an early encounter between the Spanish and the Ohlone:
We set out from the little arroyo at seven o'clock in the morning, and passed through a village to which we were invited by some ten Indians, who came to the camp very early in the morning singing. We were welcomed by the Indians of the village, whom I estimated at some four hundred persons, with singular demonstrations of joy,singing, and dancing.
Father Junípero Serra also came into present-day California, establishing a chain of Franciscan missions. It was in 1777 that Father Serra gave Santa Clara Valley its lasting name when he consecrated the Mission Santa Clara de Asis. The 7th of the 21 established missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asis claimed land from San Francisquito Creek in present day Palo Alto to Llagas Creek at Gilroy. . ."
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Any real pantheistic concern for design of architecture and planning in Santa Clara is missing from its approach to design. With it, respect for the place might have been found. The spirit of the place is mostly overrun by an imposition of European values unto the place that buries the true place. And, incoming recent Asian influences merely overlay these earlier design events. Unfortunate! Working there might be "affordable" if one lived beyond these physical influences, and in a more remote setting, connected to some mass transportation access point. Otherwise, the detrimental and spiritually demoralizing affect of this environment takes its toll on anyone. Silicon Valley is a concept of living, mostly for money, not a real place of wholesome living. .H.
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