What Is Hayward Anyway?
In Which: I explain where Hayward actually is, why it's confusing to so many people, and why different identities is so important.
It’s a been a tradition since the pandemic for my family to order out on Fridays. We tried different restaurants, but we’ve settled on Los Compadres. I feel like I’m a regular there now and they always have the Tri-City Voice on one of the tables when I pick up the food on my bike.
An editorial the other day caught me off-guard. The Editor of the Tri-City Voice said that Hayward was a part of the Tri-Cities—including all the way up to San Leandro. Obviously, that’s ridiculous on its face. The Tri-Cities are: Fremont, Newark, and Union City. Hayward is its own thing—though a part of the Eden Area.
But these area names can be confusing. For example, I asked my friend what he thought the Florida or Texas of the Bay Area was and he said—with no hesitation—the Tri-Valley. To me, that means Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore. But he was thinking Danville and San Ramon—in a whole different County. And recent postal changes are forcing people to think differently about where they live.
So with all of this in mind, I wanted to dig into Hayward as a place: how it’s legally defined, where things get confusing, how people feel, and what all of this could mean for the future.
Point To It On A Map
I’ve been asked multiple times since starting the Herald if I could cover Cherryland or Fairview. They usually come up because residents write Hayward on their address. But that’s a bit of a Postal Service fluke—which I’ll get into later—and these neighborhoods aren’t actually in Hayward proper. When writing about Hayward news—especially Hayward politics—much of what I cover doesn’t apply to them.
The map above shows the borders of the City of Hayward. They may not make a lot of sense, but they’re important for political and practical reasons. If your house is inside the dotted red line then you vote for the Mayor and City Council of Hayward. You’re served by the Hayward Police and Fire Departments, your property tax goes to Hayward, and you’re bound by its laws and ordinances.
For example, Hayward has Just Cause Eviction protections—meaning a tenant can’t be evicted just because the landlord doesn’t like them anymore. If you live inside the red line in Hayward, your landlord needs to have a reason to evict you or will be breaking the law. But if you live outside the red line—in Cherryland, for example—your landlord can kick you out for any reason at all (thanks, Nate Miley).
So when I write about changes to Hayward laws or what Hayward City Councilmembers are saying, that only directly affect the people who live in Hayward. If you’re in Cherryland or Castro Valley or Fairview the laws don’t apply to you and you can’t vote for the Councilmembers. But it’s not surprising that some people are confused.
Other Agencies Confuse Things
I went to Strobridge Elementary in the Hayward Unified School District (HUSD). I eventually went to Bret Harte and then Hayward High. My best friends in high school lived in Cherryland and Fairview. We always thought of ourselves as Hayward kids because we went to Hayward schools. But through all of that, I was living in Castro Valley.
The HUSD borders don’t line up with City limits. Not only do they include Cherryland and Fairview, they also leave out parts of northwest and southern Hayward. These kids could have grown up their entire lives going to HUSD schools and writing Hayward on their address and without living in Hayward.
And this is made worse by the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District (HARD).
HARD’s borders are even bigger, encompassing Hayward, Castro Valley, Cherryland, San Lorenzo, Ashland, and Fairview. Initially a part of the City of Hayward government, HARD split off into its own independent Special District decades ago, but still technically serves the Hayward Area—it doesn’t serve any other incorporated City.
But there are thousands of people who go to schools in a Hayward district, go to parks with Hayward in the name, write Hayward on their address, and have never lived in Hayward. This causes people to feel connected to a place that, legally speaking, they’ve never lived in.
What Makes A Place
Identifying with a place, even one that isn’t legally correct, has real meaning. Historically some unincorporated areas of Alameda County around Hayward have had to put Hayward on their official addresses. This is because of rules from the Postal Service and how zip codes were allocated.
However, recently the Board of Supervisors negotiated an official change for a half-dozen communities—though Castro Valley has always been able to use it for 94546 addresses. The somehow not-30-year-old website says that 29,000 addresses were affected by the change. But not everyone was feeling “Proudly Unincorporated” afterward.
I heard anecdotes of someone who technically lived in San Lorenzo, but had always used Hayward for their address. They felt connected with Hayward—they had lived there for decades—and didn’t want the change. Their sense of place and identity had been completely upended. Nothing functionally changed, but they believed they lived in Hayward despite having no legal connection to that City.
That feeling is totally valid and important. Anyone who feels upended by a change in their address is 100% justified. At the same time, I think having all the legal definitions of your home aligned is also very important.
Someone in Fairview may be upset at the change away from Hayward, but wrong information has real consequences. My friend’s mom lives in Fairview and she was having issues with her garbage bins. She tried contacting the City but got nowhere—she lives in Fairview, so they literally couldn’t help her.
I said to contact Waste Management—that’s what I’d do—but I forgot that the Unincorporated Areas are a part of the Oro Loma Sanitation District. They run the contract with Waste Management and should have been the first place to reach out to. If her address hadn’t said Hayward on it for her entire life, it may have been more clear where to turn. Government is difficult enough to navigate without misleading information.
We’re Making Places Every Day
Where we live is a lot more than maps and borders. What a place is called, what happens there, and how it feels to move through it are all defined by us, as residents, every day. People make an urban place what it is and I think that having a local identity is important for so many reasons.
Take Yoyo’s Botaneria—I don’t think I’ve ever eaten there, but I know people who swore by their food truck. They’ve taken over a great building that had been vacant for decades, they’re super-popular, and seem to have a great following. Multiple people have said that they’re in Hayward—but they’re across from the Carl’s Jr on Mattox and Mission and that’s Cherryland.
It’s not just pedantry, though I am guilty of that from time to time. Cherryland has always been heavily Latine, it’s relatively low-income, it’s got a high renter population, and they 100% deserve to call Yoyo’s their own. I want them to embrace their identity and be their own place. They deserve to have a separate and equally valid identity from Hayward.
The wine shop on B Street says it proudly sells Hayward Wines. I’ve never gone in to ask for the address—I’m not a wine guy—but I’d bet those wines are actually grown in Fairview. There are several small-scale vineyards and farms up there and it deserves to be known as an agricultural space in the Eden Area. They deserve to have their own identity—goodness knows it feels nothing like the Hayward I know—and a name to go with it.
Embrace Your Own Identity
Suburbanization was one of the worst things we’ve ever invented. Homogenized, isolated, and car-centric, the suburbs have been a disaster for the environment, our social fabric, and the variety that makes so much of life worth living. With the franchised restaurants and supermarket chains that dominate modern life, you can drive from one town to the next without much variety.
But it’s the variety and the unique sense of place that makes other areas worth visiting. I love going to Los Compadres because it exists here and nowhere else. It’s why I go to Snappy’s and Books on B—they’re a part of what makes Hayward its own place. And personally speaking, I think we all deserve more of that.
That’s why I think districting can be such a good idea. It allows neighborhoods to become better defined and develop an even stronger identity. Tennyson and Downtown already feel different, and how fun would it be if we celebrated and embraced that difference?
Even though we’re stuck with a history of suburban development, we get to decide how our home changes—suburbs don’t have to suck. We bring life and meaning to the City and we can decide its future. Knowing where you are is the first step, but you can’t make the second one without it.