About Marin City

Marin City, is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Marin County, California, United States. It is located 1.5 miles (2.4 km) northwest of downtown Sausalito, and about 5 miles north of San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge, at an elevation of 23 feet (7 m). Marin City was developed for housing starting in 1942, to accommodate war-time shipyard workers and other immigrants to California. After the war, the area became predominantly African-American, as white residents were able to move freely to private housing elsewhere in Marin. Since the 1980s, additional development has changed the makeup of the population while providing more local jobs. The population in 2010 was 2,666. Marin City's socioeconomic and racial makeup contrasts with the mostly wealthy and Caucasian populations in Marin County. In 2004 the community had high levels of poverty, crime, and recreational drug use. Marin City began to enjoy a newfound celebrity in the 1990s as the home of rapper Tupac Shakur.

Prior to World War II, the land that would become Marin City was home to a dairy farm and a handful of families. Soon after war was declared on December 8, 1941, Marin City was rapidly built during 1942 in order to house 6000 of the 20,000 workers who migrated from all over the United States, attracted by the jobs at Marinship, the Sausalito waterfront shipyard. A total of 93 liberty ships and tankers were built and launched from Marinship in less than three years.

The municipal authority for Marin City is the Marin City Community Services District (MCCSD), a multi-purpose California special district that is governed by a publicly elected five-member board of directors and is administered by a district manager and staff. As of June 2011, the District Manager is Johnathan Logan, Jr. and the Board President is Nancy Johnson.

Marin City is served by the Sausalito Marin City School District for primary grades (K-8) and the Tamalpais Union High School District for secondary grades. Grades K-6 attend either Bayside Elementary School in Sausalito or Willow Creek Academy (a public charter school), both in Sausalito. Grades 7-8 attend Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City, or Willow Creek Academy. Residents may attend Willow Creek Academy, a K-8 school in Sausalito. Beginning in the northern hemisphere fall of 2013, Bayside will close, with Willow Creek taking the former Bayside campus, making MLK a K-8. The consolidation of Bayside into MLK will be in effect in the northern hemisphere fall of 2013. Grades 9-12 attend Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley.