A compromise was achieved that included installing new modern crossing gates, red lights and bells while not removing, but simply shutting off, the historic ones and preserving their functionality for special events.

[20] Until the enactment of prohibition in 1919, the city had the largest winery in the world;[22] the small abandoned village of Winehaven remains fenced off along Western Drive in the Point Molate Area.

These new workers generally lived in housing constructed specifically for the wartime boom, scattered throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including Richmond, Berkeley and Albany.

[33] Just before his April 1968 assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. had been working on plans for the Poor People's Campaign, including a multi-city tour of the U.S. with a stop in Richmond.

The shopping mall, last named Hilltop Horizon, was opened under Taubman Centers, and has been sold since then to GM Pension Trust (1998), Simon Property Group (2007), Jones Lang LaSalle (2012),[38] LBG Real Estate (2017), and Prologis (2021), who announced plans to close and demolish the building, reusing the land for a mixed-use development including residential, retail, and logistics facilities.

To the north, Richmond borders the city of Pinole and the unincorporated areas of Bayview, Montalvin Manor, Hilltop Green, Tara Hills.

Deer, falcons, raccoons, ducks, foxes, owls, and mountain lions live in Wildcat Canyon and Point Pinole Regional Shoreline.

[68] On August 6, 2012, at around 6:15 PM, a large fire erupted at the Chevron refinery, sending plumes of toxic smoke into the surrounding area and resulting in nearly 15,000 people to seek medical treatment following the incident.

20.5% of the jobs in the city are in the educational, health, and social service fields, while 10.9% are professional, scientific, management, administrative, and waste disposal, and 10.4% are in retail.

Starting in the early 2000s, the city began an aggressive redevelopment effort spurring exurban tract housing, condominiums, townhomes, a transit village, and terraced hillside subdivisions.

On September 11, 2013, the seven-member Richmond City Council, in a four-to-three vote, decided to pursue a scheme for using eminent domain to buy out mortgages.

North Las Vegas, Nevada[84] and California governments including El Monte[85] Fontana, the city of Ontario and San Bernardino County had considered such plans but decided not to pursue them.

The projects have been the subject of much civic debate; supporters contend that the often cash-strapped government would get a major new source of revenue, while opponents air their concerns over the ramifications, including an increase in already high crime rates, lowered property values, and worsening neighborhood quality of life.

[93] In 2010, the city approved the environmental review of the plan in which the tribe agreed to contain development of the casino to the footprint of the buildings on the former naval depot site.

In the 2006 city elections many candidates ran on platforms promising to reopen these community centers, most of which had been closed due to budget cuts.

Richmond became the first city in the United States to pass a resolution for a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war on October 25, 2023, eighteen days after the outbreak of hostilities.

[111] All Richmond schools have banned junk food, such as candy, soda, Twinkies, pizza, and other similar items in attempt to curb childhood obesity and change children's eating habits.

The city expressed a desire to demolish the building at one point, but this was halted by the actions of a neighborhood preservation campaign which continues its mission to "Save the Plunge!".

The beach, as with most of the cove, offers spectacular panoramic bay views of the Oakland hills, bridges, the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate.

The center currently provides some of the only visual arts education programming in the city of Richmond, relying primarily on public donations and private grants as its means of support.

The Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park was established in 2000, encompassing the former Kaiser shipyards and other wartime industrial sites in Richmond.

The park once housed a dance hall and roller rink and has distinctive stonework throughout, which was the rationale for its placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

The park has diverse animal and plant life including great horned owls, opossums, king snakes, rubber boas, turkey vultures and many others.

[124] In 2010 the city began celebrating the Richmond Native American Pow-Wow in Nicholl Park, in 2012 this included area politicians and members of over 50 tribes from throughout the country.

[125] There are two African American weekly newspapers, one general interest online publication, and one multimedia news project that cover Richmond exclusively.

RichmondConfidential.org, which is run by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, is a general interest online-only news publication serving the city of Richmond.

A local cable TV station, KCRT-TV, mainly plays historical archives but also airs government-access television (GATV), city council meetings and music videos.

The service runs from the Craneway Pavilion in Marina Bay to the San Francisco Ferry Building seven days a week, with lower frequency on the weekends as opposed to higher volume weekday commutes.

RichmondWorks and Richmond Summer YouthWorks are city programs that aim to decrease unemployment and crime and have led to hundreds receiving employment at area retail businesses.

[142] After putting the fire out steam continued to spew forcing crews to remain on site for hours to water the still heated area in order to prevent reignition.