Danville

Danville kept its old downtown. Hartz Avenue is still a street of low storefronts and sidewalk tables, the Iron Horse Trail runs through the middle of town on the old rail line, and Diablo Road reaches the mountain’s south gate in about ten minutes.

Why people move here

• A downtown you actually walk around — Hartz Avenue, the farmers market, and the Museum of the San Ramon Valley in the restored 1891 rail depot.
• The Iron Horse Trail runs the length of town, paved and flat, connecting north to Walnut Creek and south to Dublin.
• Mount Diablo State Park’s south gate via Diablo Road, plus Las Trampas on the western ridge and Sycamore Valley Open Space to the east.
• Eugene O’Neill’s Tao House, where he wrote Long Day’s Journey Into Night, is a National Historic Site up in the hills above town.

Neighborhoods

Westside Danville is the older grid nearest downtown. Sycamore Valley and Greenbrook spread east and south around their own parks and schools. Blackhawk, in the hills toward the mountain, is a separate gated development with its own plaza and the Blackhawk Museum.

All of Danville is San Ramon Valley Unified, which also covers Alamo, Diablo, and San Ramon.