Irvine

Irvine is a suburban incorporated city in Orange County, California, United States. It is a planned city, mainly developed by the Irvine Company in the 1960s. The city’s mission statement is “to create and maintain a community where people can live, work, and play in an environment that is safe, vibrant, and aesthetically pleasing.”

Because of its good schools, jobs, and housing, the city was chosen in 2008 by CNNMoney.com as the fourth best place to live in the United States. In 2012, it was ranked in sixth place. In September 2011, Businessweek listed Irvine as the 5th best city in the US. In June 2010, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that Irvine had the lowest violent crime rate among cities in the United States with populations of more than 100,000, and in August 2008 the Census Bureau ranked Irvine as having the seventh highest median income among cities in the United States with populations of more than 65,000.

Irvine is home to the University of California, Irvine (UCI), Concordia University, Irvine Valley College, the Orange County Center of the University of Southern California (USC), Brandman University, and the satellite campuses of California State University Fullerton (CSUF), University of La Verne, and Pepperdine University. Irvine is also home to a number of corporations, particularly in the technology and semiconductor sectors.

Most of Irvine is located in the Irvine Unified School District (IUSD). The four high schools in IUSD, as well as Beckman High School, have consistently placed in the upper range of Newsweek’s list of the Top 1,300 U.S. Public High Schools.