San Jose is the third-largest city in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States. For the past several years, it has held the title of The Safest Big City in America. San Jose is located in Silicon Valley, at the south end of the San Francisco Bay. With a population of 912,332 San Jose is the largest city in Northern California. Once a small farming city, by 1950 San Jose was a magnet for suburban newcomers in new housing developments (1960s to the 1990s) and became a large thriving urban center of Northern California. San Jose is sometimes nicknamed L.A. North which points out its similarity to Los Angeles as of the end of the 20th century.