Time to Party: East Palo Alto Turns 30

Look for lots of selfies, perhaps a tweet or two from East Palo Alto.

The city is a millennial, after all -- and it's just turned 30.

East Palo Alto -- EPA, or "where the IKEA is" to many Bay Area denizens -- is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its incorporation on Saturday, June 29, according to Palo Alto Online.

There's a parade beginning at 11 a.m. stepping off from the 49ers Academy at 2695 Fordham St., and a festival from noon to 4 p.m. in Bell Park, the news source reported.

Fireworks on Saturday night at the Cesar Chavez Academy at 2450 Ralmar Avenue will cap off the celebrations, according to reports.

East Palo Alto becoming a bona fide city had real impacts: the 3,500 residents there at the time had more political power than they did when they were serviced by San Mateo County alone, and were able to impose rent control, something "absentee landlords opposed."

Now,  about 28,000 residents -- 65 percent of them Latino -- live in the city, which in the 1990s was briefly the murder capital of the United States based on its per capita homicide rate.