Kenya: American City Was Almost Renamed Nairobi

East Palo Alto', the unmistakably bold sign positioned along University Avenue seemed to call for my attention. I stared at it as the taxi rolled past, long enough for it to take over my thoughts and start wondering how different, if at all, this city would have been had the vote to change its name succeeded.

East Palo Alto is a flat and low-lying city at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay in California. It sits just a few miles from Stanford University and is surrounded by the enormous wealth created by tech firms like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and many others. But East Palo Alto's residential streets, its commercial streets, all are somewhat worn, the mark of many years as one of Silicon Valley's poorest quarters.

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