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4 <br /> <br />communications, records and remote access, businesses have reallocated and restructured their <br />workspaces4. However, the city districts where work takes place have typically not changed as much in <br />organization and pattern as the buildings and properties themselves, and the practices and mindsets of <br />the real estate industry. <br /> <br />We can summarize several important contrasts between 20th Century and 21st Century business <br />characteristics that have shaped the evolution of American workplace districts, as follows: <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />1.2. The Industrial Workplace Districts - Yesterday and Today <br /> <br />Baylands Roots: As an inner-ring suburban city in a region anchored by San Francisco, Oakland and San <br />Jose, San Leandro's workplace districts developed conventionally in 19th and 20th Century formats of <br />downtown, corridor, and industrial zones. Downtown's Plaza at East 14th Street and Washington <br />Avenue was the original small town hub of commerce and civic life. Retailing and other commercial uses <br />later spread along arterial corridors like East 14th and Davis Streets as auto ownership grew. What <br />distinguished San Leandro from other small cities was its eventual size and concentration of industrial <br />lands. <br /> <br />Prior to World War II, C.L. Best Tractor Company (later Caterpillar Tractor), Friden Calculating Machine <br />Company and the Hudson Lumber Company were the city's largest industrial firms, located at the edge <br />of a smaller San Leandro. They served their markets locally and regionally by the Central Pacific train <br />line just 6 blocks west from the heart of downtown. A second major rail line, the Southern Pacific, lay <br />over a mile west amid farm fields towards the edge of the Bay. The period from the late 1940s to <br />through the 1960s saw a series of annexations and expansions south and westward of the city limits that <br />grew to encompass thousands of acres of "baylands" - flat, formerly unincorporated county lands <br />extending from the city's original western limits to the tidal edge of San Francisco Bay. As with many <br />communities ringing the Bay, these flatlands became a patchwork of vacant land, modest residential <br />neighborhoods and industrial areas. As individual annexations, they came with their platting and <br />infrastructure as laid out by their original developers – not necessarily in line with a well-planned and <br />comprehensive pattern in mind. The introduction of the Eastshore Freeway (later I-880) in the early <br /> <br />4 Lehrer, Jonah, Imagine: How Creativity Works. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 2012. <br />21st Century <br />• Specialty production <br />• Grow business ecosystems & supply chains <br />• Live-work balance – mixed uses, complete <br />communities <br />• Places for people – emphasis on attraction <br />and retention of labor (talent) <br />20th Century <br />• Mass production <br />• “Economic Development” – attract big <br />companies <br />• Suburban commuting – separated uses <br />linked by highways <br />• Sheds for machines <br />