CHAPTER FIVE: The North American Manufacturing Core.

As Professor Richard Walker of the department of Geography at University of California, Berkeley explains: “The San Francisco Bay Area demonstrates how industrial dispersal had created the sprawling form of the American metropolis. Neither change in transport modes nor residential suburbanization is principally responsible for shaping the outward spiral of urbanization. Manufacturing began its outward march from the outset of the city's industrialization, establishing peripheral nodes of employment and working class residence within San Francisco, then beyond the city limits in South San Francisco and especially the East Bay. The main cause of decentralization has been industrial shifts; the outbreak of new activities in new places, normally in the form of industrial districts at various spatial scales. A second cause has been the orchestration of development by business leaders through property ownership and political maneuvering guided by a general vision of metropolitan expansion, whether in co-operation or competition with one another.” Manufacturing has played a huge role to the development of the city, creating jobs and providing resources.