San Leandro, California
San Leandro is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is located in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area;
between Oakland to the northwest, and Ashland, Castro Valley, and Hayward to the southeast.
The population was 91,008 as of the 2020 census.
Geography and geology
The San Leandro Hills run above the city to the northeast. In the lower elevations of the city,
an upper regionally contained aquifer is located 50 to 100 feet (15 to 30 m) below the surface.
At least one deeper aquifer exists approximately 250 feet (75 m) below the surface.
Some salt water intrusion has taken place in the San Leandro Cone.
Shallow groundwater generally flows to the west, from the foothills toward San Francisco Bay.
Shallow groundwater is contaminated in many of the locales of the lower elevation of the city.
Contamination by gasoline, volatile organic compounds and some heavy metals has been recorded
in a number of these lower-elevation areas.
The trace of the Hayward Fault passes under Foothill Boulevard in San Leandro.
Follow the link in the reference to see a series of photos of the fault cutting the asphalt between 1979 and 1987.
Economy
San Leandro has long been home to many food-processing operations, and is home to many corporate businesses,
such as JanSport, The North Face, Ghirardelli, OSIsoft, 21st Amendment Brewery, Begier Buick, and a Coca-Cola plant.
Maxwell House operated a coffee roasting plant, where the Yuban brand was produced from 1949 until 2015,
when it was closed as part of a cost-cutting plan instituted by parent company Kraft Foods.
The city has five major shopping centers: the Bayfair Center, Westgate Center, Greenhouse Shopping Center,
Marina Square Center, and Pelton Plaza. Lucky’s flagship store opened in San Leandro.
Under San Leandro Mayor Stephen H. Cassidy, the city set the goal in 2012 of “becoming a new center of
innovation in the San Francisco Bay Area.” San Leandro came “out of the downturn like few places around,
attracting tech startups, artists and brewers to a onetime traditional industrial hub.”
In January 2011, Cassidy and Dr. J. Patrick Kennedy, a San Leandro resident and the president and founder of OSIsoft,
one of the city’s largest employers, “began developing the public-private partnership that would become
Lit San Leandro,” a high speed, fiber optic broadband network. In October 2011, the city approved
the license agreement that allowed the installation of the fiber-optic cables in the existing conduits
under San Leandro streets. In 2012, San Leandro was awarded a $2.1 million grant from the U.S.
Economic Development Administration to add 7.5 miles to the network. By 2014, the network expansion
was completed, bringing the total length of fiber in the city to over 18 miles. The network is capable
of transmitting at up to 10Gbit/s and is currently only available to business users.
The Zero Net Energy Center, which opened in 2013, is a 46,000-square-foot (4,300 m2) electrician training
facility created by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 595 and the Northern California
chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association. Training includes energy-efficient construction methods,
while the facility itself operates as a zero-energy building.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Leandro,_California
Author: Kirill Shrayber, Ph.D.