Industrial East Bay: Exploring how Big Business Shaped our Region

From the gold rush to the tech boom, this region has been shaped by successive waves of business growth. In each new era, massive investments and new industries have led the way in building the Bay Area, drawing new people, building new communities and impacting every aspect of life here. In this conversation, renowned urban geographer Richard Walker and East Bay Yesterday host Liam O’Donoghue will explore the history of local development through the lens of Big Business.

Expect to hear about the rise and fall of successive industries, labor battles, eccentric entrepreneurs, economic booms (and real explosions), industrial decline, and much more. As the Bay Area’s economy struggles to recover from the tech era and post-Covid contraction, this wide-ranging conversation will give historical context to our present moment and revisit stories from the past that might provide useful clues for understanding the future.     

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Richard A. Walker is professor emeritus of geography at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught from 1975 to 2012. Walker has written on a diverse range of topics in economic, urban, and environmental geography and he has written extensively on California, including The Conquest of Bread (2004), The Country in the City (2007), The Atlas of California (2013) and Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area (2018). Walker is currently executive director of the Living New Deal Project, whose purpose is to inventory all New Deal public works sites in the United States and recover the lost memory of government investment for the good of all. Walker lives in Oakland. See and hear author interviews, book reviews, and other news here.

Liam O’Donoghue is the host and producer of the podcast, which airs on 94.1 KPFA-FM, and the Oakland columnist for SF Gate. His journalism has appeared in outlets such as KQED, Oaklandside, Mother Jones, Salon, 99% Invisible, The Kitchen Sisters, and Snap Judgement. O’Donoghue has given presentations on local history throughout the Bay Area, at institutions such as Oakland Museum of California, The California Historical Society, and The Commonwealth Club. Follow Liam's Substack for updates about his tours and events.

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