Lesley Betancourt and Ivette Lopez

Bobby and Marco Dell’oca

AMS 30

04 March 2019

The Industrialization of Manteca

Manteca is a central valley city in the San Joaquin county that is located about an hour

and a half south from Davis, CA. It was founded in 1861 by Joshua Cowell who claimed about

1000 acres of land and built few homes near the center of the city (pointed out in the map by a

black marker). From there, the transcontinental railroad was laid directly on the city, already

foreshadowing the eventual construction of major highways. Today, due to an increased rise in

job opportunities near the bay area and rise of housing costs, Manteca has become a popularized

city for families to move into for its relatively financially affordable cost of living and easy

accessibility to highways that lead to any direction in a map (Wikipedia Contributors). It is for

this reason that my father pulled my family from our hometown roots in Turlock to allocate our

new home in Manteca. He now takes advantage of the extremely close highway entrances that he

drives on a daily basis. Similarly, my hometown friend and current peer in the class, Lesley

Betancourt was born and raised in Manteca. Lesley’s father also commutes to his job every day.

For almost 20 years her father has commuted to work on highway 120 to Livermore, CA. From

this common similarity, we decided to partner up and map the housing developments over time

in relation to the placement of major commuter highways that run through Manteca and how the

influx of commuters into the city creates a change of town culture.

My classmate, Lesley and I decided to use a digital approach to construct our map. We

decided on this method as it would depict an accurate scale of neighborhood developments,

highways, and businesses. The website we used is called “My Maps” and it is an actual map

from Google Maps that allowed us to draw lines around areas of our interest. We began with a

base map of Manteca and decided to construct layers to it that demonstrates the development of

houses and neighborhoods built from the year 1900 to the present year of 2019; information that

was acquired from Zillow.com. We also demonstrate business developments and highway

entrances and exits. Based on what we researched, there is not a map depicting time

demographics of housing developments. In Lesley’s narrative and part of the map, she indicates

the change in town culture by the development of new restaurants in the area of the town which

has expanded over time due to commuters. In Ivette’s narrative and side of the map, she speaks

about how her relative new settlement to Manteca was a difficult transition due to the city’s

layout of facilities in relation to highway positions.

Lesley’s Narrative

The map my partner Ivette Lopez and I created holds a very sentimental importance for

me personally. Unlike my partner, I have lived in Manteca, CA my entire life as a native and

watched first-hand the effect which the influx of commuters has had on the town. The issue of

highways and commuter influence on the town has personally not only influenced my life, but

also that of other natives. The purpose of our map is to address the disconnect that commuter

culture and the geographical placement of housing by major highways has placed on Manteca

and other towns alike. After launching into our research, we found that the map we planned to

create did not exist. Although there were websites such as Zillow.com that showed the years

which each house in Manteca had been built there was not one clear map which meticulously had

zoned out what years each housing development in Manteca had occurred. Our map is genuinely
unique in the sense that the housing developments are mapped out by 20 year intervals and

include a highlight on the change of town culture through the development of businesses geared

towards commuters such as fast food chains and gasoline stations. We both parted the town and

went neighborhood by neighborhood recording what year houses were built. I found the streets

of the town extremely important in my collection of this data. I would focus on the streets which

houses were built to find an address off the website Zillow.com in order to record which year the

houses were built. The names of streets were critical as I navigated my way through this website.

In order to make our map reflective of the residential growth over time, we used the feature of

layers within My Maps to showcase the growth within 20 year periods.

As I began to map the dates of housing developments around my home, I began to notice

the trend of housing developments and the relationship they had with highway 99 and 120 which

pass directly through the town. It was apparent that newer housing developments could be

founder closer to these highways. While my house (pinned on map) is located more central in the

town was built in the 1960s, my partners house is located on the outskirts of central Manteca and

was built in the 2000s. Houses such as my partners were built on the outskirts for the purpose of

being easily accessible to commuters. Although my house is also located very close to highway

99 and 120 because of the intersection of these highways found relatively central to the town.

This observation led me to the conclusion that the town of Manteca since a very early time

period had become a commuter hotspot. Houses such as my own were built since the 1960s for

the purpose of being easily accessible to highway 99 which was built in 1926. Through the

visualization of the town from a birds eye view, I was able to observe Manteca on a much more
grander scale and gain perspective of the rapid changes in the town. (Lecture 1/24/2019 Kaplan

Lecture).

Although I myself have been part of the growing commuter culture over the years, I believe my

native perspective still holds importance and throughout my life, I have observed the disconnect

that commuter culture and placement of new housing developments have had on the town of

Manteca and other towns similar. It has been the creation of homes south of highway 120 that

have created this disconnect within the town. Previous to the creation of these homes, the town

of Manteca was more centralized, but as these new housing developments were created to cater

to commuters, the town lines have been crossed the highway 120 and moved south.

The idea of a grid system has been adopted by the town and as MacLean states in The American

Grid, “rather than aligning their own streets grids with the north/south grid, such towns usually

line with the rail line or highway since it is the main route of transit in and out of town.”

(MacLean) Manteca is an excellent example of the grid system at work. Residential areas such as

the ones my partner’s and my house are found have been formed by the grid system of the

highways. As a little girl, I recall where the original hub of popular commuter restaurants was

located (pinned on map). This area next to an entrance to highway 99 on E Yosemite Ave. was

extremely popular and includes fast food chains such as McDonalds, In and Out, and Starbucks.

As the town began to expand, I began to observe a shift in the popularity of these places for a

newer hub of fast food chains near highway 120 where the town has been expanding south of.

This new hub holds the same fast food chains as the original I grew up visiting. This expansion

of Manteca’s grid system has just moved the town’s areas of popularity down to another

highway intersection. MacLean’s argument that the American grid system guides towns to align
their streets to highways and railways holds extremely true for Manteca’s residential and

business areas.

Ivette’s Narrative

On my side of the narrative and perspective from the map, I view Manteca for what it is –

a city built on catering for the daily commuters that pass by Manteca. The main areas of the city

that are visited regularly by residents and I all have the prevailing landscapes of highways

carrying daily commuters from their home to workplace or vice versa. In lecture, we learned

about how landscapes evoke sublimity, the simultaneous emotion of awe and fear (Kaplan

Lecture January 22). This is a similar feeling I have every time I pass under a highway bridge or

highway entrance. I initially appreciate the accessibility of highways near my home that allow

my father to reach his workplace faster without having to travel through a significant amount of

distance to reach a highway entrance. I also take in awe from the overall idea that highways offer

as it relates to America’s industrialization. But at the same, it is unsettling how an individual can

be casually driving around the city and be in danger of making a single change of car lanes that

will lead the driver to a whole new direction on the map. In fact, the amount of car lanes that

merge into highways in the Manteca adds on to the feeling of having a disconnect to the city

because the sight of highways in the distance remind the individual to take precaution in the car

lane they are in to either take the highway merging lane, or not. This demand of attention

seemingly creates the feeling of highways in Manteca demanding your presence out of it instead

of having a unifying connection to the streets and sights of it.

 The places I mentioned above in Manteca that are mostly visited are shopping centers and

restaurant locations. As I found out and further realized from my map, these places are not

coincidentally established there. Whether it be for the purpose of entering the highway, stopping

by for lunch, or refilling the tank, I noticed on my map project that every major shopping center

was directly next to a highway entrance and exit. Not only does this explain the lack of

sentiments I have towards the city that I explained above, but also correlates to the issue of how

commuters change the culture of cities by having facilities built near the highways for their easy

access. A specific example of this on the map is the newly created neighborhood named

Dolcinea by Raymus Homes (marked by a blue pin in the map). Built in the current year of 2019,

I was surprised to see that the city did not continue the trend of building houses on the bottom

half of the city that is intersected by highway 120 given that there is land readily available to

start infrastructure. Instead it was built in the upper right half of the city where there are two

highway entrances that can either lead into route 99 or interstate 5. Around that area are also

relatively new developed houses, apartments, and even an elementary school. This goes to show

that modern developments of housing, most commonly from the 2000-2019 time periods, are

neighborhoods placed near highways. The land where I had initially thought would have new

residency construction is more distanced from highway entrances than the area that the Dolcinea

homes were built on.

From a video in lecture that we viewed about the power of tens (Kaplan Lecture March

7), I currently have a similar reaction to the map that my partner and I created as I did to the

video in the sense that having different physical perspectives can have dramatic changes in our

philosophical perspective. In the video we are shown a couple enjoying a picnic date on top of
perfect green grass, but as the camera pans out, we see that the green picnic area is surrounded

by racing cars on highways. This unsettling new perspective of the couple being surrounded by

highways awoke the feeling of when I first moved into Manteca in 2012. As I mapped the

surrounding area of my neighborhood, I remembered feeling tranquil by the upclose perspective

of seemingly have a close knit community, but only coming to realize that the areas outside of

my neighborhood were sectioned according to its proximity to the highways.

Before taking this course I had a strong disconnect to my city, but after learning its

history and progression, I have built a sense of meaning that teaches me to appreciate the

developments that have and continue to take place in Manteca.

Conclusion

Through the exploration of creating this map and researching the dilemma of commuter

culture and the effect highway construction has on towns, both of us have not only learned about

Manteca’s grid system, but also the difference in our perspectives of the town. As we created the

map together, we were able to record the trends of housing developments to the construction of

highways 99 and 120, which intersect the city of Manteca, and reflect on how these housing and

business developments create a unique definition to culture that one has within their city..
 Work Cited

Wikipedia contributors. "Manteca, California." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia,

The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Mar. 2019. Web. 12 Mar. 2019.

“Zillow Prize: Zillow's Home Value Prediction (Zestimate).” Kaggle, www.kaggle.com/c/zillow-

prize-1.