During World War II, California became the staging point for the Pacific Theater and an industrial powerhouse that manufactured ships, planes and other implements of warfare.
Industrialization, which continued after the war, replaced resource industries such as agriculture and mining in economic importance and fueled California’s postwar population boom into the nation’s most populous state.
However, California’s industrial age was relatively short-lived. By the 1970s, factories were beginning to close, sparking uncertainty about the state’s economic future.
Southern California economic and civic leaders opted for what came to be known as “logistics,” making the region the prime entry point for the goods that a resurgent Asian economy was producing for