With the exception of Downtown Hayward and a few residential neighborhoods, the majority of Hayward neighborhoods and districts were developed during the post-World War II housing boom of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

As a result, the city’s land use patterns and urban design features are generally characterized by single-use neighborhoods and centers, low-density housing tracts, strip commercial centers, and auto-oriented street networks.  In the 1990s and 2000s, the City of Hayward began a new era of land use planning and urban design based on the principles of “smart growth.”