No fluke bagel. If you switch districts, you can look down the same street to find different cogs. The same goes for buildings. If you're looking for a specific type of building, switch districts. Also, a great tip for the newbies out there is if you need to go to a certain building say, Ahab's Prefab Sea Crabs and it's taken over by cogs in one district, switch districts. It's a guarantee that you don't have to take over the building because you WILL eventually find one Ahab's that isn't taken over by the cogs in another district.
Also certain cogs are more prevelant on certain streets. For example, bossbots:
You can find them in Donald's Dock on Lighthouse Lane for the low laffers, and you can find them Minnie's Melodyland on (I can't remember the name of the street) but it's the one leading to Donald's Dreamland. In the Brrrgh, you can almost always find them on Walrus Way.
I usually find that if you go to a busier district, you'll find MORE cogs though. But you can go to a less populated district & find a building like Bagel did & just watch them putt out of the building.
Great tip, Bagel!