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There are some good projects here and there and SD is making some progress little by little. This city could have better developments if it weren't for these NIMBY's holding everything up and increasing costs and time through litigation that it essentially kills a project. How much longer are people here going to squabble over the damn waterfront? Apparently an asphalt parking lot is better use of that area to some. And the problem is its only people who are against something that come out to speak, while the rest of the people that either support it or are indifferent, which is the majority imo, don't speak up understandably.
Excellent assessment, I am not sure I agree completely but agree with many points. The Paseo was an epic debacle and the Bway complex redevelopment looks about the same. I am not anti-development but the fact is... the pro-developer city government has screwed a lot of people, especially people in those exact city neighborhoods. Remember the city of SD essentially abandoned it's core in favor of UTC and Mission Valley and allowed scraping and apartment density to destroy many urban single-family neighborhoods. The memory of that will not fade easily.
I don't see all those aging boomers dying off so quickly. They will be around another 20-30 years. And I have an itching suspicion that the next generation of homeowners are saying "transplant go home" too. Unfortunately the demographics of San Diego point to "bitter old timers" being the predominant homeowner / taxpayer segment of the city's population.
Excellent assessment, I am not sure I agree completely but agree with many points. The Paseo was an epic debacle and the Bway complex redevelopment looks about the same. I am not anti-development but the fact is... the pro-developer city government has screwed a lot of people, especially people in those exact city neighborhoods. Remember the city of SD essentially abandoned it's core in favor of UTC and Mission Valley and allowed scraping and apartment density to destroy many urban single-family neighborhoods. The memory of that will not fade easily.
I don't see all those aging boomers dying off so quickly. They will be around another 20-30 years. And I have an itching suspicion that the next generation of homeowners are saying "transplant go home" too. Unfortunately the demographics of San Diego point to "bitter old timers" being the predominant homeowner / taxpayer segment of the city's population.
I was so pissed about the Paseo, I thought that was an excellent project for such a butt ugly corner. With the new trolley station I thought the Paseo was a GREAT project. I really hope we can get past all the usual hurdles and get that waterfront project off the ground, so much potential for that area.
You bring up a good point that I don't always consider about how residents in those older established neighborhoods have been screwed by the city and developers before. I'm assuming you are referring to all those "Hoffman Hovel" six-pack apartments that were thrown up in the 60's and 70's all over San Diego that destroyed a lot of nice older homes. I think San Diego and other cities have learned from that, the new infill development is pretty nice imo. Not the most architecturally stunning pieces of work but still good. But you're right in that many are probably suspicious of that repeating itself.
The city abandoning downtown in favor of Mission Valley and UTC was bad but it occurred everywhere during that time and is still occuring to an extent. Jobs and development continue to shift to the suburbs despite what we have learned from that failed planning mode and all the hype about urban living. It's still too easy and cheap for developers to build out on new land instead of actually focusing development on where it should be.
I feel San Diego knows the mistakes its made and has plans to correct them by adopting a different development model but we are not exactly the most progressive city of course. It's an uphill battle, more so than some other cities but hopefully SD will become more progressive and head towards the right direction but its going to be a slow progress imo b/c of all the other fundamental issues facing this city.
I was so pissed about the Paseo, I thought that was an excellent project for such a butt ugly corner. With the new trolley station I thought the Paseo was a GREAT project. I really hope we can get past all the usual hurdles and get that waterfront project off the ground, so much potential for that area.
If the tourists could see it, it might happen. But this city is so profoundly broke. SDSU is going ahead with a scaled-down project. They still want to build a bridge over harbor drive downtown. Redevelop Grantville... it's all BS. Its about cops and firefighters and making sure lights are on right now.
It was as much an intra-SDSU struggle as it was a city / SDSU struggle. Residents, I don't think put up much of a fight. But everyone came out on the mega-dorm (which remains a rubble pile).
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Originally Posted by sav858
I feel San Diego knows the mistakes its made and has plans to correct them by adopting a different development model but we are not exactly the most progressive city of course. It's an uphill battle, more so than some other cities but hopefully SD will become more progressive and head towards the right direction but its going to be a slow progress imo b/c of all the other fundamental issues facing this city.
See that's where I am not so sure. Progressive, to me is not something you can describe many US cities as. I see San Diego as continuing to go down the tourist / resort city model for a very, very long time. Progressive to me is NY, LA, SF, Chicago, places where they make big changes and try things... I think our local leaders are looking mostly to see what LA does first.
Progressive, to me is not something you can describe many US cities as. I see San Diego as continuing to go down the tourist / resort city model for a very, very long time. Progressive to me is NY, LA, SF, Chicago, places where they make big changes and try things... I think our local leaders are looking mostly to see what LA does first.
I definitely agree 100% with this statement. Many of the big tourist cities in this country outside of San Diego (i.e. San Antonio, Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, New Orleans, Seattle), seem to focus more on attracting tourist, rather than investing in much need publing infrastructure improvements. It's very disgusting. For instance, the South Beach area of Miami is very nice, but just a few miles inland, away from all of the touristy areas, you find run-down, ignored drug/violence infested neighborhoods that look like something that you would see in the bad areas of TJ. From what I have seen in my five years out here, San Diego is not quite as bad as Miami (and I hope that it never does get that bad) at ignoring public infastructure. Let's all hope that the city of San Diego and its officials can make some big changes and better decisions before things do get out of hand.
See that's where I am not so sure. Progressive, to me is not something you can describe many US cities as. I see San Diego as continuing to go down the tourist / resort city model for a very, very long time. Progressive to me is NY, LA, SF, Chicago, places where they make big changes and try things... I think our local leaders are looking mostly to see what LA does first.
To me that's kind of big city progressive vs small/med city progressive. I'm not expecting SD to take on the massive projects places like SF, LA, NYC, etc.. I've seen all the development/land use plans that SANDAG, the City of San Diego, and the Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC) have developed for the future of this city and they all present a great vision for San Diego with such projects like the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan, the City of Villages, etc.. Even North County has some cool smart growth plans along the new Sprinter Line.
Granted all of this is just on paper for the most part but thats a start and at least we have the vision to know what we want SD to be. But of course the biggest obstacle is actually getting there and overcoming the typical San Diego BS that prevents many of those projects from happening. The resistance to using taxpayer money to help get these projects going with such BASIC things like infrastructure upgrades is a HUGE impediment imo, something not easy to overcome in such a tax adverse city. Being the urban planning/development oriented person that I am I'm probably more optimistic on this subject than many others.
SD will continue to be a resort type city for the time being but if catering to tourists gets us Horton Plaza, Petco, a revitalized Gaslamp, and hopefully a decent waterfront then that's better than nothing imo. And I think we'll continue to make small strides in other parts of the city with projects that benefit primarily residents.
I definitely agree 100% with this statement. Many of the big tourist cities in this country outside of San Diego (i.e. San Antonio, Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, New Orleans, Seattle), seem to focus more on attracting tourist, rather than investing in much need publing infrastructure improvements. It's very disgusting. For instance, the South Beach area of Miami is very nice, but just a few miles inland, away from all of the touristy areas, you find run-down, ignored drug/violence infested neighborhoods that look like something that you would see in the bad areas of TJ. From what I have seen in my five years out here, San Diego is not quite as bad as Miami (and I hope that it never does get that bad) at ignoring public infastructure. Let's all hope that the city of San Diego and its officials can make some big changes and better decisions before things do get out of hand.
I agree with this for the most part but want to point out the South Beach is NOT in Miami, it's in Miami Beach which is a completely separate municipality. So that does make a difference when you're a wealthy city on an island versus a poor city on the mainland. Miami has done a decent job redeveloping its downtown and the Brickell area though.
How much denser can uptown areas get? I thought the more realistic goal was about identifying good locales for infill projects. I also understood that updating aging infrastructure was as big an issue as anything.
A city that grows either sprawls outward with low density or grows smart with higher density. For more established cities that grow density that necessarily means infill, since available land for new development is generally scarce. And for whatever available land there IS for new development, it means higher density development or planned development (mix of single family homes and higher density, which these days developers are typically molding in the TND fashion). That is smart growth. SD and Denver and Portland is smart growth as opposed to Atlanta and Houston and Phoenix.
On the tourist thing, attracting tourism helps to pay for those family friendly amenities discussed earlier. Money for lifestyle enhancing amenities comes from one of two places- taxes on residents or taxes on visitors. The more tax revenue you get from visitors, the less you need from residents. So I tend not to hate on cities trying to boost tourism. Of course now it's nearly impossible to invest in attracting tourism because cities are low on money to invest in anything.
So from my vantage point, the SD Embarcadero/Waterfront plan, including the failed Gaylord Chula Vista Waterfront plan, is a great long term idea, and the concept of building with higher densities is a good one also. What SD is going to have to figure out is how do you sustain a city with housing prices geared towards the wealthy and a population that is structurally lower class service and structurally absent of much middle class even if you ARE doing smart growth?
Money for lifestyle enhancing amenities comes from one of two places- taxes on residents or taxes on visitors. The more tax revenue you get from visitors, the less you need from residents. What SD is going to have to figure out is how do you sustain a city with housing prices geared towards the wealthy and a population that is structurally lower class service and structurally absent of much middle class even if you ARE doing smart growth?
That is a great example and very true!
I also don't mind new housing development, but many new projects all around San Diego ARE geared towards the upper middle class, or the wealthy that I'm completely against, because we have enough of them already. The city of SD can't expect people to live in SD if we continue to become the city "Of Services". We are building luxury this and luxury that, I understand the land values are high (it's all a bunch of bogus speculation) but whatever happened to just building some average apartments or row homes style housing for the average family like they have in NYC? We don't need huge 3,000 sqf constructed homes that cost almost a million dollars in the middle of nowhere, or even in Mission Valley. This city is going to have to come to terms in allowing all these developers to run wild and build whatever they want.
People don't realize that a lot of San Diegan's are poor, but might not look it. Even making $60,000 a year is nothing in SD if you have a family and a home to pay for. But it's a lot if your living somewhere else besides California.
It's interesting how Cities that were terrible places to live 10 or 15 years ago, are now suddenly improving, increasing in population, wealth, and middle class transplants from states like California, and places like SD are experiencing the opposite. The people moving here, usually come for the weather, and already have a healthy does of money, or you have the ones that come to SD spontaneously and not realizing how expensive and tough it is to makes ends meet if you don't have a good high paying job. These peeps probably only last like a couple of years, and then depart back home where they came from.
We truly need to address housing, we simply need WAY more affordable homes built that cost $250,000 or less, or else plan on the middle class fleeing SD until the end of days. the City and County need to encourage apartment growth( not condo's) for single men and woman that don't plan on raising a family. Single people have it hard, because you don't have support, or get that helping hand from your significant other. Unless you have family that have been established for many years in SD, then it's a little easier, but still tough.
SD will always be a tourist "resort" city, the city will continue to invest in Downtown where the tourist "see" the newly redeveloped area's. The suburbs and inner city will continue to be neglected service wise, and nothing will change unless we get a fresh coat of non corrupt Gov officials such as a new Mayor that thinks ahead well into the future ( doesn't cater to big developers!), and new County Board of Supervisors that are much younger than the geezers controlling the throne as of now, and not so resistant to change, and thinks well into the future.
Sadly, SD is already for the very rich and the poor, the middle class (which is hard to define these days) is already fleeing, and will continue once more boomers can sell their houses and retire. I don't see any evidence of SD trying to do anything for anybody in the middle. You're right, there are no apartments being built that aren't luxury prices. I've lived here a long time and definitely can't afford to stay once I reach semi-retirement age.
I think it will be very interesting in the next few years, of course depending on what happens with the economy, to see where the next "best places to live" will be. I think they will be geared toward the massive wave of baby boomer retirees.
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