City Heights areas bordering Normal Heights and Kensington (El Cajon, Mission Hills: bank owned, low income)

[harpospeaking]

I'm thinking about buying a house in City Heights just above El Cajon. Although it's City Heights, it's a residential street just south of Meade and Normal Heights. The area looks like a decent working class neighborhood, very mom and pop, which I don't mind at all. (Hillcrest is too trendy for me.)

Although City Heights in general is a less desirable and less up-and-coming than Normal Heights and North Park, what do you think of the parts of City Heights north of El Cajon?

I also checked out another house on the market in University Heights and it was on Ohio Street just North of Meade. Although the zip code was better, the house was just down the street from a school to the North and a stripper club to the south on El Cajon. Although the house is fine, the north part of the street is riddled with apartment buildings and you have a view of the stripper club sign from your doorstep. (I'm a woman so that's not quite the curb appeal I was looking for!)

My question to you all is, do you guys think it's better to buy a house in the better part of City Heights versus the dumpier parts of North Park and University Heights?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

[kettlepot]

First, if the first house is north of El Cajon Boulevard, it IS in Normal Heights not City Heights. I'm not sure who is telling you it's in City Heights, but they are wrong. How common are apartment buildings near you? That's an important criteria when looking at purchasing property.

As for the other house, it isn't in University Heights. That area is specifically part of the Greater North Park planning area, and has been given the unofficial name of 'BeHi' for 'Between the Heights". It's between Normal Heights and University Heights. Decades ago it would have been considered Normal Heights also, but when the 805 came through and split the area off from the rest of Normal Heights it became orphaned. The city has officially removed it from the Normal Heights neighborhood. What that area might have going for it, is it's proximity to the growing renaissance of the area along 30th Street. Though being north of ECB your house is rather far from it.

As for which area is better, I'm not sure. I don't have a late night feel for the areas to get a real locals perspective. Plus, I need to drive around to refresh my visual memory of these areas. I think Normal Heights has more of an actual neighborhood feel rather than being atomized individuals. On the other hand, the street lighting in Normal Heights could be better.

[harpospeaking]

Thanks for your response, kettlepot!

It's interesting, but some MLS sites call the house north of El Cajon and West of the 15 freeway City Heights and others call it Normal Heights.

The North Park house down the street from the stripper club on El Cajon had 16 offers on it yesterday. Although I made an offer, the stripper club is ultimately a deal breaker. I'm curious to see who much it sells for. (It's bank owned and was listed for $299k.)

[sdlife619]

I don't know why people would pay 300K for a dinky little house in North Park, I don't care how up and coming the place may be, it's totally overpriced, especially when you consider the area is next to City Heights, it's ridiculous.

What's the big the deal about apartment buildings? We need more of them if you ask me to help lower the cost of living, instead of greedy landlords converting them into condo's and making the area more expensive and less affordable to the poor and working class citizens. I live in a low income complex, and it's not all run down like people think. This place is very well kept and the people here are not troublesome. Of course you got a few, but it's nothing that can't be tolerated. There is also no crime here, and everyone just leaves you alone.

"BeHi" Oh please, it's that what the new gentrifiers like to call "up in coming" parts of town, trying to be all trendy and cool? That sounds so lame The places will always be called Normal Heights and North Park, keep it simple.

[eastsandiegobornandraised]

Originally Posted by harpospeaking

I'm thinking about buying a house in City Heights just above El Cajon. Although it's City Heights, it's a residential street just south of Meade and Normal Heights. The area looks like a decent working class neighborhood, very mom and pop, which I don't mind at all. (Hillcrest is too trendy for me.)

Although City Heights in general is a less desirable and less up-and-coming than Normal Heights and North Park, what do you think of the parts of City Heights north of El Cajon?

I also checked out another house on the market in University Heights and it was on Ohio Street just North of Meade. Although the zip code was better, the house was just down the street from a school to the North and a stripper club to the south on El Cajon. Although the house is fine, the north part of the street is riddled with apartment buildings and you have a view of the stripper club sign from your doorstep. (I'm a woman so that's not quite the curb appeal I was looking for!)

My question to you all is, do you guys think it's better to buy a house in the better part of City Heights versus the dumpier parts of North Park and University Heights?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

is south of meade considered city heights now? People(non-residents), the news media, etc been mixing it up for years. Everybody I've known thats lived over here have always considered it normal heights though.

believe it or not the area by ohio street is a lil better, despite the strip club

as for BeHi...WTF??? why dont they just call it what everybody else with common sense calls it...north park lol

[ranzchic]

We like to be trendy and follow NY's example of naming trendy spots. Like Nolita, which is supposed to be a name for north of Little Italy.

[kettlepot]

Originally Posted by ranzchic

We like to be trendy and follow NY's example of naming trendy spots. Like Nolita, which is supposed to be a name for north of Little Italy.

Nolita does sound better than Middletown. And NO ONE ever uses the Middletown sobriquet, which does indicate name failure. Perhaps the northern part of Middletown will finally become South Mission Hills, and southern half will become Nolita. Plus, there seems to be a movement to rename Bankers Hill to Park West. At least Park West provides some linguistic symmetry with North Park and South Park.

As for "BeHi," at least it solves the problem of what to do with the orphaned part of Normal Heights. Traditionally, North Park stopped at El Cajon Boulevard. I suppose SDlife and EastSDborn are suggesting taking the eastern half of University Heights and adding it and the orphaned part of Normal Heights west of 805 to North Park, thus doubling the size of North Park. However, at that point, the northern parts of that area would be pretty far away from the park. No doubt when the city was redrawing neighborhood lines in the 1990s someone proposed that, but it wasn't adopted. "BeHi" at least has neighborhood support, and doesn't suggest a false proximity to Balboa Park.

[Sampaguita]

"BeHi"? When did that get coined? LOL - I haven't been gone THAT long!

[tande1n5]

I've even seen the City Heights/Mesa neighborhood shift be mentioned as far up as Monroe. I've always been an ECB man myself for the line, but I've heard the case being made partly due to certain blocks from Normal Heights east to Kensington having a 1/2 block jog on the street grid, or the fact that it makes more sense now because it is thereabouts that the dwellings change most noticeably from SFH dwellings to "ACF zone," "huffman hovels" and all the other humorous euphemisms invented on this board.

Originally Posted by kettlepot

NO ONE ever uses the Middletown sobriquet, which does indicate name failure.

This is true, it's pretty much the trolley station that uses the name and that's it, everything else gets grouped into Mission Hills to the North and Banker's Hill/Park West to the South. I call it Banker's Hill but Park West does have more relevance in this day and age.

Originally Posted by kettlepot

As for "BeHi," at least it solves the problem of what to do with the orphaned part of Normal Heights. Traditionally, North Park stopped at El Cajon Boulevard. "BeHi" at least has neighborhood support, and doesn't suggest a false proximity to Balboa Park.

I agree with this line of thinking, and have used "between the heights" before myself. BeHi's pretty hipster sounding, but other cities have used the acronym trend forever, so it would make sense to implement to close the case. At least there's actually this conversation happening with locals. As a SF native, I can say that some neighborhoods there seem to change names/boundaries every other week due to some real estate marketing ideas (just happened again about a month ago, as a matter of fact).

I've only been here since the early 2000's (post 805 opening), so out of curiosity, were there any other notable differences with the 1990's re-boundarying you're referring to, or just to make the freeways fit a little better?

[kettlepot]

Originally Posted by tande1n5

I agree with this line of thinking, and have used "between the heights" before myself. BeHi's pretty hipster sounding, but other cities have used the acronym trend forever, so it would make sense to implement to close the case. At least there's actually this conversation happening with locals. As a SF native, I can say that some neighborhoods there seem to change names/boundaries every other week due to some real estate marketing ideas (just happened again about a month ago, as a matter of fact).

I think BeHi as a name came out of the area's 2005-2009 fight against the expansion of our Our Lady of Peace Catholic girls school that is located in the area. They needed a name that gave greater specificity to where the area was, and "Between the Heights" (University & Normal) was their starting point.

As for marketing ploys, I have seen properties located in northern City Heights sometimes marketed as Talmadge or Kensington as a way of gussying them up. And I suspect that Uptown, as an overarching name for Park West, Hillcrest, Mission Hills, & University Heights is another recent marketing ploy that developed out of the Uptown redevelopment of the old Sears site in the mid-1980s.

Originally Posted by tande1n5

I've only been here since the early 2000's (post 805 opening), so out of curiosity, were there any other notable differences with the 1990's re-boundarying you're referring to, or just to make the freeways fit a little better?

My knowledge of the boundary changes enacted by the city is pretty much limited to a Union-Tribune news article from a few years back, plus a few local anecdotes. The other area that I think got a name change is the area south of Normal Heights. It's became part of Greater City Heights even though it's west of I-15. It got the local tag of "Corridor" which I don't believe it had before. Mostly what the city did during the naming process is to formalize, and finalize the exact boundaries of names that had been in general usage for decades. That did leave some bits and pieces around that had to be arbitrarily added to these existing areas to leave no part of the city unattached.