City Heights Gentrification ? (San Diego, Lincoln: real estate, apartments, crime rate)

[SD Observer]

Can anyone tell me if there will be a gentrification of the City Heights neighborhood in the near future (within 5 years) ? And are there any visible signs that larger businesses are investing in that neighborhood ?

As some posters have suggested in the past that there are not enough police patrols in that neighborhood and that there is alot of street crime. Those two items are directly related. Are there any civic organizations that are actively trying to get more police patrols and attract more big business ?

And finally is there a comparable level of serious crime in City Heights compared with SE/SD ?

[NYSD1995]

These articles has some up-to-date info on City Heights

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Metro -- Busted neighborhoods
voiceofsandiego.org: News... <span style="display:block;font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif; color: #5F5F5F; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; text-transform: capitalize;">THE NEIGHBORHOOD MARKET

Generally speaking that area is not gentrifying and never has. It is improving, but that is not what gentrification is.

I would characterize the crime problem there as worse than any single SESD neighborhood, given it is a small compact area while SESD is very large and spread out.

[SD Observer]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

These articles has some up-to-date info on City Heights

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Metro -- Busted neighborhoods
voiceofsandiego.org: News... <span style="display:block;font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif; color: #5F5F5F; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; text-transform: capitalize;">THE NEIGHBORHOOD MARKET

Generally speaking that area is not gentrifying and never has. It is improving, but that is not what gentrification is.

I would characterize the crime problem there as worse than any single SESD neighborhood, given it is a small compact area while SESD is very large and spread out.

I should probably not have said SE/SD as that is too generalized. I'll narrow it down to Bay Terraces, Lincoln Park, Skyline & Logan Heights.

Sassberto do you think the crime in these 4 areas of SE/SD are of greater volume and severity than City Heights ?

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by SD Observer

I should probably not have said SE/SD as that is too generalized. I'll narrow it down to Bay Terraces, Lincoln Park, Skyline & Logan Heights.

Sassberto do you think the crime in these 4 areas of SE/SD are of greater volume and severity than City Heights ?

City Heights has more density and more residents. More crime. If you are looking for per capita numbers, SDPD publishes them on their web site.

I would say only Logan Heights is really comparable, the other neighborhoods you mentioned are more suburban.

[kettlepot]

City Heights will not gentrify in the next 5 years. Period.

If the original housing stock were intact, it very well might have. The original salt boxes were small, but they had their appeal. Now the majority of the buildings are 6 pack and 8 pack apartments, built along the Huffman Hovel model, with paved in front yards for parking that still isn't adequate. For City Heights to gentrify ALL of these apartments will need to be plowed under. The economics for that to happen won't occur in the next 5 years, or even the next real estate up cycle. It will probably take an old style urban renewal program where blocks and blocks of neighborhoods are declared blighted and razed to the ground. In the past, that usually replaced old blight with new blight. Perhaps they could do it right this time.

I'm mostly talking about Teralta East and West here. Places like Azalea Park have improved all on their own, but that's because it remained an intact SFH neighborhood without any Huffman buildings. Islenair is another bit of nice within City Heights. But these areas are cul de sacs. Not the main part of the area.

And absolutely the crime issues need to be dealt with. We have two choices. We can either house criminals in rundown apartments and motels, or we can house them in jails. I'd prefer to house them in jails, but it's actually cheaper to house them in the former and allow them to continue to sell drugs, and prostitute themselves.

[shaxs]

I lived in City Heights when in college and I would never go pack. I lived across the street from a school, so it was generally more safe, but still a run down scary place. My old roommate is a Sheriff Deputy and he arrested a Mexican Mafia gang member for murder and low and behold, his address was 4 doors down. We moved shortly afterward for our safety- especially his being in law enforcement.

I do not think that place is going to get better anytime soon.

[SD Observer]

Originally Posted by kettlepot

City Heights will not gentrify in the next 5 years. Period.

Well Kettle, I agree with you.

City Heights is a freakin' ghetto !

I've taken some time to drive around the area and its grim looking and
has many criminals and gangsters.

Too bad there are so many dilapidated apartments and homes there.
What family in their right mind would ever move into there ?

Maybe if some courageous newcomers reclaim CH and make it inhabitable again the area can improve.

We can only hope.

[jksouthbay88]

City Heights is so bad,I wouldn't even move there.These three statements from Wikipadia tell you the history of negativity which I still believe stands today.

In 1965 the San Diego City Council approved the Mid-City Plan. The plan proposed to densify City Heights and surrounding areas, as a means of increasing business and commerce. The plan resulted in many single-family homes being replaced with multi-family apartments. The 1970s and 1980s saw an increase in crime started to increase with the arrival of the illegal drug industry, mainly methamphetamine. White flight started taking place and intensified into the early 1990s.

A state of emergency was declared by the City of San Diego. The houses bought by Caltrans for the construction of SR 15 contributed to the rising crime rate because Caltrans had no policy in place for dealing with abandoned buildings. The abandoned areas were prime spots for gang and drug-related activities. It took years before they were finally taken down for the actual construction of the freeway.

In 1993, three teen boys were killed in a gang-related fight at Hoover High School. The community reacted and spurred efforts to reduce crime in the neighborhood. The City Heights Business Improvement Association erected billboards that declared Welcome to City Heights, San Diego's Crime Capital. Won't Anybody Help? to gain city officials' attention.

[eastsandiegobornandraised]

I dont think you can gentrify city heights without doing a straight up demolition job...seriously, its beyond gentrification

crime wise now is still bad i guess, but to me its nothing like it was in the late 80's/early 90's...i remember the days before the police station, before the renovations.

as far as comparable to southeast, hell yeah, almost overlooked in some cases. I remember one of my homegirls that stayed in Lincoln Park came over my place and was shocked at how things were...but alot of southeast thinks crime only happens in southeast but thats a whole nother subject lol

[kettlepot]

So, ESDBorn, are you saying that City Heights is as bad as SE? Or that because it's not as bad as SE, City Heights gets overlooked as a higher crime area?