City Heights, San Diego

City Heights is a large community in San Diego, California, known for its ethnic diversity. Along the main streets (which include University Avenue, El Cajon Boulevard and Fairmount Avenue) one can find Hispanic, Northeast African, Near Eastern, South Asian and Southeast Asian immigrant businesses. The area was previously known as East San Diego.

City Heights has a high concentration of retail outlets, restaurants, and other examples of self-employment resulting from the newly arrived immigrant communities. Businesses tend to be smaller and wider spread than to the north and east. Like other urban neighborhoods north of Balboa Park, City Heights also has a high rate of pedestrian activity relative to the rest of San Diego.

History

A short history of the City Heights neighborhood can be found on the City Heights Business Association website.

In the 1880s, Entrepreneurs Abraham Klauber and Samuel Steiner purchased over 240 acres (0.97 km²) of unincorporated land that sat 400 feet (120 m) above sea level northeast of Balboa Park in hopes of developing the area. Together they named it "City Heights" or the "Steiner, Klauber, Choate and Castle Addition" after the original developers of the property. With the opening of the Panama Canal and the planned Panama-California International Exposition in 1915, the voters of the area voted for City Heights to become an incorporated city known as East San Diego on November 2, 1912. Population boomed in the next few years from 400 in 1910 to 4000 during the incorporation.