Moore, Danielle 2020 Environmental Studies Thesis

Title: America’s Finest City? : Examining Environmental Injustice in San Diego, CA Advisor: Pia Kohler Advisor is Co-author/Adviser Restricted Data Used: None of the above Second Advisor: Release: release now Authenticated User Access (does not apply to released theses): Contains Copyrighted Material: No

America’s Finest City?:

Examining Environmental Injustice in San Diego, CA

by

Danielle Moore

Pia M. Kohler, Advisor

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Environmental Studies

WILLIAMS COLLEGE

Williamstown, Massachusetts

May 31, 2020 Moore 1

Acknowledgements

First off, I want to give my sincere gratitude to Professor Pia Kohler for her help throughout this whole process. Thank you for giving me constant guidance and support over this time despite all this year’s unique circumstances. I truly appreciate all the invaluable time and assistance you have given me.

I also want to thank my second reader Professor Nick Howe for his advice and perspective that made my thesis stronger. Thank you to other members of the Environmental Studies Department that inquired about my thesis and progress throughout the year. I truly appreciate everyone’s encouragement and words of wisdom.

Besides the Environmental Studies Department, thank you to all my family members who have supported me during my journey at Williams and beyond. All of you are aware of the challenges that I faced, and I would have not been able to overcome them without your unlimited support.

Thank you to all my friends at Williams and at home that have supported me as well. Especially to my Williams friends, you have helped me find a community at this school, a place so far away from my home. To especially Krystal Hahn, Cristina Mancilla, Tiffany Zheng, and Rachel Porter, thank you all so much for your friendship and support over these years through everything.

Lastly, thank you to all the environmental groups in San Diego who have been trying to make a healthier environment in the city for years and largely inspired my thesis.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 1 Abstract 5 Preface 6 Chapter 1: Introduction and Background 9 Inspiration 9 Overview of Southeast San Diego 10 Overview of Barrio Logan 13 Scale 15 Methods 17 Secondary Sources 18 Street Science by Jason Corburn 18 Power Politics: Environmental Activism in South Los Angeles by Karen Brodkin 20 Laotian Daughters: Working toward Community, Belonging, and Environmental Justice by Bindi V. Shah 24 Environmental Health: From Global to Local by Howard Frumkin 26 Bridging Silos by Katrina Smith Korfmacher 29 Chapter 2: Environmental Injustice in Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego 32 Kumeyaay Indigenous Peoples and Colonization of San Diego (1542 – 1890) 34 Early Planning, Population Boom, and Building of the City’s Heart (1891 - 1937) 40 Summary 40 Urban Planning and the Military 40 Immigration and Migration 45 Infrastructure and Housing 50 Industrialization and Infrastructure (1938 - 1960) 52 Urban Planning and Zoning 52 The Military, World War II, and Barrio Logan 52 Immigration and Migration 55 Transportation Infrastructure and Housing 55 Suburban Growth and Temporary Paradise (1961 – 1974) 62 Moore 3

Urban Planning and Temporary Paradise 62 The Military and Barrio Logan 64 Transportation Infrastructure and Housing 66 Beginnings of Environmental Justice (1975 – 1997) 70 Redevelopment and Downtown 70 The Barrio Logan Environmental Health Coalition and Fighting Injustice 71 Highway Infrastructure and Public Transportation 73 Southeast San Diego and Changing Demographics 75 Flaws in Earlier Urban Planning: Analyzing the Outcomes (1998 – 2012) 79 Shipyards, the Military, and Air + Water Pollution in Barrio Logan 79 Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Plan 81 Southeastern San Diego Community Plan 85 Analyzing Gentrification and Why the Barrio Logan Update Failed (2012 - today) 89 Gentrification 89 Analysis of the Failed Barrio Logan Community Plan Update and Next Steps 91 Freeway Expansion Projects 95 Chapter 3: Policy Recommendations 98 Overall 100 List of Overall Recommendations 100 Recommendation #1: Have Less Freeway Construction Projects 100 Recommendation #2: Include Facets of New Urbanism Principles in Future Planning 101 Recommendation #3: Form a Coalition Between Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego Environmental Groups 103 Recommendation #4: Further Publicize Grassroots Organizations in Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego 104 Recommendations Specifically for Barrio Logan 105 Recommendation #5: Update the Barrio Logan Community Plan 105 Recommendation #6: Lessen the Political Connections Between Politicians, the Military, and the Shipyards 105 Recommendation #7: Create Tighter Air Emission Standards 106 Recommendations Specifically for Southeast San Diego 107 Recommendation #8: Update the Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Plan 107 Moore 4

Recommendation #9: Increase and Improve Public Transportation Routes Through Southeast San Diego 107 Recommendation #10: Stronger Communication Between the Planning Department and Community Members 111 Chapter 4: Conclusion 113 Appendix 119 Skyline - Paradise Hills Community Planning Meeting 119 San Diego Promise Zone All Partner Meeting 120 Resources for Further Information and Links 122 Pueblo Watershed and Chollas Creek Pollution 122 Urban Agriculture Potential 122 Bibliography 124

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Abstract

My thesis is a combination of urban planning, environmental policy, and environmental law. The goal of this thesis is to investigate the causes of environmental injustice in two communities in San Diego. To do so, I have created a timeline from the 1542 to the present that outlines the histories of the two marginalized communities of Barrio Logan and Southeast San

Diego. Specifically, I have explored the history of Barrio Logan, a neighborhood near downtown

San Diego, to analyze how the U.S. Navy and shipbuilding industry have overburdened Barrio

Logan with air and water pollution. The second case study I analyzed involves the greater

Southeast San Diego area and how transportation infrastructure surrounding the community led to air pollution problems. I have chosen to analyze both communities, instead of just one, because I want to understand the unique environmental injustices each faces and further connect their environmental issues to larger systemic injustice. It is worth noting both communities have been affected differently by industry and the government, and each have their own activist movements that I have looked further into. Overall, my timeline highlights zoning legislation, building of transportation infrastructure, siting of industry, and redlining. This thesis concludes with specific policy recommendations about transportation infrastructure, community plans, industrial expansion, and emission standards that will reduce the pollution burden in these two communities.

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Preface

Jill G. Hall

No Such Thing as Global Warming?

The overhead fan starts

to twirl even though no

one has turned it on.

It’s 90 degrees at the coast

and 110 in El Cajon while

slate-colored ash sifts

over San Diego and Santa

Ana fires flame once more.1

As I was finishing up my thesis, I couldn’t help but reflect on the crazy weather that I experienced over the past two months. The week I came home from college, it was raining for days at a time, which is already rare for San Diego past February. Another week it was in the mid-90s at my house with a multiple day heat wave in April. Then another week the weather went back to typical “May Gray” with morning and evening overcast. The thing is – this has become the new normal over these last few years. Climate change has noticeably been hitting

San Diego and California harder than before. Fire season has gone from late summer and fall now to year-round. Whole winters have been dry except for a few days of record breaking rain.

1 Jill G. Hall, “No Such Thing as Global Warming?,” in Sunshine/Noir II: Writings from San Diego and Tijuana, ed. Kelly Mayhew and Jim Miller (San Diego: San Diego City Works Press, 2015), 173. Moore 7

Environmental problems in San Diego range from the global to the local, and now 72 degrees and sunny is no longer guaranteed. So now that turns us to questioning what other environmental problems are San Diegans facing besides climate change. How could “America’s Finest City?” have any environmental problems at all? What could be going wrong in San Diego? Well, a lot.

In this thesis, I have explored those questions of what environmental problems people are facing in the two communities of Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego. I have traced back the histories of these communities starting with the indigenous people of the San Diego up until today to better understand the root of their environmental problems. In addition, I have dived into the topics of air and water pollution, transportation, politics, urban planning, and environmental justice in the timelines I have created. Afterwards, I have used the timelines to give ten specific policy recommendations that I believe can redress the environmental injustice

Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego face in the future. The core of my analysis is in these recommendations and the last sections of Chapter 2 as I looked into what led to marginalization of these communities and then how the government, residents, and activists can best address their needs. Furthermore, the analysis I have done helps expand our understanding of the intertwined problems of environmental injustice, slow violence, racism, poverty, climate change, and political corruption in these two communities.

I argue that all these environmental problems need to be addressed, but their ties to other forms of injustice need to be address simultaneously as well. For example, I put forward a recommendation for walkable and bikeable streets. But what good is my recommendation if the street is walkable, but people do not feel safe in that area due to violence? Hence, it is crucial to be aware of other forms of injustice that tie to the environment and community, as they are not treated separately in residents’ everyday life. Therefore, my contribution is policy Moore 8 recommendations for a more sustainable, livable, and healthy environment for these marginalized communities that will hopefully go hand in hand with the addressing of other injustices. To truly achieve environmental justice, we need to first expand our understanding of the environment and what it means to different groups of people. Someone outside of these two communities, and perhaps outside of San Diego, may then ask why they should care about two places they have no relation to. Gaining a deeper understanding of the two communities’ challenges can help one better understand environmental policy and city planning, as other communities across the world face similar challenges to Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego.

People in other cities can learn in my thesis about how to prevent and address the environmental injustice these two communities face that can applied to anywhere else. In addition, I hope that my thesis has at least expanded one’s understanding of environmental justice and what that looks like in reality, such as addressing decades of systemic issues. The lives of thousands of people are at stake everyday in these communities, so I hope that one can take away an understanding of how important addressing these environmental problems are for residents. They/we are not only facing climate change through drought and fires, but also environmental issues like air pollution on top of climate change.

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Chapter 1: Introduction and Background

Inspiration

I have written this thesis America’s Finest City?: Examining Environmental Injustice in San Diego, CA because I am interested in urban planning, environmental justice, and environmental policy. Ever since I started taking environmental studies classes, I grew passionate about these three topics and solving local environmental problems. In the class, Race and the Environment with Professor Manigault-Bryant, I had to write a final research paper on my hometown community, my relation to the environment there, and local environmental issues.

I did my report on my home of Southeast San Diego, and I explored environmental concerns such as my middle school being built on top of a landfill. In addition, I looked into high air pollution and asthma rates in Southeast San Diego because there are four major freeways surrounding the district. Since the Southeast is a low-income community of color, I tried to look at the environmental problems through an environmental justice lens. Afterwards, I continued to take environmental policy courses to learn more about the field. During my junior year, I took

Dirty Politics with Professor Kohler, and my final project was on the community of Barrio

Logan in San Diego. Barrio Logan, like Southeast San Diego, is a low-income community of color, but Barrio Logan has more severe air and water pollution. I analyzed how shipyards, the military, and heavy industry, all permitted under mixed-use zoning, heavily contaminated Barrio

Logan’s air and water. Furthermore, I came up with three different policy proposals that city councilmembers could take to remedy the pollution. The goal was to restrict the emissions, change the zoning laws, and prevent industry from further expanding into Barrio Logan. Overall,

I have completed three research projects on San Diego, which served as inspiration for this thesis. After I graduate from Williams, I hope to earn a Master’s degree in urban and regional Moore 10 planning. I wish to become an urban planner to make planning more equitable by reducing the overburden of pollution on low-income communities of color. Writing this thesis has made me more motivated to be an urban planner, and I want to use this experience to further my career.

Overview of Southeast San Diego

Southeast San Diego, as the name suggests, is the southeast part of the City of San Diego.

The area is quite racially and economically diverse, but it does have a reputation among other parts of San Diego as a “dangerous” neighborhood and as the “hood.” During the 1990s, Former

City Councilman of District 4, George Stevens, even ran a campaign against the use of the word

Southeast San Diego because he felt it was a “pejorative term that branded the region as a high- crime area.” 2 There definitely is a criminal problem in Southeast San Diego with gang and gun violence. A simple google search of the area will result in news stories at the top of the list, most likely about a shooting. Even though Councilman Stevens was against the term, I am in favor of using it. I feel that it binds together multiple communities that share a common culture and experiences. In addition, it is politically bound under the city council, census data, county data, and community planning. I acknowledge that there are serious criminal problems in Southeast

San Diego, but I do not mean to use the term in a derogatory nature regardless of how outsiders may use it. In fact, I hope that one day it will be a positive term from outsiders and not result in them hearing the name, then immediately thinking of minorities and crime.

Southeast San Diego is represented by District 4 in the San Diego City Council, and its current representative is Monica Montgomery. Council District 4 includes the communities of

2 Greg Ross and Ronald W. Powell, “Former City Councilman George Stevens Dies at 74,” The San Diego Union-Tribune, last modified October 16, 2006, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut- former-city-councilman-george-stevens-dies-74-2006oct16-story.html Moore 11

Alta Vista, Broadway Heights, Chollas View, Emerald Hills, Encanto, Greater Skyline Hills,

Jamacha, Lincoln Park, Lomita Village, North Bay Terrace, Oak Park, O'Farrell, Paradise Hills,

Redwood Village, Rolando Park, South Bay Terrace, Valencia Park, and Webster.3 2011 demographic data from the county government shows that the largest racial groups are

Hispanics, Asian/Pacific Islanders, and Blacks.4 For this population of 156,000 people, about

50% are Hispanic, 21% are Asian/Islander, and 16% are Black.5 In addition, the largest income bracket is less than $35,0000, which shows the Southeast is low-income compared to the rest of the county.6 On the next page is a picture of Council District 4 (Figure 1) to highlight the area and the communities within.

3 “Communities: Council District 4,” The City of San Diego, accessed November 17, 2019, https://www.sandiego.gov/citycouncil/cd4/communities 4 County of San Diego, Health and Human Services Agency, Public Health Services, Community Health Statistics Unit, “San Diego County Demographics Profile: Central Region, 2011 Population Estimates,” last modified March 1, 2013, https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/dam/sdc/hhsa/programs/phs/documents/CHS- Demographics_Central.pdf, 24. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. Moore 12

Figure 1, Map of Council District 4 7

Southeast San Diego is largely a suburban community set amidst a hilly topography.

Some areas like Lincoln Park and Chollas View are flat land while Paradise Hills, Encanto, and

Bay Terraces are hilly communities. Most of District 4 is low-density residential, but there are some commercial areas like strip malls and shops. The lack of heavy industry in Southeast San

Diego, however, does not mean there is not pollution in the area. As the map above shows, there are four multi-lane freeways surrounding Southeast San Diego. Specifically, California State

Route 54 is to the south, Interstate 805 to the west, State Route 94 to the north, and State Route

125 to the east. All these freeways are quite large, highly trafficked during rush hour, and have more than 6 lanes. As a result, these freeways contribute to noise and air pollution problems, especially for nearby residences. I dive further into this issue in the following chapters as I

7 “Communities: Council District 4,” The City of San Diego, accessed November 17, 2019, https://www.sandiego.gov/citycouncil/cd4/communities Moore 13 explore why these freeways were constructed and the problems that result from them. In addition, I have examined how white flight and unaffordable housing caused people of color to move away from coastal communities into the “less desirable” Southeast San Diego region.

Lastly, the timeline helps to link (im)migration, freeway construction, and limited public transportation to current environmental injustices.

Overview of Barrio Logan

Barrio Logan, the second community I analyze in this thesis, is located south of downtown San Diego. It is situated right on San Diego Bay, and it is an industrial area with shipyards and a U.S. Navy base. Barrio Logan has a rich cultural heritage as it is home to a large

Hispanic population and Chicano Park. The community is bisected by the San Diego - Coronado

Bridge, and Chicano Park is located right underneath the bridge. The park is full of murals that depict Mexican and Mexican-American art, some of which raises questions about the pollution the community faces. The art and Chicano Park reflect the demographics of Barrio Logan. Barrio

Logan has about 5,000 residents, and the largest racial group is Hispanics.8 Specifically, the San

Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) estimates that 72% of the population is

Hispanic, 16% is white, 7% is Black, and 2% is Asian.9 For household income, about 26% of residents make less than $15,000 a year, and 31% make $15,000 to $29,999 a year.10 The median income for Barrio Logan is $26,761, which is well below the average for The City of San Diego and San Diego County.11 Barrio Logan is represented in San Diego City Council District 8 by

8 San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), “Demographic and Socioeconomic Profile 2010, CPA: Barrio Logan,” last modified December 29, 2016, http://datasurfer.sandag.org 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. Moore 14

Councilmember Vivian Moreno. A map of District 8 (Figure 2) is presented below to show the

Barrio Logan’s proximity to San Diego Bay, downtown, and the freeway.

Figure 2, Map of Council District 8 12

District 8 includes the communities of Barrio Logan, Egger Highlands, Grant Hill, Logan

Heights, Memorial, Nestor, Ocean View Hills, Otay Mesa East, Otay Mesa West, San Ysidro,

Shelltown, Sherman Heights, Stockton, and Tijuana River Valley.13 Barrio Logan has a flat topography since it is situated on the bay, unlike Southeast San Diego. I have analyzed Barrio

Logan because it has severe water and air pollution, and it is among the worst communities in the whole state of California for air pollution. The air pollution stems from its location next to heavy industry and Interstate 5, one of the most trafficked freeways in San Diego County.14 To the

12 “Communities: Council District 8,” The City of San Diego, accessed November 17, 2019, https://www.sandiego.gov/citycouncil/cd8/communities 13 Ibid. 14 “San Diego,”AARoads, last modified June 17, 2009, https://www.aaroads.com/california- highways/san-diego/ Moore 15 south of Barrio Logan are Naval Base San Diego, shipyards, and heavy industry; they are largely to blame for this overburdening of pollution. In the following chapters, I investigate how

Interstate 5, the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, the military, and heavy industry all came to be in Barrio Logan. I will demonstrate how Barrio Logan was unfairly chosen to house these polluters because it was dominated by low-income, immigrant people of color. Therefore, I have constructed a timeline for Barrio Logan that analyzes zoning changes, the impact of the world wars, and freeway construction that explains how this community is one of the most overburdened in the state.

Scale

Since Barrio Logan is a small community and Southeast San Diego is its own district, there are obviously different scales in my analysis. Even though one has a population of 5,000 and the other is 150,000, they share similar experiences with pollution and the consequences of poor zoning. In addition, they both are dealing with the effects of environmental racism, which has literally shaped their landscapes. Moreover, these cases are complex because there are multiple layers of government and districts in San Diego. The largest government system in San

Diego, besides the State of California, is the County of San Diego. The County of San Diego is home to about 3.2 million people and is 4,526 square miles big, which makes it larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.15

Below is a map depicting the most populated parts of the County of San Diego (Figure 3) and the eight City of San Diego council districts.16

15 San Diego County Government, “San Diego County Fact Sheet,” last modified January 1, 2014, https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/economicroundtable/docs/ertfact2014.pdf 16 “San Diego City Council Districts,” San Diego County Registrar of Voters, accessed November 21, 2019, https://www.sdvote.com/content/rov/en/candidates-campaigns/Maps.html Moore 16

Figure 3, San Diego City Council Districts 17

17 “San Diego City Council Districts,” San Diego County Registrar of Voters, accessed November 21, 2019, https://www.sdvote.com/content/rov/en/candidates-campaigns/Maps.html Moore 17

After the county scale, the next level of government are the cities. The City of San Diego is the largest city in the county with about 1.5 million people in the eight districts.18 There are 17 other cities in the county, but they have much smaller populations and area compared to the City of San Diego. Since both communities I am analyzing are within the City of San Diego, I am mostly concerned with the city and community scale. The next level of government would be the community level, which is Barrio Logan for example. Southeast San Diego is more akin to both a district and a community, whereas Barrio Logan is not a whole district. Their different sizes testify to how prevalent environmental injustice is in San Diego and that pollution is not determined by size or population.

Methods

I have conducted my analysis largely through archival work. I have created a timeline from the 1500s to the present for both Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego that is organized according to key eras. The timelines serve as a way to understand how key legislation, building of transportation infrastructure, siting of heavy industry, and discriminatory housing contracts have contributed to the environmental injustices in Southeast San Diego and Barrio Logan. This is not an exhaustive list of all the events I included, as they range from city government community plans to immigration policy to Chican@ protests to changing air pollution standards.

Overall, I analyzed both local and larger historical, social, and political events that have shaped the two communities and the amount of pollution they faced. For this, I have used archival government documents from the San Diego Public Library as evidence. Some of the documents I have investigated include the U.S. EPA, California EPA, City of San Diego, County of San

18 San Diego County Government, “San Diego County Fact Sheet,” last modified January 1, 2014, https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/economicroundtable/docs/ertfact2014.pdf Moore 18

Diego, U.S. Navy, San Diego Regional Air Pollution Control District, California State

Legislature, and California Transportation Board.

Secondary Sources

To better understand the two communities I am analyzing, I have read multiple secondary sources that examine environmental justice cases across the country. The exploitation of marginalized communities by industry and the government is a common theme throughout this literature. These readings help show that Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego are not isolated cases. Rather, these sources show that what these two communities in San Diego are facing has been occurring across the country for decades, and they are, sadly, two among many.

Street Science by Jason Corburn

In Street Science, Jason Corburn focuses on four cases of environmental injustice in New

York City. The case that felt most relevant to my thesis was chapter four on asthma cases about

Greenpoint/Williamsburg (G/W) in Brooklyn. He focuses on Greenpoint/Williamsburg because it is a low-income, immigrant, and mostly Latino community that has severe air pollution problems. As a result of their poor air quality, an overwhelming majority of community members have asthma and other breathing problems. When telling the story of G/W in the 1990s, Corburn discusses the asthma problem through the activist group, El Puente. El Puente is the focus of his study because they were one of the only groups that understood the community’s needs and culture, and then considered them when conducting surveys or meetings. One major point that

Corburn makes is that government scientists and city researchers had inaccurate findings because they failed to understand the culture of the neighborhood. For example, Corburn discusses how Moore 19 government scientists only used one hospital to calculate the neighborhood’s asthma hospitalization rate, which was a hospital residents refused to go to: “Among longstanding

Latinos and Hasidic Jews in the neighborhood, that Woodhull was a hospital to be avoided was common knowledge.” 19 Moreover, he adds that 75% of G/W residents actually went to another hospital outside of their community because Woodhull had a poor reputation.20 In other words, the researchers from the New York Department of Health lacked a complete understanding of the

Brooklyn community, which led their survey to have inaccurate findings. This misunderstanding only increased the distance between community members and researchers, making it harder for residents to trust the government.

El Puente attempted to repair this distrust by conducting their own participatory action- research and holding focus groups. Their goal was to have surveys done on the community to see which age, racial, and gender groups have higher asthma rates so that they can create effective education plans for them. El Puente also made sure that they hired female community members that spoke Spanish to conduct the surveys, since they wanted surveyors to have an actual interest in helping the residents. Afterwards, the surveyors found that Latino children and women had disproportionate asthma rates that were about twice the national average. In addition to surveys,

El Puente held focus groups to better understand the thoughts of residents. One of the most important findings from the focus groups is that Latino women over 45 had high rates of asthma that were like those in the children's cases. El Puente learned that was because the women worked in industrial/sweatshop-like jobs that had poor working conditions and air pollutants circulating.21 Another issue that El Puente addressed was how the G/W community members

19 Jason Corburn, Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005), 119. 20 Ibid. 21 Corburn, Street Science, 131. Moore 20 used home remedies for asthma instead of prescriptions from medical professionals. After talking to community members, the organization saw that Latinos had a distrust of doctors since they dismissed their home remedies or did not understand their cultural and spiritual practices.22

They tried to repair this disconnect by “developing health-promoting interventions that resonated with local cultural practices.” 23

After reading Street Science, I realized that there are many similarities between Barrio

Logan and Brooklyn. Both are predominantly Latino and historically immigrant communities that are having problems with asthma and air pollution from industry. In addition, both have community organizations that are working on the gap between science and local knowledge/cultural practices. However, both are struggling with getting the government to take action by changing zoning laws or requesting industry to move away from their community.

Corburn did note this at the end of the chapter when discussing the lack of government action and how it is up to small organizations like El Puente to motivate the government to stop air pollution. Another similarity I noticed between the two communities is the use of art to communicate their struggle while showing the beauty of the area.

Power Politics: Environmental Activism in South Los Angeles by Karen Brodkin

Power Politics is about a successful environmental justice movement in the neighborhood of South Gate, Los Angeles. South Gate is a predominantly Latino and working- class community situated in Southeast Los Angeles, an industrial area full of refineries, factories, and power plants. Karen Brodkin’s focus in the book is on how organized youth led an environmental justice movement against a power plant being built in their area in the 1990s and

22 Ibid., 132, 137. 23 Ibid., 137. Moore 21

2000s. The youth led protests at city council meetings, organized their fellow peers, and educated community members about the dangers of a power plant being built. However, this case was not like other EJ movements where it is people of color against big industry. In fact, this case was more divided along socioeconomic lines, as union members and even some Latinos living in South Gate were in favor of the plant being built. Brodkin explores this complex case through racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender lines.

In addition, she looks at how union workers and the plant company, Sunlaw, addressed the issue and how they really were not the typical big corporation coming into the neighborhood.

Instead, Sunlaw was quite environmentally friendly and using the cleanest technology at the time in their plants, so they argued that they would not pollute the community like other plants have done. Another part of this story is government corruption and California’s energy crisis during the time. One reason the plant was being proposed was to ease California’s energy problem by generating more supply for the market. Energy prices were extremely high during the early

2000s because of deregulation and utility companies shutting down their older plants. Energy prices skyrocketed as a result, causing the state to have brownouts, blackouts, and an overall low supply of energy relative to the state’s increasing demand. This crisis was used to justify building the plant, as Sunlaw argued that the energy they produce would go towards the community’s power.

The sections of this book that are most relevant to my project are the ones on the youth

EJ activism, government corruption, and the disputes of residents. The chapter on the youth describes how high school students were primarily responsible for stopping the power plant, which they did by involving the media, creating the Youth for Environmental Justice Club in Moore 22

1995, and organizing older community members.24 Specifically, the members of Youth EJ got involved in politics by holding youth conferences, having summer EJ training, and leading marches in South Gate. When they first heard about the power plant in 2000, they started attending the California Energy Commission’s public meetings to ask questions and voice their concerns. Since their community was industrial and had significant air pollution problems, they were against another plant being built. In addition, they asked that a Spanish translator be brought into future meetings since a large proportion of South Gate residents did not speak

English.25 Members of Youth EJ also spoke at local community colleges, health fairs, high schools, and adult schools to recruit more members and educate residents.26

In the fall of 2000, the South Gate City Council proposed a referendum on the power plant for the March 2001 ballot so that residents could vote “yes” or “no” to the power plant on

Measure A. Afterwards, the students organized a march on City Hall on January 23, 2001 to oppose the plant. They helped protestors make signs and prepare their speeches, and the protestors had a massive turnout at the meeting.27 So many showed up to city hall that the main leaders of Youth EJ activists could not get inside the chambers. That night, the city council voted

3 to 0 against building the Nueva Azalea. Brodkin describes the victory as a media sensation: “If there was anyone in South Gate who did not already know of the plant from Sunlaw’s publicity campaign, they and the rest of Southeast Los Angeles learned about it in English and Spanish in a way that looked like massive popular and city council opposition to it.” 28 The students and

24 Karen Brodkin, Power Politics: Environmental Activism in South Los Angeles, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 19, 58. 25 Ibid., 65. 26 Ibid., 69. 27 Ibid., 153. 28 Brodkin, Power Politics, 154. Moore 23 protestors noted that they were surprised how effective their campaign was and how they made a real government change to protect their lives.

However, Measure A was still on the March ballot, and it brought to the forefront government corruption. The activists were now fighting union workers, some of which were

Latino themselves. The union workers argued that the plant would create good paying jobs for them and help them economically. Sunlaw supported their campaign by hosting community events, giving money to officials, and paying for ads in Spanish and English. Moreover, Brodkin discusses how the pro-plant campaign never brought up the topics of race and ethnicity in their campaign. It was obvious to many South Gate residents that the plant was proposed there because it is an immigrant and Latino community. In addition, this was complicated by the fact that white residents against the plant also avoided talking about race. In the end, about 4,500 voted against the plant and 2,200 voted in favor, so the plant was voted down.29 The activists' win did not come easy, but it came quickly. They acknowledged that they still had more work to do in the community to lower the current air pollution problem and continued their EJ work.

Some important takeaways I got from this book is how timing is critical in EJ movements and how the youth can make a difference in community organizing. Often, they are left out of activist work because they are deemed too young and cannot vote. In this case, they led the movement and rallied huge support. In addition, their timing was unusually quick. If they became aware of the plant once it was built, it would have been too late for them to fight against it. They managed to rally support to vote it down, which was an easier and smarter strategy.

29 Ibid., 180. Moore 24

Laotian Daughters: Working toward Community, Belonging, and Environmental Justice by Bindi

V. Shah

Laotian Daughters discusses the intersection of race, gender, and socioeconomic status in the lives of young Laotian girls from Contra Costa, California. The book focuses on these

Laotian girls because they are facing severe environmental pollution in their communities that is linked to their identities. All of them live in Contra Costa, a county in the San Francisco area that is east of Berkeley and Oakland. Shah first describes how Contra Costa is a rich, diverse county made up primarily of Blacks, Latinx, and Southeast Asians, but then tells how it is plagued by air and water pollution from industry. The book takes the form of an ethnography, as Shah integrated herself into a school community for a few years in the 1990s to conduct the study. The focus of the book is Laotian girls in the Asian Youth Advocates Club, which is run by the

Laotian Organizing Project in the city of Richmond.30 The AYA club held a four-year program that taught 31 girls about “reproductive health, sexuality and sexual orientation, body image and cultural identity, gender roles, team-building exercises, and an introduction to the principles of environmental justice.” 31 Since my thesis is on environmental injustice, I am focusing on the environmental chapters of the book. What is most relevant to my research was the discussion of air and water pollution by refineries, and how the Laotian girls successfully fought against them.

In the first chapter, Shah details how she went on a toxic tour of Richmond and San Pablo in 1998, which was held by Laotian girls in AYA. She talks about how there was a plating company in a mixed industrial-residential area that leaked nitric acid over 20 blocks in 1992, which sent 200 residents to the hospital. Eventually residents sued the company, but the city and

30 Bindi V. Shah, Laotian Daughters: Working toward Community, Belonging, and Environmental Justice, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012), 5. 31 Ibid., 6. Moore 25 county failed to take action against the plant because it was located there before residents moved in.32 The second stop on their tour was of Peres Elementary School, which is located in front of a

Chevron refinery. This refinery is the main blight of the community since it produces over 20 million pounds of toxic emissions a year, had ten serious chemical spills since 1991, and is linked to raised cancer and asthma rates.33

Their third stop was the Drew Scrap Metals Superfund site that was nicknamed the

“Laotian Gardens.” The scrap metal site became a Superfund site because it released lead and cadmium into the soil, which are linked to learning disabilities and brain damage. Shah then shifts to a discussion of environmental justice, as land surrounding the site was turned into housing. Many Laotian immigrants, unaware of the dangers, moved into homes there which had contaminated soil and lead paint. One important point she makes is that the Superfund site never had its warning signs in a language besides English and Spanish, so Laotian immigrants could not read them. The houses adjacent to the site have been torn down and the residents relocated, but some grocery stores and homes remain in the area. After seeing this site, she goes on to visit a General Chemical plant that had a chemical disaster. Specifically, the plant let a cloud of sulfuric acid escape that poisoned 20,000 residents with burning eyes and throats. Lastly, she sees another Superfund site at Richmond Harbor, which was contaminated by United

Heckathorn. The company disposed of DDT and other pesticides into the harbor from 1947 to

1966, and there are still signs from the EPA warning against fishing in the harbor. However, she notes that the signs are in English and that Lao fishermen always fish there since they cannot read the sign. These types of polluting activities resemble some of the environmental problems that especially Barrio Logan faces.

32 Shah, Laotian Daughters, 1. 33 Ibid., 2. Moore 26

One environmental victory that Shah discusses is the shutdown of a Chevron Ortho

Pesticide Plant and Incinerator in 1997. This Chevron plant started operating in 1967 with temporary permits and never was allowed a permanent permit. However, they continued to operate and hid their manufacture of methylene chloride, a carcinogen. Multiple local organizations successfully fought to shut down the plant after learning how they did not have a proper permit and continued to produce this dangerous chemical.34 The organizations managed to mobilize residents, scientists, and lawyers to pressure Chevron to compensate them, prevent accidents, and shut down the plant. In addition, they secured funding from Chevron for a health center in 1999 and made the Bay Area Air Quality District adopt tighter flaring regulations. Shah points out that it is important for the Laotian community to understand how their identities as minorities, immigrants, refugees, and poor create the conditions for companies to exploit them.

She argues that the AYA club and other identity organizations have worked to stop the injustice by educating and empowering residents. The girls have become involved in politics, joined environmental groups, and translated information for community residents to challenge existing racial hierarchies and environmental injustice. In addition, the girls have organized cross-racial coalitions to inform Blacks, Latinos, and other immigrants about the environmental hazards in their area.35

Environmental Health: From Global to Local by Howard Frumkin

Environmental Health by Howard Frumkin is an environmental health textbook with chapters focusing on different environmental or public health concerns. The chapters that I focused on were about air pollution, healthy communities, water, and communicating

34 Shah, Laotian Daughters, 35. 35 Ibid., 9, 31. Moore 27 environmental health. Instead of making an argument, the book more generally describes environmental issues and how certain chemicals affect people’s bodies and future development.

Also some of the chapters describe relevant case studies and provide informational boxes about a pollutant, for example. The book was useful for better understanding the effects of chemicals, where they come from, and how long they persist for. It also addresses the history of environmental justice, urban planning, urban sprawl, and where our energy is coming from.

Chapter 13 is on air pollution, and it starts off by describing the different types of air pollution like primary and secondary pollutants. Next, the book gave a chart of major ambient air pollutants, their sources, health effects, and current government regulation on them.36 I turned to this chart to assist me in describing the chemicals that afflict Barrio Logan and Southeast San

Diego. Among the most relevant, we find: carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, ozone, VOCs, and heavy metals from the water and air. In addition, the chart gives either EPA,

WHO, or U.S. NAAQS standards for these pollutants, so I used these as a reference to compare them with California state and San Diego city standards. Moreover, there was a rundown of the

Clean Air Act and federal air pollution policy that was quite useful to understanding the evolution of the situations in Barrio Logan and Southeast.

The chapter on healthy cities discusses how urban planning and land use policy are tied to public health and environmental justice. The first portion of the chapter gives a history of cities and urbanization in the United States, and then details what events led to urban sprawl and suburbia.37 The chapter is then broadened to a global scale as it talks about poverty and industrialization in large cities, and the four stages of city development. Frumkin leaves the

36 Howard Frumkin, Environmental Health: From Global to Local, 3rd ed., (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2016), 441. 37 Frumkin, Environmental Health, 514. Moore 28 healthy eco-city as fourth and final development, giving the example of Copenhagen and its complete streets that maximize health potential.38 San Diego would likely fall into the third stage of city development, which is defined by high resource consumption, chronic diseases, and pockets of pollution. Another chart compares urban sprawl and smart growth, showing New

Urbanism as the best option to protect health while lowering carbon emissions. The more relevant section of the chapter was on zoning and separated land uses, which gave a list of policies that regulate land use and could better public health if properly used. For example,

Frumkin makes a link between zoning and air pollution succinctly: “Pollution exposure from cars and trucks is most marked near heavily trafficked roads or in places with particularly high emissions levels and/or physical properties that impede air circulation and trap pollutants.” 39

The last point in the chapter discusses how vulnerable populations are at severe risk of negative health impacts from poorly designed communities.

Chapter 28 is on communicating environmental health, and it discusses the importance of clearly communicating to a community what hazards they face. It argued that effective risk communication is the best method to help improve public health because it educates residents, creates trust, and encourages them to take their own action. In addition, he suggests that whoever is communicating a risk must listen to a community's opinions and become earn their trust for it to work. He adds that health professionals should make communications encouraging the behavior easy, fun, and popular to reinforce a growing norm.

38 Ibid., 516. 39 Ibid., 525. Moore 29

Bridging Silos by Katrina Smith Korfmacher

Bridging Silos by Katrina Smith Korfmacher discusses local environmental initiatives and strategies that have made them successful. The first few chapters cover what local environmental initiatives are, U.S. environmental policy, and the importance of public health.

Afterwards, she focuses on three case studies: lead poisoning in Rochester, NY, air pollution in

Long Beach, CA, and healthy cities in Duluth, MN. The emphasis on air pollution in Long Beach chapter is most relevant to my thesis research because it is about pollution coming from the port and traffic. In addition, Korfmacher’s first chapter on local environmental initiatives was insightful since it outlines why local and regional projects are more successful than state or federal ones. Korfmacher takes a more academic and theoretical approach in the book than the other books I have read. One of her arguments that stood out to me was how the silos of politics, economics, public health, urban planning, and environmental justice are disconnected. However, she believes that they all are covering one issue from different angles: environmental initiatives, and so that should be used to bring them all together. If an environmental initiative is to be successful and make a community healthier, it will have to address the different siloes and have them “talk” to each other through systems thinking.

The first chapter, “Changing Local Systems to Promote Environmental Health and

Justice,” starts off with the example of Hurricane Katrina and how it affected people of color disproportionately. Korfmacher uses Katrina to exemplify how it is more important to prevent tragedies from occurring than putting a band aid over them afterwards. Next, she writes that local environmental initiatives are frequently successful because “local collaborations between community, government, and academic stakeholders can change the systems that shape environmental determinants of health and offer promising approaches to reducing health Moore 30 disparities.” 40 After this section, she discusses her theory on silos, systems, and boundary spanners. Specifically, Korfmacher describes that the silo system is unconnected and uncoordinated, which leads to different policy disciplines misunderstanding each other. A remedy she provides for this is systems thinking, which is seeing an environmental problem as a web with multiple causes and feedbacks.41 In reality, this means that finding a solution to air pollution in Long Beach requires all levels of government, different sectors, and dozens of stakeholders to make a multilevel change. In addition, she suggests that environmental justice advocates work with other organizations to address systemic issues like poverty and homelessness that affect their concern.

Chapter 6, “THE Impact Project: Trade, Health, and Environment around Southern

California’s Ports,” discusses air pollution from the moving of goods at the Long Beach Port in

LA. USC’s environmental health sciences center started in 2001 a community partnership to reduce emissions, noise, light, and traffic coming from the Port and the nearby roads. They eventually formed the “Trade, Health, and Environment Impact Project” aka THE Impact Project to address environmental injustice, support street science, and translate health research into urban planning.42 The USC project and community members focused their time on the noise from traffic and the 24-hour lights through noise ordinances and local nuisance laws. They argued that it interrupted residents’ sleep and gave them a lesser quality of life. Moreover, they noted how the heavy truck traffic reduced their safety while walking, created extreme noise, and restricted their time outdoors.43 In addition, the residents living in Long Beach are mostly people of color

40 Katrina Smith Korfmacher, Bridging Silos: Collaborating for Environmental Health and Justice in Urban Communities, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2019), 5. 41 Ibid., 9. 42 Ibid., 171-172. 43 Korfmacher, Bridging Silos, 181. Moore 31 and low-income. To address all these issues, THE Impact Project worked with the National

Resources Defense Council to sue the Port of Los Angeles in 2001 over their nonexistent environmental impact report on a port expansion project.44 It ended with a settlement of $50 million that went towards pollution prevention and mitigation efforts in the community.

Furthermore, THE Project received several large grants and donations from the government and private citizens to open health centers and continue their work. They also worked with environmental justice community groups to combine the silos of academic research and local activists. They were against the Port, large corporations like Walmart, shippers, railroads, and lobbyists, but they successfully changed local land use decisions and even national air pollution laws.45

44 Ibid., 185. 45 Ibid., 190. Moore 32

Chapter 2: Environmental Injustice in Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego

In this chapter, I have traced back past events that shaped the development of Barrio Logan and

Southeast San Diego. In the first time period of 1542 to 1890, I discuss how the Kumeyaay tribe called San Diego home and were removed off their land when the Spanish colonizers arrived.

Once the Spanish arrived, they built missions in San Diego and enslaved the Kumeyaay, who did rebel numerous times, until Mexico beat the Spanish in 1821. After this, San Diego became

Mexican territory until the Mexican-American War, and then finally shifted into American territory. The period of 1891 to 1937 was largely devoted to the building of modern San Diego and the military. World War I finalized the military’s pick of San Diego as its Pacific Fleet hub, which later led to the construction of shipyards and the aerospace industry as well. In addition, there was an influx of immigrants from Mexico to the United States and especially to San Diego for agricultural and industrial work. Moreover, people of color started to move into the outskirts of the city and Southeast San Diego in reaction to white flight. From 1938 to 1960, this period was marked most by further urban planning of the city, the change of Barrio Logan’s zoning, and expansion of the military during World War II. In addition, the Bracero program allowed for further immigration of Mexicans to California for agricultural work. Moreover, freeways started getting built as cars became more numerous in San Diego, but they caused problems as they cut through Southeast San Diego.

The next period of 1961 to 1974 was full of suburban growth and reflection back upon the earlier urban planning of the city. At this time, the city’s population was growing very quickly, and the mayor hired a team of urban planners to come up with a plan to tackle urban Moore 33 sprawl in the future. In addition, this period was full of environmental injustice for Barrio Logan as the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge was built through the community and the shipyards started to expand. Furthermore, people of color in San Diego faced institutional problems like segregation and redlining in earlier years, which finally started to decline over this period. As a result of redlining, many people of color moved to Southeast San Diego where rent was affordable and there was not discriminatory lending. From 1975 to 1997, the bigger theme was the beginnings of environmental justice as Barrio Logan’s Environmental Health Coalition was formed and started to fight for a cleaner environment. Also, in 1978, the Barrio Logan

Community Plan was passed by the city council and remains to this day the most recent version of their community plan. This time period was key too for highway infrastructure, which was being built quickly to keep up with the state’s growth.

In the period of 1998 to 2012, pollution is starting to get more focus in Barrio Logan as residents and scientists realize the extent of the water and air pollution. The Navy dredged the sediment near the shipyards to help reduce the water pollution while the EHC fought to improve the air quality and health of residents. The last time period of 2012 to today focuses on several issues like gentrification in Barrio Logan, why the Barrio Logan community plan update failed, and the current pollution levels. Moreover, the Barrio Logan community plan update largely failed due to inaccurate propaganda from the military and shipyards, which convinced San

Diegans to revert the city council’s decision. Moreover, this period covers the effect of freeway expansion projects and some efforts to ease future congestion to improve public health.

Moore 34

Kumeyaay Indigenous Peoples and Colonization of San Diego (1542 – 1890)

The first environmental injustices in San Diego did not occur in Barrio Logan or

Southeast San Diego. Rather, the first cases of it can be traced back to the colonization and forced removal of the indigenous peoples of Baja California and Southern California by the

Spanish off their ancestral land. Therefore, beginning this timeline with the arrival of the Spanish in 1542 is the best starting place to truly understand the history of San Diego and its peoples.

Before the Spanish colonizers arrived at the Americas, the Kumeyaay (Iipai-Tipai-

Diegueño) indigenous people lived on the land that became known as California and San Diego.

The Kumeyaay people are estimated to have been living in Southern California for at least

12,000 years before the first Europeans arrived.46 In 1542, the first European explorer, the

Spaniard Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, arrived at what is currently known as San Diego Bay and claimed the land for his country. Another Spaniard, Sebastian Vizcaino, arrived in 1602 and renamed the Kumeyaay land San Diego.47 In 1769, the Spanish returned to establish the first

Catholic missions in Old Town, San Diego and in Baja California, Mexico to convert the

Kumeyaay to Catholicism.48 This brutal colonization resulted in “more than 90% of the children born into the Spanish Catholic missions in Alta California [dying] before the age of five, and a massive die-off of Native people [occurred] throughout the mission system.” 49 There were about

150,000 Kumeyaay people estimated to be living in California by 1776 who were thriving in

46 Mike Connolly and Nancy Carol Carter, “Kumeyaay Timeline,” Kumeyaay.com, accessed May 29, 2020, https://www.kumeyaay.com/kumeyaay-timeline.html 47 Path to Paradise: History of Urban Planning in San Diego,” YouTube video, 58:36, from televised series September 21, 1998, posted by University of California Television (UCTV), January 31, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-0_Y-DQ3RU 48 Ibid. 49 “Sycuan Timeline,” Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, accessed February 24, 2020, https://sycuantribe.com/tribal-timeline/ Moore 35 complex tribes before they were colonized.50 However, the Kumeyaay people did not stay silent, as there are historical records of Kumeyaay people attacking Mission San Diego and several acts of resistance against the Spanish encroaching upon their land.51 For example, in 1775, indigenous people at Mission San Diego de Alcalá set fire to the mission building and destroyed it.52 This rebellion ensured that the Spanish never controlled more than 30 miles of coastal land.

53 Sadly, over time, the Kumeyaay population started to decline as many died from diseases brought by the Spanish. In addition, “Spanish weaponry and armor made the soldiers virtually invincible to the wood and stone weapons of the Kumeyaay.” 54

Around the 1810s, most of Kumeyaay coastal land had been lost to the Spanish, and they were forced to retreat further east into the foothills, mountains, and desert. By 1821, Mexico had defeated Spain in the Mexican War of Independence, so San Diego and all Spanish lands in

California then became Mexican territory.55 Even though the Mexican government ended the

Spanish mission program, the Kumeyaay still had problems with Mexico. For example, the

Mexican government divided up Kumeyaay lands, resulting in many indigenous people being removed from their land or forced to work as laborers for Mexico.56 In addition, from 1820 to

1830, there was an influx of a few hundred settlers that brought San Diego’s population to over

50 “Sycuan Timeline,” Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, accessed February 24, 2020, https://sycuantribe.com/tribal-timeline/ 51 Mike Connolly, “Kumeyaay – Spanish Contact,” Kumeyaay.com, accessed May 29, 2020, https://www.kumeyaay.com/kumeyaay-spanish-contact.html 52 Mike Connolly and Nancy Carol Carter, “Kumeyaay Timeline,” Kumeyaay.com, accessed May 29, 2020, https://www.kumeyaay.com/kumeyaay-timeline.html 53 “History: Post Contact,” Campo Kumeyaay Nation, accessed February 23, 2020, http://www.campo- nsn.gov/postcontact.html 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. Moore 36

600 people.57 Between 1836 and 1842, the Kumeyaay launched several attacks on the Mexican- occupied San Diego and Mexican Ranchos in response to encroachment on their ancient lands and water rights.58

In 1846, battles broke out as the United States tried to gain the coast of California in the

Mexican-American War. In that year, General Kearney of the United States came to San Diego to claim the land for his country. The Kumeyaay even offered to help his army fight the

Mexicans, but he told the tribe to stay out of the battles.59 In the end, Mexico gave up its land to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and the modern-day border between the two countries was formed. This newly formed border cut through Kumeyaay land, as their homelands span both Baja California and California. Moreover, this forced the separation of southern Kumeyaay in Mexico from the northern Kumeyaay now left within the

United States border.60 Roughly more than half of Kumeyaay land was in Baja California, so this cut off thousands of Kumeyaay from their family members. Most of the pueblo land (indigenous land) on the U.S. side was given to San Diego trustees and wealthy businessmen who then started constructing homes and businesses. By 1848, the Kumeyaay people had had to contend with three different nations encroaching on their land and their sovereignty. Looking back upon this history, we can now see how this would only be the start of the Kumeyaay permanently losing their homeland.

57 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1800-1879,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 24, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1800-1879/. 58 “History: Post Contact,” Campo Kumeyaay Nation, accessed February 23, 2020, http://www.campo- nsn.gov/postcontact.html. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. Moore 37

In the 1850 census, the non-Native American population in San Diego stood at 650 people and 798 in the whole county.61 By February of that year, San Diego County was created as one of California’s 27 original counties, and in March, Williams Heath Davis bought 160 acres of land in “New Town” (later downtown San Diego).62 Later that same month, the City of

San Diego was officially incorporated with a mayor and city council government, and in

September, California achieved full U.S. statehood. Trade rapidly improved during this time as the main export in San Diego remained hides and tallow for thirty years.63 During this year, the first commercial wharf was built downtown, which established regular steamer service to San

Francisco, and a second wharf was later built in 1868.64

In 1852, Kumeyaay Ipai and Tipai leaders negotiated the Treaty of Santa Ysabel with the

United States to reserve 7.5 million acres of land to the tribes.65 Moreover, the treaty would be the first step that the Kumeyaay took to be recognized as a sovereign nation within the nation of the United States. However, the U.S. Senate voted down the treaty, and afterwards state militias then tried to enslave and exterminate all indigenous peoples in California in the 1850s and

1860s.66 As a result, the indigenous peoples population in the state dropped by 90% over these ten years.67 By 1860, the city’s population once again grew to 731, and the county population was recorded at 4,324. 68 On April 15, 1867, “Alonzo Erastus Horton arrived from San Francisco

61 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1800-1879,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 24, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1800-1879/. 62 Ibid. 63 California Division of Highways, “San Diego Area Transportation Data Base – 1966,” San Diego County Comprehensive Planning Organization, published July 1, 1972, 22. 64 Ibid. 65 Mike Connolly, “Kumeyaay – The American Period,” Kumeyaay.com, accessed May 29, 2020, https://www.kumeyaay.com/kumeyaay-the-american-period.html 66 “History: Post Contact,” Campo Kumeyaay Nation, accessed February 23, 2020, http://www.campo- nsn.gov/postcontact.html 67 Ibid. 68 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1800-1879,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 24, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1800-1879/. Moore 38 on the paddle-wheel steamer Pacific. On May 10, with local merchant Ephraim Morse as auctioneer, Horton acquires 800 acres of land, which would become New San Diego, for $265.”

69 Horton eventually became the first urban planner of San Diego and dramatically shaped the future landscape of the city for centuries to come (an in-depth analysis of this is located in the following section of this chapter). Over the next 20 years, New Town would become the center of the city as residents moved from Old Town, the former center of the missions, a few miles south. Now by 1870, the city’s population grew to 2,300 as trade and migration boomed from railroads being built and hit a record high of 40,000 people by 1887. Between 1875 and 1893, the

United States created the Kumeyaay Reservations in San Diego, which still remain to this day.70

However, these reservations are only a tiny fraction of the original indigenous land because their land was stolen by Spain, Mexico, and the United States over hundreds of years. By the 1880s,

San Diego still was greatly dependent on the ocean for trading despite the popularity of the railroad. Redwood ties, steel rails, and locomotives had to enter San Diego via the ocean for railroads to be built in the county. However, once the railroads were built, coal became the largest maritime import.71

69 Ibid. 70 “Timeline of the Kumeyaay,” Campo Kumeyaay Nation, accessed February 23, 2020, http://www.campo-nsn.gov/precontact.html 71 California Division of Highways, “San Diego Area Transportation Data Base – 1966,” San Diego County Comprehensive Planning Organization, published July 1, 1972, 22. Moore 39

Figure 4, Tribal Lands in the San Diego Region 72

72 “Tribal Lands in the San Diego Region,” San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), accessed May 29, 2020, https://www.sandag.org/uploads/publicationid/publicationid_1146_4237.pdf Moore 40

Early Planning, Population Boom, and Building of the City’s Heart (1891 - 1937)

Summary

This time period of 1891-1937 was when modern downtown San Diego started to fully develop through urban planning. For one, the military and government worked together in planning the city, dredging the bay, and permitting military facilities/bases to be built. The construction of the Panama Canal brought greater trade and prosperity to the city since San

Diego was the first stopping point on the west coast for sea vessels. World War I and the

Spanish-American War intensified the military’s operations in San Diego and helped jumpstart the aerospace industry. Moreover, there was a wave of immigrants and migrants from the East

Coast and Mexico who came to the city for agricultural and industrial work, and mild winters.

The Great Depression slowed down the rate of Mexicans entering the United States, but this once again picked up at the end of the 1930s as the United States prepared for war. Blacks, Mexicans, and Mexican-Americans started to move into the neighborhoods at the outskirts of downtown and in Southeast San Diego due to “white flight” from the invention of streetcars and the car.

John Nolen, a landscape architect, in the early 20th century was hired by businessmen to plan the city, and he is most famous for increasing the number of parks, creating waterfront land, and designing the civic center downtown.

Urban Planning and the Military

In 1891, Coronado left the City of San Diego and incorporated itself, and soon became the home of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet.73 Three years later, “bad times encourage Alonzo

Horton to sell his half-block Horton Plaza park to the city for $10,000, stipulating that it must

73 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1880-1899,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 27, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1880-1899/ Moore 41 remain a park forever. Today Horton’s park fronts Horton Plaza and has been renamed Horton

Plaza Park.” 74 In 1899, the U.S. Army built Fort Rosecrans in Point Loma, which would be transferred in 1959 to the Navy to serve as a submarine base.75 Moreover, the city government widened the San Diego Bay Channel in the 1900s to make the bay easier to access for military ships: “Dredging of the treacherous Middleground Shoal in the early 1900’s opened the bay to larger vessels, and it was during this time that the U.S. Navy opened its first shore establishment.

Naval facilities expanded rapidly during World War I but the commercial activity did not keep pace.” 76 By 1900, the city’s populations grew to 17,700 and the county to 35,090.77 Following the destructive San Francisco earthquake of 1906, businessman John D. Spreckels moved from

San Francisco to San Diego and established the railroad corporation, San Diego & Arizona

Eastern Railroad.78 By 1907, construction started on the railroad which went to Yuma, AZ and partly through Baja California, Mexico. Later that year, John Nolen, a Harvard-educated landscape architect, was hired by George Marston, a wealthy businessman, to lay out a vision for the city. Nolen was inspired by the world fair in Chicago to make San Diego better by limiting industrial areas and increasing the number of parks. A year later, Nolen completed his plan for the city, which had a system of boulevards, a downtown area, and a civic center. He believed that the ideal, modern city should have a heart with a plaza, city hall, public buildings. In addition, he envisioned a string of parks from the pueblo lands to downtown to Torrey Pines and a waterfront with entertainment buildings.

74 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1880-1899,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 27, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1880-1899/ 75 Ibid. 76 California Division of Highways, “San Diego Area Transportation Data Base – 1966,” San Diego County Comprehensive Planning Organization, published July 1, 1972, 22. 77 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1900-1929,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 27, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1900-1929/ 78 Ibid. Moore 42

In 1909, G. Aubrey Davidson, president of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, proposed that San Diego should hold an exposition in 1915 to celebrate the completion of the

Panama Canal.79 By this time, the city’s population had more than doubled to 39,578 people over nine years.80 A year later, the U.S. Grant Hotel opened downtown by Horton Plaza, which helped attract more business and tourism to the downtown area.81 In November 1910, the California

State Legislature approved renaming the former City Park into Balboa Park and holding a world exposition in the park.82 At the same time, a flying school was established on Coronado’s North

Island in January 1911 where military pilots could receive free pilot instruction, and the Navy officially established a navy base there in 1912.83

Overall, the 1910s was a period of building the “heart” of San Diego, exemplified by the construction of government buildings, hotels, and entertainment centers - many of which still stand today in their original location. This period of rapid construction was largely due to the

Panama-California Exposition that took place in Balboa Park from 1915 to 1917, as the city needed to grow to accommodate visitors and new residents. In 1912, the Spreckels Theatre was opened as the first commercial playhouse in the West Coast and in 1913, the city constructed the

Broadway Pier for $1.7 million.84 Two years later, the Panama-California Exposition was held over four days in Balboa Park to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. 85 The Cabrillo

Bridge, which connected Balboa Park to the city, opened in April 1914, and “the first car is driven across with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, G. Aubrey Davidson,

79 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1900-1929,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 27, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1900-1929/ 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. 85 Ibid. Moore 43 and Mayor Charles F. O’Neall as passengers.” 86 Having the first car being driven by the mayor and Secretary of the Navy attests to the close relationship between the Navy and San Diego government, which would only get more tightly connected over the next 100 years. In January

1916, severe flooding in San Diego destroyed 110 of 112 bridges in the city and broke the Lower

Otay Dam. That same year, the San Diego Zoo was created by Dr. Harry Wegeforth who kept quarantined animals that were imported for the exposition in Balboa Park.87 The following year, the Navy greatly increased its presence in San Diego with the onset of World War I. For one, in

January 1917, the Navy built its most powerful radio station in the Western Hemisphere in the community of Chollas Heights. Later that year, Camp Kearny was also built by the Army at the expense of $4.5 million. Furthermore, a Marine base and naval hospital (eventually to be named

Balboa Naval Hospital) were approved, and the government purchased North Island to be shared between the Army and Navy. The naval hospital eventually opened a few years later in 1922.

However, the 1917 San Diego mayoral race quickly put a temporary stop to Nolen and

Marston’s green landscape dream. Marston stood for parks and beautification of San Diego, while his opponent Louis Wilde supported heavy industrialization and smokestacks to bring an economic boom. In the end, Wilde won the mayor election and so began heavy industrialization of the city. But in 1925, Nolen returned to the city to update his work and started expanding the city. For example, the city annexed communities to its south and east: “The city continued to burst its boundary lines through a series of 18 separate annexations. The largest annexations were the former city of East San Diego and the real estate developments of Talmadge Park and

Paradise Hills. The primary motivation for these areas to join the city was their desire for

86 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1900-1929,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 27, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1900-1929/ 87 Ibid. Moore 44 improved municipal services, chiefly water and sewage systems.” 88 In 1926, Nolen published a revised version of his 1907 plan that included an airport, a waterfront park, civic center, new boulevards, and multiple neighborhoods.

By 1919, San Diego was chosen as the home base for the Navy’s Pacific Fleet – a decision that has permanently altered the design of the city and county for centuries to come. In the same year, the San Diego – Arizona railroad was completed after 13 years of work, which opened up a faster connection to the east.89 By 1920, San Diego’s population reached 74,361 and the county boomed to 112,248.90 In 1923, Marine Corps Recruit Depot opened by the downtown area, and Naval Training Center Point Loma was also commissioned. Five years later, Lindbergh

Field – San Diego’s airport – was dedicated and sited next to the Marine Depot.91 By 1930, the city’s population more than doubled to 147,995 and the county’s is 209,659 largely due to increased transportation links with railroads.92 In 1935, “Consolidated Aircraft opened [its] first plant along Pacific Highway to build 50 P-30 pursuit planes for the Army. First PBY-1 is launched on test flight on San Diego Bay in 1936 – Consair employment rises from 900 in 1935 to 3,700.” 93 Consolidated Aircraft’s plant built airplanes that would supply the country’s military, and it quickly became a giant employer in the city. However, many of these aircraft industry jobs post-WWI did not employ minority groups in San Diego because they were not

88 LeRoy E. Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway: A Study of Settlement Patterns of Negroes and Mexicans in San Diego, California,” (PhD diss., Carnegie-Mellon University, 1974), 16. 89 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1900-1929,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 27, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1900-1929/ 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1930-1959,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 29, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1930-1959/ 93 Ibid. Moore 45 mass production lines and required highly skilled technicians to work.94 This led many minority people to move to Los Angeles instead of San Diego to find work.

Immigration and Migration

In 1902, indigenous people living in the Cupa, San Felipe, and other villages were forcibly removed off their land and relocated to the Pala Reservation in North San Diego.95

During the 1900s and 1910s, there was an influx of Mexicans immigrating to cheaper coastal land in Barrio Logan and South San Diego due to “unstable political and economic conditions in

Mexico that ‘pushed’ migrants toward the U.S. while demands for cheap labor in the U.S.

‘pulled’ them in this direction.” 96 However, even during the Great Depression, the number of tourists and new residents who moved to the city stayed the same due to the city’s attractive mild climate.97 A 1933 survey conducted by the San Diego-California Club showed the top reasons why people chose to move to San Diego. The number one reason was the beaches at 26%, gardening at 17%, schools at 17%, business opportunities at 16%, and outdoor sports at 7%.98

Overall, Harris argues that most Mexican immigrants came to the U.S. and specifically

San Diego to find agricultural and industrial work:

The United States took steps to limit the number of Asians entering the country, and it had been this group which had been used as cheap labor on the farms of the west. World War I created increased demands for labor for the fields and factories of the southwest, a demand that continued during the 1920s, and this region became the salad bowl of the nation. The depression of the 1930s interrupted the flow of Mexican immigrants to the

94 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 193. 95 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1930-1959,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 29, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1930-1959/ 96 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 216. 97 Ibid, 213. 98 Ibid. Moore 46

United States, but the numbers once again increased rapidly during the World War II years under the Bracero program. Except for brief periods of interruption, this program continued in operation until the mid-1960s and became the vehicle for thousands of Mexicans to enter the United States. Although most Mexican migrants entered the United States seeking agricultural work, such employment is transitory and seasonal and great numbers of migrants soon turned to cities looking for work in factories, food processing plants and railroad yards.99

World War I was an important driver of immigration from Mexico to the United States because the war cut the supply of cheap labor while intensifying the need of industrial production. Many Mexicans came to fill the jobs of agricultural workers, miners, and railroad workers in the southwest U.S. during the war period until the 1920s. However, the Great

Depression led to a decline in Mexican immigration as midwestern laborers from the dust bowl filled their jobs. In addition, many Mexicans moved back to their homeland during this time as agricultural jobs declined. Nevertheless, the largest proportion of Mexican migration took place after the 1940s.100 Furthermore, the majority of Mexican-Americans ended up living in

California’s urban areas instead of rural, exemplified by the high Latino population of Barrio

Logan and its surrounding communities. There would have been a higher population of

Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in San Diego during this time period, but Los Angeles attracted more with its industrial opportunities.101 San Diego’s Black population was much smaller at this time than other cities in the U.S. due to the city lacking large scale industrial employment opportunities and access via early transportation routes.102 Over this time period, exclusionary housing contracts and segregation prevented Blacks, Mexicans, and Mexican-

99 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 213. 100 Ibid. 101 Ibid. 102 Ibid, 209. Moore 47

Americans from living in prime homes near the coast, so many were confined to Southeast San

Diego (see Figures 5 and 7). 103

Figure 5, Racial Restrictive Clauses in Selected San Diego Housing Developments 104

103 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 230. 104 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 259. Moore 48

Figure 6, Intended State of Residence of Mexican Immigrants 105

105 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 229. Moore 49

Figure 7, Tracts with 2% or More of City’s Black Population 106

106 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 233. Moore 50

Infrastructure and Housing

In the 1890s, Black and Mexican-Americans mostly lived by the downtown and waterfront area, but this started to shift after the 1920s as minority groups moved to the southeast part of the city. In 1902, construction of the Panama Canal was authorized by Congress. The canal would help improve trade by sea in San Diego and economically boost the business the

Port of San Diego received.107 In 1909, the first modern transportation system was proposed for

San Diego with a 461-mile all-weather highway network that was funded by bonds.108 During this time, the first highways were built in California by the government as the car became popular and travel to the suburbs was more feasible. Seven years later in 1916, a San Diego-Los

Angeles bus line opened.109 In 1919, a $2.3 million bond was approved to construct 68 miles of roads in the county. Furthermore, a state gas tax in 1923 and highway law system allowed

California to create a pay-as-you-go highway financing system.110 This helped provide stable financing to create the San Diego-Los Angeles coast highway and the San Diego-Yuma Pine

Valley route in the 1920s and 1930s. The beginnings of redlining emerged as people of color had to move away from coastal land that was becoming expensive. By the 1920s, streetcar lines and cars made it easier for residents to live farther from the downtown area, and so the city started developing “modern” subdivisions that were more appealing than the older housing.111 As a result, there was a movement of residents from the older homes of Golden Hill and Logan

Heights north to Balboa Park. In the 1920s and 1930s, Blacks and Mexican-Americans then

107 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1900-1929,” San Diego History Center, accessed February 27, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1900-1929/ 108 California Division of Highways, “San Diego Area Transportation Data Base – 1966,” San Diego County Comprehensive Planning Organization, published July 1, 1972, 25. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. 111 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 145. Moore 51 moved into the older and cheaper housing in these neighborhoods and Southeast San Diego once affluent whites moved away.112

Figure 8, Terrain and Railroads of Southern California 113

112 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 146. 113 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 6. Moore 52

Industrialization and Infrastructure (1938 - 1960)

Urban Planning and Zoning

In 1938, Nolen’s vision of a waterfront civic center (eventually it would become the San

Diego County Administration Center) came to life once the building was finally completed.114

By 1940, the city’s population rose to 203,341 and the county’s to 289,348.115 This post-war boom was largely due to the military and industrial expansion instead of tourism.116 In addition, in the 1950s, Barrio Logan’s zoning was changed by city planners from residential to mixed-use to permit the maritime industry to expand. This was one of the last steps in sealing residents of

Barrio Logan into a permanent state of environmental injustice. By 1950, the city’s population grew even more to 333,865 people and the county at around half a million.117 Ten years later, the city’s population nearly doubled to 573,224 and the county’s population boomed to just over 1 million.118

The Military, World War II, and Barrio Logan

As the downtown area was being built up, so was the military’s presence in San Diego.

The U.S. Navy has had a naval air station on Coronado Island, which is an isthmus across from downtown, since 1917 and World War I. Further construction of the air station into a larger naval base began in 1925 once the barracks began to be built. In the late 1930s, the air station, now renamed Naval Station North Island, became a stopping point for long-distance fliers. By 1938,

114 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1930-1959,” San Diego History Center, accessed March 8, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1930-1959/ 115 Ibid. 116 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 22-23. 117 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1930-1959,” San Diego History Center, accessed March 8, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1930-1959/ 118 Ibid. Moore 53 airplane engineering was becoming quite advanced, and the Navy was at the forefront of this. In

1939, the U.S. was getting prepared to enter the World War II, so more aircraft and naval ships needed to be built to keep up with the demand. For example, the former Camp Kearny was redeveloped into Naval Auxiliary Air Camp Kearny in 1939, covering 423 acres of land.119 By

May 1946, the facilities were combined and commissioned into Marine Corps Air Station

Miramar as the station grew to 1,101 acres.120 Once WWII broke out, North Island became a port for aircraft carriers and ships on their way to the Pacific battle. The air station became a training ground for about 31,400 Air Force pilots during the war.121 In 1944, the Navy started constructing an emergency aqueduct in San Diego, forming the San Diego County Water

Authority, to bring water from the Colorado River to the county.122

Once World War II ended, San Diego went into a recession. In the late 1940s, once the

U.S. was preparing for the Cold War, the aircraft and missile industry boomed in San Diego to produce aerospace products.123 In 1946, the city took over the aqueduct project that the Navy started once voters approved a bond and the annexation of the County Water Authority into the

Metropolitan Water District.124 The aqueduct would eventually open a year later in 1947 to bring water from the Colorado River to dry San Diego. At this time, the military also expanded into

Barrio Logan, which is across the bay from the North Island station, and shipbuilding companies built up right alongside the base. In the 1940s, the Navy decided that San Diego should be the

119 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1930-1959,” San Diego History Center, accessed March 8, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1930-1959/ 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid. 123 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 49. 124 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1930-1959,” San Diego History Center, accessed March 8, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1930-1959/ Moore 54 permanent home for the Pacific Fleet, which led to shipyards and weapons manufacturers being built in the community of Barrio Logan where the land was cheap.

Once the Korean War broke out in the 1950s, there was another boom in the military and aircraft industries.125 Moreover, in the 1940s to 1960s, the aircraft, aerospace, and military industry made up a larger portion of the manufacturing growth in the city. This is exemplified by how “in most years from 1950 to 1965, the value of aircraft and related products accounted for more than half the value of all products manufactured in the city, a figure which reached 77% in

1955.” 126 Moreover, in 1956, Convair, the main airplane manufacturer in San Diego, was taken over by General Dynamics, which currently operates the main shipyard and defense plant in

Barrio Logan.127 In 1960, the state would approve delivering water from the Northern Sierra

Nevada to San Diego, which helped made the city more habitable and further attracted the military. In sum, “the growth of the shipbuilding industry and Naval operations, rezoning of the neighborhood to include heavy industrial and commercial uses, and the growth in the construction industry changed the character of Barrio Logan during and after World War II.” 128

In other words, Barrio Logan and other communities in San Diego had their landscape changed from residential to industrial and military because of the war and the Navy being in San Diego.

This permanently changed the future of the city and its residents’ health.

125 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 49-50. 126 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 51. 127 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1930-1959,” San Diego History Center, accessed March 8, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1930-1959/ 128 The City of San Diego, “Barrio Logan Community Plan and Local Coastal Program Draft,” last modified August 3, 2013, https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/planning/community/cpu/barriologan/pdf/barrio_loga n_cpu_full_090313.pdf, 9. Moore 55

Immigration and Migration

During the Great Depression and 1930s, new residents came to San Diego because of its mild climate and pristine beaches. World War II increased the demand for agricultural and industrial workers in California, so the U.S. and Mexican government enacted the Bracero

Program in 1942. The Bracero program allowed for the “importation of vast numbers of Mexican laborers to work on American farms and railroads. The Bracero program was conceived as a wartime program and was terminated in 1947. Because of continued need for labor, however, the program was reinstituted in 1951 and continued in full operation until 1964.” 129 As a result, the

Bracero program legalized the migration of Mexican men to the U.S. for work. Moreover, there was a further influx of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans moving to San Diego and Barrio

Logan after the 1940s because of Mexico’s unstable government and economy.

Transportation Infrastructure and Housing

In 1935, the San Diego Highway Development Association (SDHDA) was formed. Over time, its membership largely consisted of traffic engineers, businessmen, architects, and military members.130 The SDHDA’s mission at this time was to “develop and support all aspects of

Street, Highway and Transit Development in San Diego’s cities and the county” through weekly meetings and events.131 Moreover, the SDHDA’s mission statement is “to foster the timely, orderly, and efficient development of all planned transportation facilities in the San Diego region and to promote appropriate means to finance and maintain these facilities.” 132 Also during 1935,

129 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 79. 130 James E. Reading and Andrew P. Schlaefli, “History of San Diego Highway Development: 70th Anniversary Edition,” San Diego Highway Development Association, last modified January 1, 2007, i. 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid., ii. Moore 56

District 11 of the Division of Highways, State Department of Public Works was established, which would later become the California Department of Transportation/CALTRANS.133 In 1947, the start of Interstate 5 was constructed through San Diego, and it would eventually bisect Barrio

Logan into two new communities: Barrio Logan and Logan Heights.

During this time, there also was a rapid expansion of San Diego’s Metropolitan Transit

System (MTS) to give residents an alternative to driving. During the 1910s, the San Diego

Electric Railway Company had a network in the city that went from the Mexican border to the bay. During and after the Great Depression, there was a decline in trolley ridership due to the economic context, issues with trolley maintenance, and increased car ownership.134 In the 1930s, the transportation industry reversed its decline by redesigning the trolleys to be quicker and quieter to attract more riders. As a result of the trolley’s redesign, “between 1936 and 1952, more than 5,000 were built, mostly by the St. Louis Car Company, and they became the mainstay of transit systems throughout the United States and several foreign countries.” 135 Even though San

Diego purchased several new trolleys in the mid-1930s to expand public transportation, the city faced opposition from oil and industrial giants encouraging instead a switch from trolleys to buses. By 1949, San Diego was the first city on the West Coast to switch its public transportation to only buses.136 It would not be until the early 1970s that the trolley system would be discussed again.

Rapid growth in the 1940s and 1950s led to increasing tensions between urban and nonurban land. In 1955, the transportation department acted upon these concerns by reviewing

133 James E. Reading and Andrew P. Schlaefli, “History of San Diego Highway Development: 70th Anniversary Edition,” San Diego Highway Development Association, last modified January 1, 2007, 33. 134 Ibid., 52. 135 Ibid., 53. 136 Ibid. Moore 57 the highway planning process and making it more transparent by allowing citizens to voice their concerns. Three years later, Interstate 8, which starts at the Pacific Ocean in San Diego and follows indigenous trails through the valley and mountains, opened to cars.137 Today, it is the main east-west freeway in the county as it goes from the deserts of Phoenix, AZ directly to San

Diego’s beaches through the mountains. The rapid growth of San Diego and the United States in the 1950s required the development of freeways, which the SDHDA deemed as the greatest step forward in transportation since the invention of the wheel.138 Research by civil, electrical, and traffic engineers, scientists, psychologists, and planners supported the development of freeways by making them “more safe, economical and convenient.” 139 In the following decade, higher growth rates resulted in a reexamination of current road, street, and highway deficiencies in the county.140 The SDHDA addressed these deficiencies by widening Interstate 5, building the San

Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, and starting more construction on Interstates 8 and 805.141

Moreover, the SDHDA enacted these expansions to solve congestion and improve safety.

However, the development of freeways and roads did not benefit everyone equally. For example, “in the 1940s, Highway 101 was widened into a multi-lane highway, cutting through

Southeast San Diego as it connected San Diego with points south. At the same time, the new state highway, #94, was built along the northern edges of Southeast San Diego.” In addition to freeways cutting through and bordering Southeast San Diego, commercial businesses, warehouses, and junkyards intermixed with homes in Southeast San Diego – likely brought on

137 James E. Reading and Andrew P. Schlaefli, “History of San Diego Highway Development: 70th Anniversary Edition,” San Diego Highway Development Association, last modified January 1, 2007, 53. 138 Ibid., 41. 139 Ibid. 140 Ibid. 141 Ibid. Moore 58 by the proximity of freeways.142 This further led to white flight during the 1940s -1960s as housing became less desirable in Southeast San Diego.

Overall, the 1940s was a period of wartime for San Diego that eventually led the city to become a hub for the defense industry in the coming decades. This expansion led the defense industry to build up enduring ties with local politicians and highway development as its power and population grew:

The 1940s saw the whole of San Diego engaged in an all-out effort to help win the war. The latter five years of the decade brought a surge of prosperity, followed only too soon by the Korean War. Throughout this military involvement, the city and county of San Diego played leading roles in bringing Colorado River water to Southern California. We needed it to sustain our additional growth. Tens of thousands of servicemen and military civilian employees had learned during the war how desirable our community was; they decided to make their homes here. Military training went on daily the year around, much of it out of doors. Convair produced Liberator bombers around the clock, enabled by the mild weather to do some of the work outdoors. Small wonder, then, that San Diego grew from 203,000 to 334,800 by 1950, passing 12 other growing American cities in the process. Our Highway Development Association had many members who were local, county or state government officials, and others who were high-ranking military officers. We were therefore especially effective in obtaining priorities and federal funding for new streets, traffic signals, conscripting used street cars from less critical areas, and the diversion of new buses from the consignees to our own local streetcar company.143

This quote shows how the iron triangle of politicians, the military, and industry was cemented. In addition, it foreshadows how the iron triangle has a stranglehold on shaping planning decisions to today.

142 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 148. 143 James E. Reading and Andrew P. Schlaefli, “History of San Diego Highway Development: 70th Anniversary Edition,” San Diego Highway Development Association, last modified January 1, 2007, 37. Moore 59

The spike in defense workers during and after the war led to a severe housing shortage in

San Diego. The government took action to fix this by speeding up construction of defense plant housing and practically building new neighborhoods daily.144 In 1941, the biggest construction job in the city’s history began with the building of the Linda Vista defense housing project, which called for 3,000 units to be built in 300 days for $9.07 million. For reference, Linda Vista is a few miles northeast of downtown San Diego by Interstate 5 and the University of San

Diego.145 Once construction was complete, about 20,000 people moved in to these apartments and single-family units in Linda Vista.

In addition to being a period full of infrastructure development, 1938-1960 was a time of housing segregation that spurred the movement of people of color into Southeast San Diego. As

Harris contends, there were several reasons housing was quite segregated in San Diego over this time period. First, he argues that some segregation was voluntary as people of color preferred to live in a community of people of their background.146 Secondly, Harris states that housing outside of Southeast San Diego cost more than within the community, which prevented people of color from moving away. Lastly, he claims that the biggest factor was restrictive covenants in real estate deeds that prevented people of color from getting housing from 1910 to 1950 (see

Figure 5).147

Many of the Blacks who lived in San Diego and then Southeast San Diego at this time had come to the region during or after World War II. By 1940, only about 4,000 Blacks lived in the city, making up a meager 2% of the population (see Figure 9). Even after the post-war Black

144 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 23. 145 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1930-1959,” San Diego History Center, accessed March 8, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1930-1959/ 146 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” iv. 147 Ibid. Moore 60 migration, they only made up 3.6% of the city’s population due to the growing white population.148 Mexican-Americans did have a larger population than Blacks in San Diego, evidenced by the 1960 census that shows that 38,043 Mexican-Americans lived in the city (6.6% of the total population).149

After the war ended, building restrictions were lifted, which enabled a surge in new housing construction in the suburbs. As previously undeveloped land was turned into homes and businesses, the City of San Diego annexed it. From 1945 to 1971, “the city made 144 separate annexations of adjoining land totaling 138,919.3 acres, tripling in area from 103.4 to 319.5 square miles.” 150 These annexations made San Diego unique from other cities in that the city retained jurisdiction over these suburbs by expanding its limits.151 This gave the City of San

Diego a bit more power and say than other cities since it had authority over its sprawling metropolitan area. In the 1950s, the population of residents living in the city’s older housing stayed the same or slightly increased. Meanwhile, different suburbs grew from 4 times to 20 times after construction, and about 2/3 of this new construction was for suburban single-family homes. Furthermore, “as twentieth century expansion extended the city to the north and east, the original residential sections of Southeast San Diego became the ‘old’ part of town. It was in this older area that incoming Negroes and Mexican Americans settled.” 152

148 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” v. 149 Ibid. 150 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 25. 151 Ibid. 152 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 26. Moore 61

Figure 9, Racial and Ethnic Group Populations in San Diego 153

153 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” vii. Moore 62

Suburban Growth and Temporary Paradise (1961 – 1974)

Urban Planning and Temporary Paradise

By 1970, San Diego became the second most populated city in California with a population of 696,474, and the county’s population at 1,357,854.154 The 1971 San Diego mayoral campaign truly shaped the future of the city and county’s urban planning future. The Republican

Pete Wilson successfully ran against the Democrat Ed Butler on a platform of growth management. After Wilson was elected, he developed a growth management plan for San

Diego’s suburbs to deal with the rapid growth of the city. In addition, he provided the next plan for the city that followed up on the earlier Nolen plan.155 Wilson then hired planners Kevin

Lynch of UC Berkeley and Donald Appleyard of MIT in 1974 to produce a document on the growth of San Diego, entitled “Temporary Paradise?” 156 Lynch and Appleyard worked on

“Temporary Paradise” by analyzing the manmade and the natural topography of the city by helicopter.

Through this effort, Lynch and Appleyard identified 7 different topographical areas in the city, such as valleys, canyons, and coastal land, and proposed how each should be developed. For example, with coastal land, they both agreed that it should be accessible for everyone and should not be the site of high rise development.157 In addition, they advocated for more affordable housing, contained infrastructure, increased density, and better community services in all older communities as a way of stopping urban sprawl. Lynch and Appleyard in the report praised the

154 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1960-1999,” San Diego History Center, accessed March 26, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1960-1999/ 155 “Path to Paradise: History of Urban Planning in San Diego,” YouTube video, from televised series September 21, 1998, posted by University of California Television (UCTV), January 31, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-0_Y-DQ3RU 156 Ibid. 157 Ibid. Moore 63 city’s mild climate and location, but noted its flaws of traffic congestion, environmental degradation, and housing shortages.158 Moreover, they cautioned against making car-dependent subdivisions, building on river valleys, and expanding freeways. Instead, they suggested that the city build a trolley system, better regulate urban sprawl, and preserve open space.159 In addition, the two advocated for a tighter connection between Tijuana and San Diego through regional planning. Even though “the city never adopted the report as official policy, it continues to be cited today as neighborhoods revise their community plans and the city tackles new issues unknown four decades ago.” 160 However, in the end, “Temporary Paradise?” was outmatched by development interests and scandals in the planning department. Politicians and Mayor Wilson thought that the planning department was poorly run, so they placed the department under the mayor and deputy city manager.161 Their thought process was that the planning department should serve communities, and not dictate what they should do. As a result, the power that the city planners had was greatly reduced in the 1970s under Mayor Wilson, as they now had to go through the mayor’s office for their proposals to be implemented. Even though the planning staff were out of touch with communities like Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego, shifting them under the mayor’s authority was not a permanent solution. In reality, it added more red tape for residents to go through, as city councilmembers no longer had authority over the Planning

Department. Since city councilmembers are closer to their communities, residents would likely go to them with future concerns instead of the mayor, who represents the larger city.

158 Roger Showley, “San Diego - A ‘Temporary’ Paradise?” The Hartford Courant, last modified March 30, 2018, https://www.courant.com/sd-fi-temporaryparadise-20180326-story.html 159 Ibid. 160 Ibid. 161 “Path to Paradise: History of Urban Planning in San Diego,” YouTube video, from televised series September 21, 1998, posted by University of California Television (UCTV), January 31, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-0_Y-DQ3RU Moore 64

The Military and Barrio Logan

Overall, the 1960s was the decade in which Barrio Logan was literally cut into two parts.

In 1963, the section of Interstate 5 that went through Barrio Logan was completed, which bisected it from the neighborhood of Logan Heights.162 The two used to be the one community of

Logan Heights, but now were broken into two with a freeway through the middle. In simpler terms, Barrio Logan was first bisected from Logan Heights, and the bridge bisects Barrio Logan even further. In 1969, the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, which to this day bisects and looms over Barrio Logan, officially opened. The completion of the bridge resulted in “thousands of homes [being] destroyed and families displaced by these events.”163 A year later, the Mexican-

American community in Barrio Logan started painting murals under the bridge and campaigned for the creation of Chicano Park.164 When land under the bridge that had been promised to be a park was instead proposed to be turned instead into a California Highway Patrol station, residents resisted successfully.165 Chicano Park endures to this day and is home to now famous resistance murals (see Figure 10) and a neighborhood health clinic.166

162 “Barrio Logan History,” Environmental Health Coalition, accessed March 26, 2020, https://www.environmentalhealth.org/index.php/en/where-we-work/local/barrio-logan 163 Ibid. 164 Ibid. 165 Ibid. 166 Ibid. Moore 65

Figure 10, Picture of Barrio Logan Art 167

Furthermore, the 1960s was a time of diversification of industry in San Diego. The number of aerospace jobs in the 1960s was also cut in half as the electronics and machinery industries grew six-fold.168 In addition, the shipbuilding industry, such as NASSCO, grew alongside the military.169 For example, “concerned mainly with the building of fishing vessels until 1940, this industry became a competitive bidder for naval and commercial shipping craft by

1950 and expanded its activities between 1950 and 1970.” 170 All this resulted in greater pressure on residential areas in Barrio Logan and greater proximity of industrial activity to residences.

167 “San Diego’s Hottest Neighborhoods: Barrio Logan,” San Diego Tourism Authority, last modified November 27, 2018, https://blog.sandiego.org/2018/11/hottest-neighborhoods-barrio-logan/. 168 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 51. 169 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 53. 170 Ibid. Moore 66

Transportation Infrastructure and Housing

According to Harris, segregation in housing against Mexican-Americans and Blacks started to finally decrease in the 1960s as a result of state and federal legislation.171 In 1964, a proposition against housing discrimination was brought up to voters. Unsurprisingly, real estate agents in San Diego opposed the proposition and campaigned to have it stopped.172 These agents argued in front of the California Advisory Committee to the United States Civil Rights

Commission that they did not practice discriminatory lending and that Blacks and Mexican-

Americans were the ones who had segregated themselves.173 By 1970, most Blacks in San Diego have moved from downtown and coastal homes to neighborhoods in Southeast San Diego:

By 1970, then, San Diego’s Negro community had steadily moved from its original location in the downtown and waterfront areas toward the southern and eastern sections of the city. During the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s, the Negro community has largely been confined to the area lying south of Market Street and west of Wabash Boulevard. During the 1950’s, some movement across Wabash into tract 35 took place. As the community spread east Helix Freeway (#94) became the northern boundary of the Negro neighborhood. During the 1960’s, however, major movements by Negroes into the area east of Wabash Boulevard took place and by 1970, the Negro community had expanded almost to the eastern boundaries of the city. Also, by 1970, Highway 94 had become somewhat less of a barrier to negro migration north of that freeway and several of the tracts immediately north of the freeway contained significant numbers of Negro residents by 1970.174

171 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” iv. 172 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 264. 173 Ibid. 174 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 108. Moore 67

Furthermore, three-quarters of the Black population of San Diego lived in only 14 of the city’s

168 census tracts by 1970.175 In sum, “by 1970, then, both the Negro and the Mexican-American communities had shifted away from their original locations in the downtown area and had become firmly established in the southeast sections of the city.” 176

As housing segregation was loosened and more people moved to the suburbs, there was an increase in the number of cars on roads and freeways. This made the government more interested in measuring how people were traveling around San Diego and the purpose of their trip so they could better design transportation infrastructure in the future. In 1966, a data report was published to help the local governments in the CPO (San Diego County Comprehensive

Planning Organization):

develop a regional comprehensive transportation plan with recommended policies, plans,

and programs for implementation. The first step of such a study should logically be an

inventory of existing travel patterns as related to land use data. Besides providing a basic

understanding of travel patterns, the data is being used to develop transportation models

so that the compatibility of future year transportation systems and land use plans can be

tested. 177

Overall, this report examines driving patterns in San Diego County in 1966, documenting what groups of people are driving where, to guide future transportation decisions. The study covered an area of 1,500 square miles and had an estimated resident population of 1,103,000

175 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 110. 176 Harris, “The Other Side of the Freeway,” 120. 177 California Division of Highways, “San Diego Area Transportation Data Base – 1966,” San Diego County Comprehensive Planning Organization, published July 1, 1972, 1. Moore 68 people, which contained 98% of the county’s population at the time.178 The report found that there were 403,430 people driving weekly to their jobs, and the median family income was

$6,120.179 The total weekday driver trips were 1,999,140: 20.2% were home-work, 12.7% home- shopping, 32.8% home-other, 24.9% other-other, and 9.4% work-other.180 The data was collected through a combination of home interviews, roadside interviews, military surveys, and zone development. This document attests to the increase of driving congestion as over a million people were using cars as their primary mode of transportation in San Diego. It foreshadows what “Temporary Paradise?” would soon address regarding freeway congestion and subdivisions that are only reachable by car. The large percentage of people driving from home to work demonstrated that more San Diegans were living in the suburbs far away from their jobs, and so they must rely on a car for daily commute.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the local government tried to slow down the construction of highways by sending more money into rail and mass transit. In 1970, a proposition was put forward by the California state legislature to voters to allow the legislature to build more transit systems so as to ease freeway congestion and better control smog.181 This could have been a critical way of improving public health and making the city more environmentally friendly by building up the trolley and bus systems. However, the San Diego

Highway Development Association (SDHDA) strongly opposed the proposition and argued that

“the proposed diversion of gas tax funds would have stopped or delayed completion of interstate and California Freeway systems, thus impeding our mobility and creating extreme danger for the

178 California Division of Highways, “San Diego Area Transportation Data Base – 1966,” San Diego County Comprehensive Planning Organization, published July 1, 1972, 1. 179 Ibid., 3. 180 Ibid., 4. 181 James E. Reading and Andrew P. Schlaefli, “History of San Diego Highway Development: 70th Anniversary Edition,” San Diego Highway Development Association, last modified January 1, 2007, 43. Moore 69 population in case of bombing attack or natural disaster.” 182 Afterwards, SDHDA stated that it was proud that it helped defeat the proposition and that it was not against mass transit systems if freeway developers were also getting money they need. However, their stance still appeared to be against public transportation as they continued to advocate for the construction of more freeways. Public transportation could have been advocated for without the contingent that freeway developers were receiving money as well.

182 James E. Reading and Andrew P. Schlaefli, “History of San Diego Highway Development: 70th Anniversary Edition,” San Diego Highway Development Association, last modified January 1, 2007, 43. Moore 70

Beginnings of Environmental Justice (1975 – 1997)

Redevelopment and Downtown

In 1975, Mayor Wilson came up with a plan to redevelop downtown San Diego by creating the Centre City Development Corporation, and after a year, the corporation was officially established.183 By 1980, the city’s population grew to 875,538 (County: 1,861,846).184

In 1981, Mayor Wilson helped the Centre City Development Corporation break ground on the

Horton Plaza (a multi-level mall in the downtown areas) retail development project.185 In the following year, Wilson was elected to the U.S. Senate as the first senator from San Diego.186 In

1983, Roger Hedgecock was elected as mayor, but his term was brief as he resigned in 1985 over a campaign fundraising scandal.187 In 1985, Horton Plaza opened, at the cost of $140 million, as the pillar of downtown redevelopment.188 A year later, Maureen O’Connor was elected as San

Diego’s first female and Democratic mayor.189 By 1990, the City of San Diego’s population reached 1,110,549 (County: 2,498,016). Also that year, former mayor Wilson was elected as

Governor of California, making him the first governor from San Diego. In August 1996, San

Diego hosted the Republican National Convention, the first in the city’s history.190 Overall, this is a period of greater visibility for San Diego as it gained more national attention.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the city grew more rapidly than before, especially in the suburbs as single-family developments. Uninhabited mesas and hilltops were leveled so that housing and

183 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1960-1999,” San Diego History Center, accessed March 26, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1960-1999/ 184 Ibid. 185 Ibid. 186 Ibid. 187 Ibid. 188 Ibid. 189 Ibid. 190 Ibid. Moore 71 new subdivisions could be built. These new subdivisions were designed to have a park-like center, the houses were on smaller lots, and designs incorporated shading and solar power. Most canyons and riparian areas were preserved, as the city planners made open space a priority. In addition, they advocated for residents to be able to enjoy their local area through the use of foot and bike paths through preserved open space. In the 1980s, the growth was so overwhelming that the Planning Department was tasked with immediately slowing it down instead of long-term planning. For one, the freeways and roads were becoming extremely congested, notably since subdivisions had been built alongside the freeways for easy access. The location of subdivisions next to a single freeway made it impossible for residents to commute back and forth to work without getting on the freeway, which only worsened the congestion. Overall, Wilson’s redevelopment plan only really worked in the downtown area and failed to slow down growth in the suburbs. There was a lack of overall vision for the city and long-term planning in the 1980s and 1990s in the planning department. One way this problem may have been solved earlier was by increasing the density of established communities, but planners were reluctant to do so and favored building new communities instead. This resulted in urban sprawl when there could have been further resources devoted to making older communities more sustainable and denser to accommodate the growing population.

The Barrio Logan Environmental Health Coalition and Fighting Injustice

The completion of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge in 1969 permanently altered the landscape of Barrio Logan in ways besides bisecting the community. For one, “The bridge… displaced more families and businesses, creating a dramatic visual change to the neighborhood.

The residents were not aware of their rights to protest against the bridge and many felt they had Moore 72 no choice but to leave. Barrio Logan’s population dropped from 20,000 to 5,000 between 1969 and 1979 and many of the older homes and buildings were razed for industrial structures.” 191

After Chicano Park was established in 1970, many Chican@ artists and residents started painting murals about their struggles for justice: “Between 1977 and 1981, many of the murals that were painted depicted how industry and industrial pollution in the neighborhood contributed to the low quality of life in Barrio Logan.” 192 In 1978, The City of San Diego passed the Barrio

Logan Community Plan, which is unfortunately still the community’s most updated plan after an update was denied in 2013 (this is discussed in more detail on pages 87-91). In 1980, the

Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) was founded by local residents (it first operated under the name of the Coalition Against Cancer).193 For the first few years after it was created, the

EHC worked on local issues like cleaning up toxic waste dumps and raising awareness about toxic substances. In the late 1980s, the organization advocated for warning labels on toxics, sponsored a toxics conference in Tijuana, Mexico, and assisted with a “toxic- free neighborhoods” campaign.194 In the 1990s, EHC helped stop a toxic waste incinerator in Tijuana, advocated for Integrated Pest Management (IPM) use in the county, launched an environmental health and justice training course, and fought against nuclear aircraft carriers in the bay.195 Also during this time, some industrial and military facilities started to close, which helped lessen the

191 The City of San Diego, “Barrio Logan Community Plan and Local Coastal Program Draft,” last modified August 3, 2013, https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/planning/community/cpu/barriologan/pdf/barrio_loga n_cpu_full_090313.pdf, 174. 192 Ibid., 175. 193 “Who We Are: History,” Environmental Health Coalition, accessed April 2, 2020, https://www.environmentalhealth.org/index.php/en/who-we-are/history 194 Ibid. 195 Ibid. Moore 73 burden on the community. In 1992, General Dynamics-Convair started to close its local operations.

In the following year, the Navy began planning on closing its Naval Training Base because of the Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990.196 By April 1997, the training center on Point Loma (northwest of downtown San Diego) closed to all active military use. 197

Highway Infrastructure and Public Transportation

In 1978, the California Transportation Commission replaced the older California Road

Commission as the responsible state board on aeronautics, mass transportation, and highways.198

In 1980, the San Diego Trolley was revived as a new light-rail transit system. A year later, the trolley began service from downtown to the Mexican border, and over the next twenty years, new trolley lines were added to better serve the population.199 In 1987, voters approved the

TransNet program, which was a $0.005 (1/2 cent) sales tax that went towards funding transportation projects in San Diego. TransNet was a 20 year, $3.3 billion project that ran until its expiration in 2008. It led to the addition of 227 miles of highway, 800 local road projects, and

85 miles of trolley and commuter rail lines.200 In addition, a percentage of the funds went to building bike paths, pedestrian crossings, and neighborhood safety projects. Some freeways projects near our study areas completed due to TransNet are State Route 54 (I-805 to

196 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1960-1999,” San Diego History Center, accessed April 2, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1960-1999/ 197 Ibid. 198 James E. Reading and Andrew P. Schlaefli, “History of San Diego Highway Development: 70th Anniversary Edition,” San Diego Highway Development Association, last modified January 1, 2007, 29. 199 “Timeline of San Diego History: 1960-1999,” San Diego History Center, accessed April 2, 2020, https://sandiegohistory.org/archives/biographysubject/timeline/1960-1999/ 200 James E. Reading and Andrew P. Schlaefli, “History of San Diego Highway Development: 70th Anniversary Edition,” San Diego Highway Development Association, last modified January 1, 2007, 49. Moore 74

Briarwood), State Route 125 Sweetwater, State Route 125 Fanita, and State Route 54/125 Gap and Connector.201 These two state routes, 54 and 125, make up the southeast and south borders of Southeast San Diego. Furthermore, they became the fifth and sixth highways in Southeast San

Diego, even though they are less traveled than the other freeways in the community.

Nevertheless, any additional freeway or highway built through or around a community naturally degrades the air quality in that area, and so these highways only worsened the preexisting air quality, congestion, and noise pollution problems in the area. In 2004, TransNet would be renewed for 40 years and used to expand the major freeways cutting through Southeast San

Diego.202 These freeways were constructed to ease congestion and make life easier for residents to get around, but it came at the cost of air quality and environmental injustice.

In 1994, the SDHDA started to analyze “the systematic removal of critical linkages from the regional transportation system” and formed the GAPS Committee to understand why certain roads were not developed.203 To do this, the Committee compared the city’s 1962 freeway general plan to the 1994 regional transportation plan, and they found out that “29 freeway facilities or key sections of major roadways [were] deleted.” 204 The committee’s focus was also to understand the impact of roads not being built, raise awareness of the deletions’ effects on air quality and congestion, and improve the regional planning process.205 Afterwards, the GAPS

Committee came up with a multi-step strategy that would address these key transportation facilities’ removal and prevent further interference to the regional transportation system.206 Their

201 James E. Reading and Andrew P. Schlaefli, “History of San Diego Highway Development: 70th Anniversary Edition,” San Diego Highway Development Association, last modified January 1, 2007, 49. 202 Ibid., 50. 203 Ibid., 46. 204 Ibid. 205 Ibid. 206 Ibid., 48. Moore 75 first step was reintroducing the deleted roads whose removal had had, in their judgment, a serious impact. Secondly, the Committee reaffirmed its commitment to the Regional

Transportation Commission and the implementation of its plans. Lastly, they changed the membership of the Regional Transportation Committee to include nonpolitical appointees whose primary interests were protecting and implementing the regional transit plan.

Southeast San Diego and Changing Demographics

As already discussed, by the 1920s, Blacks started to move into Southeastern San Diego where there were less discriminatory housing conditions. World War II helped further attract

Blacks to the community: “As migration from the South and enrollment of Black soldiers in the army continued to draw a larger African American population to the neighborhood, it eventually became the heart of the Black community in San Diego.” 207 Moreover, The Mexican Revolution in the 1910s and 1920s led to Mexican immigrants and their Chican@ children also settling in

Southeastern San Diego. The 1960s was a period of rapid suburbanization, and Southeastern San

Diego – like other older communities – faced negative consequences once richer residents and businesses moved out to other neighborhoods.208 In addition, about one third of the homes in the community were built before 1960, which made it an older housing stock.209 This led to a reinforcing pattern whereby; more low-income people started to move into Southeast San Diego, attracted by the available affordable housing. 210 Over the next few decades, more minority groups moved into Southeast San Diego:

207 Pascale Joassart-Marcelli, Fernando J. Bosco, and Emanuel Delgado. 2014. Southeastern San Diego’s Food Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities. Policy Report. San Diego, CA: Department of Geography, San Diego State University and Project New Village. Available at http://geography.sdsu.edu/research/projects/fep/, 7. 208 Ibid. 209 Ibid. 210 Ibid. Moore 76

For instance, in the 1980s, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development promoted the construction of multi-family housing, attracting a large Filipino community, which had strong ties with the close-by US Navy base. With time, many single-family homes were replaced by apartment complexes, changing the character of the community, which had already been severely affected by the construction of four different freeways dissecting the area. During that period of transition and economic decline, the neighborhood became known for its high level of poverty and criminal activity, including drug and gang related violence. Recently described as a ‘war zone’ by a key local figure, Southeastern San Diego continues to be perceived as one of the most dangerous communities in the region. These negative stereotypes tend to overshadow the positive changes taking place in the neighborhood and discourage investment in the community, reproducing a landscape of despair and neglect illustrated by the concept of ‘food desert’.211

These stereotypes persist today, even though gang violence and crime rates are much lower than in previous decades.

The most recent community plan for Southeastern San Diego and the Encanto neighborhood is from 1987. In 2015, the City of San Diego’s Planning Department finally created a new Southeastern San Diego Community Plan, but it is still being revised. Similarly, the Skyline-Paradise Hills subdivision has not had an update to its community master plan since

211 Pascale Joassart-Marcelli, Fernando J. Bosco, and Emanuel Delgado. 2014. Southeastern San Diego’s Food Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities. Policy Report. San Diego, CA: Department of Geography, San Diego State University and Project New Village. Available at http://geography.sdsu.edu/research/projects/fep/, 7. Moore 77

1987. 212

Figure 11, Southeastern San Diego and Encanto Neighborhoods Map 213

One thing to note here is the definition of Southeast San Diego and how its boundaries in

Figure 10 varies across the government (see Figure 11 above). Southeastern San Diego, the boundary in orange, varies according to who you are talking to or who designed the map. In general, and from the perspective of community members, Southeastern San Diego also encompasses the green area of “Encanto Neighborhoods” and the Skyline-Paradise Hills subdivision further to the East. Overall, the point here is that one subdivision getting an update can also heavily affect people living in a neighboring subdivision. Many people in one subdivision may work, shop, or commute through a neighboring subdivision, so a community plan update (or the lack of one) affects more than just the residents in that subdivision. The lack

212 Eric Henson (Policy Advisor for Councilmember Monica Montgomery, Fourth District), interview by author, San Diego, CA, January 20, 2020. 213 “Southeastern San Diego and Encanto Neighborhoods Community Plan Updates Project, Final Program Environmental Impact Report,” The City of San Diego, last modified October 6, 2015, 125. Moore 78 of community plan updates since the 1980s and 1990s for multiple subdivisions in the greater

Southeast San Diego community is an encompassing problem that has resulted in numerous problems today that will be elaborated on in the following section of this chapter.

Moore 79

Flaws in Earlier Urban Planning: Analyzing the Outcomes (1998 – 2012)

Shipyards, the Military, and Air + Water Pollution in Barrio Logan

Barrio Logan is the site of heavy air and water pollution from the shipyard industry and military. The outdated mixed-use zoning in Barrio Logan from the 1950s has allowed shipyards, the Navy base, and steel companies to be within two blocks of homes, daycares, and schools.

This close proximity has resulted in Barrio Logan residents being overburdened by pollution, shown by an extraordinarily high asthma hospitalization rate unseen anywhere else in San Diego

County.214 In addition to air pollution from the maritime industry, Interstate 5, the largest freeway in San Diego, surrounds Barrio Logan and further adds to air quality issues. Over this time period of the 2000s, the freeway congestion only worsened due to San Diego’s continually rapidly growing population, and this further increased the air pollution burden on Barrio Logan.

San Diego Bay, which the maritime industry is set up along, is severely polluted near Barrio

Logan due to years of stormwater runoff and wastewater entering it.215 As a result, toxic sediment underneath the shipyards has been building up, and so projects were proposed in the

2000s to dispose of the sediment contaminated with heavy metals.216 The waters off Barrio

Logan have tested positive for PCBs, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and lead, and these chemicals

214 Saakib Akbany, “Environmental Racism and Asthma: Looking Past Barrio Logan as A Public Health Case Study,” Intersectional Health Project San Diego, accessed April 8, 2020, https://ihpsd.github.io/stories/environmental_racism_and_asthma.html 215 OECD Council Working Party on Shipbuilding, “Environmental and Climate Change Issues in the Shipbuilding Industry,” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, last modified November 3, 2010, https://www.oecd.org/sti/ind/46370308.pdf, 12. 216 San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, “Final Cleanup and Abatement Completion Report: San Diego Shipyard Sediment Site,” last modified July 14, 2016, https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/sandiego/water_issues/programs/shipyards_sediment/docs/RAP_report/F INAL_CAO_REPORT.pdf, 14. Moore 80 and metals were also found in fish.217 Many Latinx and Filipino people, both from Barrio Logan and nearby areas, fish by the shipyards and are put at risk by eating the contaminated fish.

In 2001, the Navy finally came up with a strategy to tackle the polluted waters off Barrio

Logan and conducted an environmental impact report (EIR) about it in Replacement Pier and

Dredging: Naval Station San Diego, CA. In this EIR, the Navy wrote about how their pier replacement project would affect the air and water quality near Barrio Logan. They concluded that the air quality would be negatively affected, as VOCs, ozone, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter levels would increase.218 Specifically, they concluded that the whole bay would be affected, and that the increase in air pollution would be severe a few miles downwind from the Navy base into Barrio Logan.219 For water quality, the biggest concern was munitions settled on the seafloor. The munitions posed a danger to the dredging project and water quality, as they leach hazardous chemicals like lead azide, nitric esters, and metallic derivatives.220

Overall, this report provided insight on what specific chemicals their projects would release and what their effects would be. It goes to show how severe the water pollution is: the water and sediment is so polluted that cleaning it up poses even more of a risk to residents, even though they are not the ones who created the mess. In either outcome, residents of Barrio Logan are exposed to dangerous pollutants that they did not contribute to the area. The dredging project to remove contaminated sediment was successful and completed in 2014. The shipyards vehemently opposed paying for dredging, but eventually agreed to pay after making an

217 Environmental Health Coalition, “Survey of Fishers on Piers in San Diego Bay: Results and Conclusions,” San Diego Health Archive, last modified March 1, 2005, http://sandiegohealth.org/environment/ehc/pierstudyfinalmarch.30.05.pdf, 10-11. 218 United States Department of the Navy, 2001 Final Environmental Impact Statement: Replacement Pier and Dredging, Naval Station San Diego, California, San Diego: Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest Division, 87. 219 Ibid. 220 Ibid., B-3. Moore 81 agreement with the city.221 Completing dredging was a step in the right direction, but it was not enough on its own.

Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Plan

In 1987, the San Diego City Council approved the latest version of the Skyline-Paradise

Hills Community Plan. The 1987 plan included a set of proposals to guide future development within the area.222 The community planning area is about 4,500 acres large and has about 18,000 dwelling units.223 Moreover, the planning area encompasses six different neighborhoods:

Skyline, Paradise Hills, South Bay Terraces, North Bay Terraces, Lomita, and Jamacha. Most new development in the 1980s and 1990s occurred in the two Bay Terraces neighborhood while the older neighborhoods experienced little to no development. Overall, Skyline-Paradise Hills is comprised of mostly low-density, single-family residential housing.224 In addition, there are a few multifamily housing options scattered around the planning area. There are no large commercial centers in the planning area, so small commercial centers and one strip commercial area provide most services. However, these small centers are “not adequate to meet the demand and need of the population. Residents rely heavily on commercial centers in adjacent communities due to the lack of commercial services.” 225 A few of the main issues brought to attention in the plan are: preserving the low-density, single-family character of the community;

221 Deborah Sullivan Brennan, “Digging up Bay’s Dirty Secrets,” The San Diego Union-Tribune, last modified August 11, 2013. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/sdut-environment- san-diego-bay-pollution-dredging-2013aug11-story.html 222 City of San Diego Planning Department, “Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Plan,” last modified June 30, 1987, https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy//planning/community/profiles/skylineparadisehills/pd f/sphccfv.pdf, 13. 223 Ibid., 11. 224 Ibid. 225 Ibid. Moore 82 the need for housing rehabilitation, including the removal of graffiti and litter; the lack of commercial retail and office facilities; improvement of public transportation; the need for open space; and the need to sustain the long-term economic, environmental, and social health of the

City and the Skyline-Paradise Hills Community.226

Much has stayed the same in the community since this 1987 plan, as there were few developments after the 1990s. As a result, the Skyline-Paradise Hills plan was quite successful in that it fulfilled its goal of keeping the character of the community as single-family housing.

However, several stated goals have yet to be achieved, notably relating to improving public transportation, incorporating sustainable design, and following the City of Villages Strategy. For clarification, the City of Villages Strategy is “to focus growth into mixed-use activity centers that are pedestrian-friendly districts linked to an improved transit system.” 227 These are all goals that have not been successfully met. Perhaps the biggest flaw in the 1987 plan is improving public transportation. In the document, the planners wrote that they wanted to have a transportation system for the area that would allow easy access to commercial centers and the metropolitan area while minimizing adverse environmental effects.228 Specifically, they planned for bikeways, safer pedestrian walkways, and more trolley stops. Unfortunately, only a few of these wonderful ideas were actualized. There are some bus routes that will take residents from the community to the downtown area and other neighborhoods, but they are a much longer ride than with a car.

Moreover, there are few to no bike lines and share-rows, which further discourages people from biking. In addition, several of the sidewalks on major streets are in disrepair, either overgrown by

226 City of San Diego Planning Department, “Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Plan,” last modified June 30, 1987, https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy//planning/community/profiles/skylineparadisehills/pd f/sphccfv.pdf, 17. 227 Ibid., 20. 228 Ibid., 21. Moore 83 bushes, littered with trash, or have potholes. As a result of these factors (compounded by the suburban design of the community), it is extremely necessary that residents have a car to get around as public transit is nearly infeasible or inconvenient.

Another problem in the plan that needs to be updated is the City of Villages Strategy that aimed to make the community more mixed-use and local. For example, the City of Villages

Strategy calls for “opportunities for people to live, work and recreate in the same areas through the integration of mixed residential, commercial and recreational uses” and “more intense commercial and residential development in redevelopment areas, including along transit corridors.” 229 Looking at the community now, it still is mostly single-family homes and residences. There are few places for residents to work within the community, so many residents work either downtown or in other communities farther away. Moreover, there are few if any mixed-use parcels, as most are zoned for either residential or light commercial (see Figure 11).

Since people must commute to work, air pollution is worsened as more people have to take cars instead of public transportation.

229 City of San Diego Planning Department, “Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Plan,” last modified June 30, 1987, https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy//planning/community/profiles/skylineparadisehills/pd f/sphccfv.pdf, 20. Moore 84

Figure 12, Commercial Zones in the Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Plan 230

230 City of San Diego Planning Department, “Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Plan,” last modified June 30, 1987, https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy//planning/community/profiles/skylineparadisehills/pd f/sphccfv.pdf, 43. Moore 85

Southeastern San Diego Community Plan

To clarify, Southeast San Diego means to me what is included in the plan discussed here as well as the Skyline-Paradise Hills plan. In 2015, the San Diego City Council approved the latest version of the Southeastern Neighborhoods Community Plan. Before this, the most recent version of the community plan was from 1987. The community plan lays out a set of proposals to guide future growth and development within the area.231 The Southeastern planning area is about

3,051 acres large and has about 15,000 dwelling units.232 Moreover, the planning area covers eight different neighborhoods: Sherman Heights, Grant Hill, Stockton, Mt. Hope, Logan Heights,

Mountain View, Southcrest, and Shelltown. Compared to the Skyline-Paradise Hills planning area discussed above, the Southeastern Neighborhoods planning area is much older, as most houses were built before the 1960s. Overall, Southeastern San Diego is a mix of single-family and multifamily residential housing, commercial space, industrial and utilities space, and community facilities (see Figure 12).233 Some of the key goals in the 2015 plan are: making a pedestrian-oriented community; a compatible mix of land uses that promote a healthy environment; affordable rental and market rate housing; special districts and villages to address the unique commercial needs of the community; employment and increased opportunities through education.234

The Southeastern San Diego Community Plan, overall, should serve as a model for other neighboring communities’ plan updates (for whenever the Planning Department may get to updating them). Unlike the Skyline-Paradise Hills plan, the community is actually zoned more

231 City of San Diego Planning Department, “Southeastern San Diego Community Plan,” last modified October 22, 2015, https://www.sandiego.gov/planning/community/profiles/southeasternsd/plan, 12. 232 Ibid., 42. 233 Ibid. 234 Ibid., 30. Moore 86 for mixed-use and commercial, in addition to having more public transit. As a result, it is easier for residents to get around as there are more trolley stops and bus lines for residents to use. In addition, there is a plentiful amount of small businesses and commercial activity that allows residents to shop closer to their home, instead of having to drive to neighboring communities.

Figure 13, Areas of Change, Master Plan Areas, and Village Boundaries 235

235 City of San Diego Planning Department, “Southeastern San Diego Community Plan,” last modified October 22, 2015, https://www.sandiego.gov/planning/community/profiles/southeasternsd/plan, 43. Moore 87

Moreover, an important part of this community plan is that it discusses environmental justice and how it is incorporated into the community plan. For example, the Planning

Department acknowledges that:

Compared to the City as a whole, Southeastern San Diego is a relatively lower-income community with a racially and ethnically diverse population. In some areas, communities with these attributes also feature a concentration of contaminated sites or industrial uses that pose health risks to residents. In Southeastern San Diego, this condition is most notable along the Commercial Street corridor, where recycling facilities and industrial uses are located in close proximity to homes. Industrial and auto uses can have negative impacts on workers, residents, children, and other sensitive receptors due to loud noises from machinery, unappealing facades and open industrial yards, and potential hazardous emissions. When the land uses and operations of light industrial and commercial activities are adjacent to residential land uses, there is the potential for negative impacts for the community (collocation). The Plan addresses compatibility between industrial and residential uses through a number of policies and measures, including noise mitigation (i.e. controlling noise at the source), screening operations with shrubs or well-designed walls, as well as enforcement of the City’s existing codes (e.g. containing operations within structures).236

In sum, it is interesting how the City of San Diego is now openly acknowledging environmental justice issues in this report about this marginalized community. However, they still fail to address the most important environmental injustice Southeastern San Diego faces: air pollution from freeways and emissions from the shipyards. Instead of these big topics, they focus on blaming light industrial (admittedly still part of the problem. To me, it really seems like this could have been a more progressive opportunity for the Planning Department to take up and

236 City of San Diego Planning Department, “Southeastern San Diego Community Plan,” last modified October 22, 2015, https://www.sandiego.gov/planning/community/profiles/southeasternsd/plan, 55. Moore 88 address environmental justice concerns, but instead the plan avoids naming the key culprits of these pollution problems. This goes to show how politicized the topics of pollution and environmental justice are in San Diego if the Navy and shipyards cannot be named.

Moore 89

Analyzing Gentrification and Why the Barrio Logan Update Failed (2012 - today)

Gentrification

In recent years, gentrification has become a bigger concern especially for the community of Barrio Logan. As housing prices rise and communities of color become more attractive to the middle and upper classes, communities now must worry more about gentrification. One gentrification story that went viral in 2017 occurred in Barrio Logan. In October 2017, Jenny

Niezgoda, a white travel blogger, tried to open a “modern frutería” in Barrio Logan and asked for donations to help start up her fruit business. However, her case went viral as a prime example of gentrification, as her business would hinder existing small fruit businesses. Stacy Marquez of

San Diego State University’s paper, The Daily Aztec, wrote in response that “one of the main issues with people like Niezgoda coming to communities like Barrio Logan for business is that she is pushing out the opportunities for community members to create their own businesses. She is seeking profit and expecting the community to pay her for their culture. Some feel that people like her opening businesses in barrios are making it hard for Chicanos to financially prosper.” 237

Moreover, Marquez discusses how Barrio Logan residents were angry because many of them sell fruit on the street and get in trouble for doing so. In addition, they point out how a blogger not even from the community can quickly get funds, but a hardworking family from the Barrio struggles to keep themselves in business. Lastly, Marquez notes how quickly the Barrio Logan came together to stop the gentrification and that gentrification remains a problem in communities of color. However, the story of stopping Niezgoda’s business is only one part of a long history of

237 Stacy Marquez, “Barrio Logan Residents Were Right to Fight Attempted Gentrification,” The Daily Aztec, last modified November 29, 2017, https://thedailyaztec.com/86458/opinion/barrio-logan-residents- were-right-to-fight-attempted-gentrification/ Moore 90 gentrification in Barrio Logan. Last December, La Bodega Gallery and Studios announced they were going to close this year due to gentrification and unaffordable rent prices.238

Another problem Barrio Logan is facing is “gentefication”: a term used in a Master’s thesis by Emanuel Eduardo Delgado of SDSU.239 Delgado’s thesis, “Unintended Consequences of ‘Gentefication’ in Barrio Logan?” explores the term gentefication, which is defined as “a play on la gente (‘the people’ in Spanish) and suggests a grassroots, Spanish-speaking redevelopment of the community.” Delgado argues that redevelopment of Barrio Logan through gentefication has actually worsened gentrification: “While gentefiers may aim to maintain and protect the cultural expression of the community, this higher classed influx of new residents continues the process of displacement so often found in gentrification. By aestheticizing the neighborhood, which attracts higher classes, artists and so-called ‘creatives,’ the cost of living rises in the neighborhood.” 240 This has been intensified over this last decade as Barrio Logan underwent redevelopment of businesses on its main street. In addition, many artists have been making the neighborhood more attractive to middle- and upper-class people while severing a connection to the community. 241 Delgado concludes the dissertation by arguing that while Barrio Logan has needed economic development, it has come at the cost of gentrification and gentefication of the community’s culture.242

238 Mark Saunders, “Gallery Says Gentrification Is Forcing Them out of Barrio Logan,” ABC 10 News San Diego, last modified December 3, 2019, https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego- news/gallery-says-gentrification-is-forcing-them-out-of-barrio-logan 239 Emanuel Eduardo Delgado, “Unintended Consequences of ‘Gentefication’ in Barrio Logan?,” (Master’s thesis, San Diego State University, 2017) 240 Ibid., 6. 241 Ibid., 17. 242 Ibid., 144. Moore 91

Analysis of the Failed Barrio Logan Community Plan Update and Next Steps

As discusses earlier in this chapter, in the 1950s, the City of San Diego changed Barrio

Logan’s zoning from residential to mixed-use to allow junkyards to move in and for the shipyards to grow.243 As a result, heavy industry became located extremely close to residences.

However, Barrio Logan residents have not been silent about this issue. Organizations like the

Environmental Health Coalition, Intersectional Health Project San Diego, and Barrio Logan

Community Planning Group have been fighting for stricter regulations on industry and rezoning of Barrio Logan. The issue of rezoning was put on the ballot in 2014, and unfortunately, voters in the City of San Diego rejected it.244 Rezoning would have created a two-block buffer between residences and industry to better protect residents’ health. The measure was largely shut down by

Naval officials who argued that it would hurt the shipbuilding industry and the military. Below,

Delgado perfectly sums up what events happened before the rezoning was put on the ballot:

The most recent fight over zoning in Barrio Logan was hi-jacked from its community planning process to a referendum for the entire city of San Diego to vote. The community’s plan has not been updated since 1978, which consists of mixed land zoning that allowed industries to be sited in residential neighborhoods. Siting industry businesses within the barrio has increased pollution, which negatively affected the people in the community. Because of this disproportionate exposure to pollution, Councilman David Alvarez funded a planning group made up of residents, businesses, and industrial representatives. After five years of planning and organizing meetings, the group drew up a plan that would appease all the entities involved. The main contention was over a development of a commercial 2-block wide buffer zone that would separate residential zoning from industrial zoning. This compromise was agreed upon by the entire group and

243 Kathleen Robles and Richard Griswold del Castillo, “Chicago Park, Barrio Logan, San Diego: The Takeover of Chicano Park,” The History of Chicano Park, accessed December 12, 2018, http://www.chicanoparksandiego.com/history/page1.html 244 Jill Replogle and Tom Fudge, “San Diego Voters Reject Barrio Logan Community Plan,” KPBS News, last modified June 6, 2014, https://www.kpbs.org/news/2014/jun/03/council-plan-barrio-logan- losing-early-returns/. Moore 92

was passed by the City Council in the fall of 2013.245

However, the new community plan would not last much longer even though it was passed by the

City Council. After it passed, the shipyard industry (NASSCO, Continental Maritime of San

Diego, and BAE Systems) and the Navy came together to stop the plan by spending over $1 million on propaganda for a referendum.246 To do this, the shipyards hired “Southwest Strategies, a public affairs and communication firm, to build a referendum campaign to reverse the approval of the Barrio Logan Community Plan Update. They falsely claimed that 44,000 jobs would be lost; that the Navy would leave San Diego, and that hotel corporations would begin encroaching on the industrial zone.” 247 Eventually in the June 2014 primary, city voters decided against the community plan with a 55% majority.248 Furthermore, Delgado writes that democracy was manipulated by the shipyard industry as they characterized Barrio Logan residents as anti- economic development. As a result, even today, Barrio Logan’s most recent community plan is still the one from 1978.

So, questions now remain about what should be done in the future for Barrio Logan and what parties are responsible for this failed community plan update. Undoubtedly, the most influential stakeholders in this conversation are the Navy and shipyard industry. Specifically, the two shipyard companies involved are NASSCO (National Steel and Shipbuilding Company) and

BAE Systems. These companies and the Navy argue that they need to keep the current zoning so they can expand and stay in San Diego. The Navy has even stated that they would consider leaving San Diego if the zoning changes, which is a major threat considering the economic

245 Delgado, “Unintended Consequences of ‘Gentefication’ in Barrio Logan?,” 124. 246 Ibid., 125. 247 Ibid. 248 Ibid. Moore 93 impact the Navy has on San Diego.249 However, Barrio Logan residents are the ones whose lives are at stake. They are the ones whose health will be directly impacted by any zoning changes (or lack thereof) and ongoing pollution. According to the California EPA, Barrio Logan has an asthma hospitalization rate higher than 92.9% of CA cities.250 If anyone is bearing the costs of the failed 2014 community plan, it is the residents of Barrio Logan. Another group of stakeholders involved in the failure of the plan are San Diegans. We may not live directly in

Barrio Logan, but we are the ones who voted against the rezoning plans by listening to industry, which only served to perpetuate the environmental injustice the community faces. Ultimately, the future of Barrio Logan may rest in our hands if the community plan is put on the ballot again. In addition, the Environmental Health Coalition and Intersectional Health Project San Diego are stakeholders fighting for Barrio Logan by petitioning local government to act. Lastly, the current children and future generations of Barrio Logan have perhaps the highest stake in a future community plan because their bodies will be burdened by the inescapable pollution.

Specifically, residents of Barrio Logan and their (future) children will be, and are, exposed to freeway pollution, chemical exhaust from the shipyards, and heavy vehicle traffic on their streets.251 The pollutants coming from freeway and street traffic include black carbon, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter, which are all known carcinogens and linked to

249 Jill Replogle and Tom Fudge, “San Diego Voters Reject Barrio Logan Community Plan,” KPBS News, last modified June 6, 2014, https://www.kpbs.org/news/2014/jun/03/council-plan-barrio-logan- losing-early-returns/. 250 Saakib Akbany, “Environmental Racism and Asthma: Looking Past Barrio Logan as A Public Health Case Study,” Intersectional Health Project San Diego, accessed April 8, 2020, https://ihpsd.github.io/stories/environmental_racism_and_asthma.html 251 Inewsource Staff, “Light Winds Don't Help Air Quality in Barrio Logan,” Inewsource, last modified May 27, 2015, https://inewsource.org/2015/05/27/light-winds-dont-help-air-quality-in-barrio-logan/ and Ibid.

Moore 94 asthma.252 Data from the San Diego Air Pollution Control District shows that NASSCO, the second largest polluter in the county, emits tons of harmful pollutants and air contaminants yearly. For example, NASSCO’s highest yearly emissions are 33,642 lbs. of Xylenes, 38,306 lbs. of Butanol, 15,457 lbs. of Trimethylbenzene, 25,058 lbs. of Ethylbenzene, and 1,278 lbs. of

Propylene Glycol Methyl Ether. 253 These chemicals are solvents, paint thinners, sterilizers, anti- knock agents, and paint strippers. So, these chemicals and many others are being released in high quantity into the air of Barrio Logan. Likewise, the water and sediment in San Diego Bay is found to contain PCBs, copper, mercury, silver, zinc, and aromatic hydrocarbons.254 This is concerning because many fishers will unknowingly eat fish containing these chemicals that will then bioaccumulate in their bodies. A new community plan might not be able to stop all this pollution, as most of it is inevitable with the shipyard industry, but a buffer between homes and industry will help reduce exposure while preventing industry from expanding.

252 Inewsource Staff, “Light Winds Don't Help Air Quality in Barrio Logan,” Inewsource, last modified May 27, 2015, https://inewsource.org/2015/05/27/light-winds-dont-help-air-quality-in-barrio-logan/ 253 San Diego Air Pollution Control District, “Source Emissions: 2014 Criteria Emissions Inventory Report,” Facility Emissions: Air Pollution Control District, last modified August 17, 2016, https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/dam/sdc/apcd/PDF/Misc/APCD_Emissions_Inventory_Report_ 2014.pdf, 1-2. 254 San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, “Final Cleanup and Abatement Completion Report: San Diego Shipyard Sediment Site -South Shipyard,” last modified June 1, 2014, https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/sandiego/water_issues/programs/shipyards_sediment/docs/Final_Cleanu p_and_Abatement_Completion_Report_San_Diego_Shipyard_Sediment_Site_-_South_Shipyard.pdf Moore 95

Figure 14, Barrio Logan Neighborhood Areas 255

Freeway Expansion Projects

Recently there have been multiple freeway expansion projects by San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) and Caltrans to help with population growth and ease freeway congestion. For example, in May 2017, those two government agencies started work on the I-805

South Express Lanes Project (see Figure 14). As they explain it, this project is “an integral part of a modern, new transportation backbone that will meet the future needs of travelers in our region. Since the I-805 opened in 1975, vehicle trips on the freeway have increased by 300

255 The City of San Diego, “Barrio Logan Community Plan and Local Coastal Program Draft,” last modified August 3, 2013, https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/planning/community/cpu/barriologan/pdf/barrio_loga n_cpu_full_090313.pdf, 25. Moore 96 percent. Improvements to I-805 will help accommodate the projected population and employment growth in the region by connecting employment and activity centers including offices, retail stores, recreational facilities, communities and schools.” 256 Moreover, they promise that this project will add carpool lanes, improve traffic flow, and alleviate congestion.

Figure 15, I-805 Express Lanes Project 257

256 “Interstate 805 Corridor: I-805 South Express Lanes Project,” Keep San Diego Moving TransNet, accessed April 20, 2020, https://www.keepsandiegomoving.com/I-805-Corridor/I-805-south- segment.aspx. 257 Ibid. Moore 97

Even though adding carpool lanes and easing congestion are great improvements for the freeway, this project is not solving the underlying causes of congestion and why people must commute far to work every day: urban sprawl and lack of public transportation. This freeway and others on the map cut through overburdened communities of color, only adding to air pollution problems. Merely adding lanes to an already congested freeway is a temporary band aid on a larger problem. There is very limited public transportation in these communities, as there are only select bus routes servicing communities in the South Bay and Southeast San Diego. In addition, there are a limited amount of trolley stops in these neighborhoods, and most are far away from where residents live. As a result, people are forced into using cars to get to work, which in turn worsens congestion and air quality (as these freeways all border Barrio Logan and

Southeast San Diego). Moreover, all this roadway construction only adds to air and noise pollution as many homes are bordering the freeway as well.

Moore 98

Chapter 3: Policy Recommendations

Before diving into specific policy recommendations, it is important to once again trace back what has shaped the development of Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego. In the first time period of 1542 to 1890, I discussed how the Kumeyaay tribe called San Diego home and were removed off their land when the Spanish colonizers arrived. Once the Spanish arrived, they built missions in San Diego and enslaved the Kumeyaay, who did rebel numerous times, until

Mexico beat the Spanish in 1821. After this, San Diego became Mexican territory until the

Mexican-American War, and then finally shifted into American territory. The period of 1891 to

1937 was largely devoted to the building of modern San Diego and the military. World War I finalized the military’s pick of San Diego as its Pacific Fleet hub, which later led to the construction of shipyards and the aerospace industry as well. In addition, there was an influx of immigrants from Mexico to the United States and especially to San Diego for agricultural and industrial work. Moreover, people of color started to move into the outskirts of the city and

Southeast San Diego in reaction to white flight. From 1938 to 1960, this period was marked most by further urban planning of the city, the change of Barrio Logan’s zoning, and expansion of the military during World War II. In addition, the Bracero program allowed for further immigration of Mexicans to California for agricultural work. Moreover, freeways started getting built as cars became more numerous in San Diego, but they caused problems as they cut through Southeast

San Diego.

The next period of 1961 to 1974 was full of suburban growth and reflection back upon the earlier urban planning of the city. At this time, the city’s population was growing very quickly, and the mayor hired a team of urban planners to come up with a plan to tackle urban Moore 99 sprawl in the future. In addition, this period was full of environmental injustice for Barrio Logan as the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge was built through the community and the shipyards started to expand. Furthermore, people of color in San Diego faced institutional problems like segregation and redlining in earlier years, which finally started to decline over this period. As a result of redlining, many people of color moved to Southeast San Diego where rent was affordable and there was not discriminatory lending. From 1975 to 1997, the bigger theme was the beginnings of environmental justice as Barrio Logan’s Environmental Health Coalition was formed and started to fight for a cleaner environment. Also, in 1978, the Barrio Logan

Community Plan was passed by the city council and remains to this day the most recent version of their community plan. This time period was key too for highway infrastructure, which was being built quickly to keep up with the state’s growth.

In the period of 1998 to 2012, pollution is starting to get more focus in Barrio Logan as residents and scientists realize the extent of the water and air pollution. To address that, the Navy dredged the sediment near the shipyards to help reduce the water pollution while the EHC fought to improve the air quality and health of residents. The last time period of 2012 to today focuses on several issues like gentrification in Barrio Logan, why the Barrio Logan community plan update failed, and the current pollution levels. Moreover, the Barrio Logan community plan update largely failed due to inaccurate propaganda from the military and shipyards, which convinced San Diegans to revert the City Council’s decision. Moreover, this period covers the effect of freeway expansion projects and some efforts to ease future congestion to improve public health.

In Chapter 2 I traced back the histories of these two communities and analyzed key events, I now present recommendations for what should happen in the future to redress these Moore 100 environmental injustices. These are organized with those recommendations applicable to both neighborhoods addressed first, and next I focus on recommendations specific to the neighborhoods of Barrio-Logan and to Southeast San Diego.

Overall

List of Overall Recommendations

1. Have Less Freeway Construction Projects 2. Include Facets of New Urbanism Principles in Future Planning 3. Form a Coalition Between Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego Environmental Groups 4. Further Publicize Grassroots Organizations in Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego 5. Update the Barrio Logan Community Plan 6. Lessen the Political Connections Between Politicians, the Military, and the Shipyards 7. Create Tighter Air Emissions Standards 8. Update the Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Plan 9. Increase and Improve Public Transportation Routes Through Southeast San Diego 10. Stronger Communication Between the Planning Department and Community Members

Recommendation #1: Have Less Freeway Construction Projects

One major recommendation I have is for there to be less freeway construction projects.

With more congestion on the freeways than before and an increasing population, one might think that widening freeways and creating more is the best way to address these transportation problems. Even though widening freeways might help the traffic flow quicker during rush hour, it is not addressing the root of the problem. Rather, these construction projects are a temporary solution to the larger problem of the lack of public transportation and urban sprawl. Moreover, these large construction projects are done over the span of years where they worsen traffic when Moore 101 they are ongoing, further contributing to air pollution. When they are complete, then they may falsely encourage more people to hit the freeway. In addition, they make the freeway even closer to homes that border it, create noise pollution, and can even require homes to be torn down. I am not against freeways as a concept, as they can increase mobility and make travel much quicker.

What I am against is freeways cutting through marginalized communities, the air pollution they bring if congested, and infringing on homes. Until most cars in the U.S. run on electricity or water, there will always be harmful pollutants coming from freeways that are contributing to chronic conditions for neighboring communities. Therefore, freeway construction projects should be seriously limited by transportation authorities to better protect residents’ health alongside improving public transportation and green vehicles.

Recommendation #2: Include Facets of New Urbanism Principles in Future Planning

Even though there are academic critiques of New Urbanism that I agree with, in this case, some ideas of the movement would seriously help these communities moving forward.258 For example, making the communities more walkable and having commercial services would reduce the amount of driving people have to do and make it easier for people to access stores they need.259 Furthermore, increasing the number of commercial businesses, especially for Southeast

San Diego, would help limit the amount of driving people have to do. Right now, there are a minimal number of stores and grocery stores in the area, so residents must go to other subdivisions to do their shopping. Another facet of New Urbanism that could be implemented is increased density: “Within neighborhoods, a broad range of housing types and price levels can

258 Nina Veregge. “Traditional Environments and the New Urbanism: A Regional and Historical Critique,” Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 8, no. 2 (1997): 49-62. 259 “Charter of the New Urbanism.” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 20, no. 4 (2000): 339-41. Moore 102 bring people of diverse ages, races, and incomes into daily interaction, strengthening the personal and civic bonds essential to an authentic community.” 260 Overwhelmingly most housing in these two communities is single-family housing, and more affordable multi-family units could be built to help the housing crisis while promoting a more walkable environment. I am not advocating here for numerous single-family homes to be torn down, as they do add to the character of the neighborhood. Rather, I learned from an interview with a staff member of the city councilmember’s office that our district has the most empty lots of all San Diego.261 So, there is ample potential for these empty lots to be used for commercial buildings or multi-family affordable housing. Therefore, the character of the single-family house neighborhood can be retained while also making room for new families to live in these apartment complexes.

New Urbanism also suggests that there should be less freeway usage as walking, biking, and other sustainable transportation methods are encouraged: “The physical organization of the region should be supported by a framework of transportation alternatives. Transit, pedestrian, and bicycle systems should maximize access and mobility throughout the region while reducing dependence upon the automobile.” 262 Even though freeways are efficient for getting around, they worsen air pollution as they become more congested. If public transportation is improved, there should be less usage of freeways and better air quality overall (unless, of course, we all rely on electric cars in the future).

260 “Charter of the New Urbanism.” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 20, no. 4 (2000): 340. 261 Eric Henson (Policy Advisor for Councilmember Monica Montgomery, Fourth District), interview by author, San Diego, CA, January 20, 2020. 262 “Charter of the New Urbanism." Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 20, no. 4 (2000): 340. Moore 103

Recommendation #3: Form a Coalition Between Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego

Environmental Groups

Another recommendation I suggest is a coalition between Barrio Logan and Southeast

San Diego. Right now, the San Diego Promise Zone is a federal link between the two, but it is worth noting that the Zone does not fully encompass all Southeast San Diego. I foresee that an environmental coalition could come together between the two communities, as they do face similar issues like air pollution. The Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) in Barrio Logan already does fantastic work that could be extrapolated to Southeast San Diego as well. Together, a new coalition between the two communities could help bridge a gap and redress many of these environmental issues brought up earlier. There are several community groups in Southeast San

Diego working on urban agriculture, landscaping, and food security that could work alongside the EHC in Barrio Logan. For example, there is Project New Village that works on urban agriculture/food security and the Paradise Hills Foundations that deals with beautification and urban gardening. In addition, the issues of gentrification/gentefication, urban sprawl, walkability, and revitalization could be worked out among the two communities as they face the same problems in these topics as well. Without a doubt, there should be some kind of inter-community environmental groups that represents these two marginalized communities and fights for their health. Some topics it could address are air pollution, improved public transportation, food deserts, and rezoning.

Moore 104

Recommendation #4: Further Publicize Grassroots Organizations in Barrio Logan and

Southeast San Diego

To add to my previous recommendation, local environmental groups also need to be publicized further in the media and online. There are several active local environmental groups that I did not know about beforehand and learned about during my research. To name a few, I have learned more about Project New Village, the Paradise Hills Foundation, Paradise Mulchers,

Clean San Diego, I am My Brother’s Keeper Mosque, Groundworks San Diego, and the Good

Food District that work on projects ranging from river restoration to urban agriculture to renewable energy to mulching the landscape. A lot of their work could be spread to other communities like Barrio Logan and the greater San Diego area. I recommend that a database or website be created online that lists these smaller environmental groups in Southeast San Diego for people to easily find. This could help them find more volunteers and financial support while also serving as a model for people trying to start their own environmental organization. It may be hard for them to find resources to publicize themselves, so I propose that the City of San Diego help hold a database online that is easy to access and can be frequently updated as more groups are founded.

Moore 105

Recommendations Specifically for Barrio Logan

Recommendation #5: Update the Barrio Logan Community Plan

The biggest recommendation I have is to immediately update the Barrio Logan community plan that have not been updated since the 1970s. Between the 1970s and now, much has changed that requires a new community plan to help better serve Barrio Logan. The Barrio

Logan community plan should be brought back up again to the City Council once it is further revised. The two-block buffer between industry and residences is perhaps the best, and most feasible, way of protecting residents’ health. The plan that I recommend being revisited is the

2014 plan that was rejected by voters. To me, that plan is satisfactory because it addresses many of the residents’ concerns and was the product of extensive community consultations alongside community members. For the plan itself, I have no further recommendations for amendments to it, and I believe it should be passed as is. Some sections may need updating as a few buildings have been changed over the past five years, but overall, it is an excellent community plan.

Recommendation #6: Lessen the Political Connections Between Politicians, the Military, and the

Shipyards

Hopefully, the next time the Barrio Logan plan is up for debate, it will not be the subject of false propaganda from the military and shipyards. In order to do this, there should be less military influence upon politicians and voters as that was the ultimate factor that ended up further putting Barrio Logan residents in harm’s way. Unfortunately, this is a harder recommendation than some of the others to implement due to the military’s strong grip on politicians and voters. Since San Diego is a military town, many voters do work for the military, or are veterans, and thus strongly support their stance. Therefore, this only serves to complicate Moore 106 how to pass the Barrio Logan community plan and makes it harder to limit their political influence. One way to try limiting their influence is to make politics more transparent and tracing where the city councilmember’s campaign finance dollars are coming from, or if they have military ties. In addition, Barrio Logan groups could try to sue the shipyards and the Navy once again if they publicize false and slandering information to limit their authority. Overall, this may be the hardest recommendation to implement as it is hard to limit a politicians and voters ties to an entity. But if Barrio Logan is to pass the plan update, the shipyards and Navy’s political power will need to be somewhat weakened.

Recommendation #7: Create Tighter Air Emission Standards

In addition, San Diego’s air quality board should impose tighter restrictions on emissions coming from the shipyards and military activities in Barrio Logan. Right now, Barrio Logan is the most polluted community in the county, and its residents are overburdened by pollution all around them. Putting tighter regulations on industry will force them to use cleaner technology or be more mindful of how they are working without incurring too much of an economic impact. It seems nearly impossible that the shipyards and military will leave Barrio Logan anytime soon, so the best option is to try and work with them on lowering their emissions. The problem of mixed- use zoning from the 1950s can be somewhat resolved if a buffer is put in place in the next community plan update, but this will still not stop all pollution in the air. Harsher air pollution laws where industry pays heftier fines could help economically incentive the Navy and shipyards to pollute less. If air pollution is reduced through tighter air emission standards, it would greatly help protect the health of residents and even the shipyard workers themselves.

Moore 107

Recommendations Specifically for Southeast San Diego

Recommendation #8: Update the Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Plan

For Southeast San Diego, like Barrio Logan, one of the biggest concerns is the lack of an updated community plan since 1987. Even though Encanto has a more updated community plan from a few years ago, other subdivisions do not. An updated community plan is needed to help better serve all parts of this larger community and to plan further into the future. For specific updates to the plan, I suggest implementing some of the New Urbanism principles I outlined a few pages back, like walkable neighborhoods, more multi-family affordable housing, more commercial centers, and bike paths.

One grievance I have with the city’s planning department is why certain communities have more updated community plans and others do not. For example, North Park recently received a community plan update in 2016, Mission Valley in 2019, Kearny Mesa this year, and multiple other communities have their in the works.263 It really appears like the planning department is devoting more resources to wealthier communities while the more marginalized communities are still waiting decades for theirs.

Recommendation #9: Increase and Improve Public Transportation Routes Through Southeast

San Diego

In addition, more buses and trolleys are needed to help people reach their destination quicker. The nearest trolley stop is quite a far drive even from the Skyline-Paradise Hills community, so building more public transportation lines in a north-south direction would help reach more residents who rely on public transportation. Specifically, the Encanto trolley station

263 “North Park Current Community Plan,” The City of San Diego Planning Department, last modified October 25, 2016, https://www.sandiego.gov/planning/community/profiles/greaternorthpark/plan. Moore 108 is the nearest to my neighborhood at about 4 miles away. If one were to drive there from the

South Bay Terraces, it takes about 10 miles, and for bus transit, Google Maps estimate anywhere from 30 mins to 1 hour. Likewise, to get to the Encanto trolley from the Paradise Hills Post

Office, it is a 10-minute drive or 40 minutes to 1-hour bus ride. Therefore, anyone living in the southern end of these communities will have to spend half an hour just getting from their home to the trolley station, which then can hopefully take them to their destination. Another situation that exemplifies the need for more public transportation is getting to the airport. Currently, San

Diego’s airport is not serviced by a trolley line, so people must drive or take a bus to reach it.

According to Google Maps, it would take me an hour and 40 minutes to get from my residence to the airport via bus. This routing includes me walking 15 minutes (0.7 miles) to the bus stop, taking the Route 12 bus to the downtown community college, walking a few minutes again to the next stop, and then taking the Route 992 bus to the airport for 20 minutes. After all this, it would take me about 2 hours (considering the bus typically runs late) to reach the airport. In contrast, it is about a 15-20-minute drive for me to reach the airport, which is about 15 miles away.

About two years ago, I worked at the airport as a Transportation Security Administration

(TSA) intern/summer job, and my hours were in the early morning, typically from 5 am to 10 am. The earliest bus route to downtown from my residence leaves at 4:29 am (Monday to Friday schedule) and would get me downtown by 5:10 am.264 Even by that time alone, let alone connecting to the airport bus, I would have been late for work. So, for other airport workers and workers with pre-dawn starts, taking public transportation is infeasible. Therefore, taking a car to work is the only option that will let people arrive on time, in addition to being the fastest mode of transportation.

264 “Schedules and Real Time – Route 12,” Metropolitan Transit System (MTS), last modified April 12, 2020, https://www.sdmts.com/sites/all/themes/mts/templates/sdg/pdf/12.pdf. Moore 109

As a result, Southeast San Diego would greatly benefit from increased public transportation. As Catherine Van Weele of SDSU’S Daily Aztec puts it, “

Buses and trolleys are scheduled to run every 15 minutes and have a tendency to run late. Many of the stops and stations are located far away from one another in isolated, inconvenient areas. There isn’t even a trolley that takes you directly to the airport or any of the beaches, some of San Diego’s major attractions. It is an inefficient system, especially when a car can take you almost anywhere in the city from SDSU within 15 to 20 minutes. Less than 4% of San Diegans take public transportation to commute to work compared to the more than three-fourths of people who get to work by car. While a car offers the luxury of privacy and convenience, it is time for local government and the general public to rethink transportation as the population grows and climate change intensifies. An efficient public transportation system would benefit the economy, the community and the individual. 265

More public transportation is needed to help not only increase the mobility of these underserved communities, but also the whole city and county. I recognize that there are several bus routes throughout these communities, but there are far fewer trolley routes. San Diego is a very car-centric city, and with many subdivisions away from the trolley, residents are forced to get in their car to get to work and school. Traveling by car on the freeways is no doubt the fastest way to get around the city, so that convinces many residents (who can afford it) to use a car instead of the bus. In addition, there should be more bus routes that go between neighborhoods and not just into commercial hubs/colleges/transit centers. MTS should focus more on long-term planning by adding more bus routes and trolley lines to better connect communities, reduce air pollution, and make it quicker for San Diegans to get around. There is a serious lack of north- south bus routes in Southeast San Diego and more generally the South Bay (communities all south of downtown). For example, there are only three direct bus routes and one trolley line from the South Bay to anything north of downtown. Moreover, if I wanted to go to Bonita from my

265 Catherine Van Weele, “San Diego Needs Better Public Transit,” The Daily Aztec, last modified August 26, 2019, https://thedailyaztec.com/95026/opinion/san-diego-needs-better-public-transit/ Moore 110 residence via public transportation, it is at least an hour and a half + bus ride when it would have been a 10-minute drive to go 4 miles. The two figures below testify to how few routes there are that go north of the Orange Line for communities south of it. In addition, they show the lack of north-south routes in Southeast San Diego.

Figure 16, Public Transportation Routes in San Diego 266

266 “Regional Map: Southern Area Map and Downtown San Diego Inset,” Metropolitan Transit System (MTS), last modified September 1, 2019, https://www.sdmts.com/schedules-real-time/maps-and-routes. Moore 111

Figure 17, Public Transportation Routes in San Diego 267

Recommendation #10: Stronger Communication Between the Planning Department and

Community Members

In addition, there needs to be greater communication between the planning department and community members. In the meetings I attended and among people I spoke to, I heard frequently that the planning department have shied away from attending community meetings and engaging in interactions with the people they are planning for. This disconnect can further hinder community involvement in the decision-making process if residents feel left out or that their voices were not heard. Having the planners come out more to community meetings in

267 “Regional Map: Southern Area Map and Downtown San Diego Inset,” Metropolitan Transit System (MTS), last modified September 1, 2019, https://www.sdmts.com/schedules-real-time/maps-and-routes. Moore 112

Southeast San Diego’s subdivisions could help them better serve the community and make a more just final draft in the future. A more transparent planning process will only help both the city’s planning department and community members. While increased community consultations may at first be understood to add more time and effort to the process, it may in fact streamline the process by harnessing input from residents that may otherwise need to be gathered through more expensive or labor intensive means. In addition, residents will feel more empowered and that they can speak more to local government officials who will listen to their thoughts. A good starting point for a better relationship is the planner coming to the official community planning meetings where they can answer questions and speak for the department to build a relationship over time.

Moore 113

Chapter 4: Conclusion

Raymond R. Beltrán

From Imperial, Up Euclid

Give me the streets, the concrete streets

any day. I’ve paid high prices to be in touch,

in touch with curls, black curls and

brown heads gleaming at the rising sun,

gleaming through housing projects in The Dip.

Black-fisted murals, black eagles encircled in red flags,

give me the streets, the poor contrast,

colorless streets, where green outshines the gloom.

The green of bling bling, big bodies

Rollin on twenty inch chrome blades, making

that hustle through Little Africa.268

Beltrán’s poem is one of many in the larger literature collection of Sunshine/Noir II:

Writings from San Diego and Tijuana. Just in these two stanzas, From Imperial, Up Euclid paints a picture of Southeast San Diego’s culture, demographics, and stereotypes. Beltrán shows the diversity of the community, how there are housing projects, and even references gangs.

268 Raymond R. Beltrán, “From Imperial, Up Euclid,” in Sunshine/Noir II: Writings from San Diego and Tijuana, ed. Kelly Mayhew and Jim Miller (San Diego: San Diego City Works Press, 2015), 138. Moore 114

Throughout the rest of the poem, he notes other common events and people in the community, and at the end, he concludes by saying that he will take all of Southeast San Diego’s streets no matter the good and bad that comes with it. Beltrán’s tone in the poem shows that he loves the community with all its quirks and diversity, exemplified by the final three lines: “I will take those golden brown, bald heads packed in a Regal, / maybe a sign of defeat, but… / Give it here.” Even though living in Southeast San Diego and accepting it may be a sign of defeat,

Beltrán refuses to give it up.

One may ask what a poem may have to do with an environmental studies thesis, especially when there is little to no mention of the environment in it. To respond to this, I say that literature, and especially countering stereotypes in it, can be one of the most powerful ways of fighting injustice (including environmental injustice). The two streets in the title of the poem are Imperial Avenue and Euclid Avenue, both arterial roads through Southeast San Diego that residents use every day to get around. In addition to being a busy intersection, Euclid at Imperial is known as the “Four Corners of Death” from its high homicide rate and gang activity in earlier decades.269 As a San Diego Magazine writes, “Bordered by downtown, the I-5, and the Martin

Luther King freeways, Southeast is a handful of small communities with idyllic names like

Paradise Hills or Skyline or Mt. Hope. But the iron security bars over doors and windows suggest a grimmer reality. These are the deadliest zip codes in San Diego County.” 270 Even though the crime rates and gang activity have been going down in recent years due to community activism, the stereotypes and articles remain. Nevertheless, there are still gangs out there in

269 Paul Sisson, “Celebrating Life at Euclid and Imperial, Once Known as Four Corners of Death,” The San Diego Union-Tribune, last modified July 7, 2018, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/people/sd-me-four-corners-20180707-story.html. 270 Dave Good, “’It’s a War Zone Down Here.’,” San Diego Magazine, last modified February 17, 2012, https://www.sandiegomagazine.com/features/its-a-war-zone-down-here/article_c130aff0-2574-5a55-a76f- 01c217121eee.html. Moore 115

Southeast San Diego, and more work should be done to end the violence. Gang violence, poverty, food deserts, and other injustices need to be furthered addressed in both Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego. Beltrán’s poem and the other works in Sunshine/Noir II are all revolutionary acts that bring to light the problems everyday San Diegans are dealing with. Even the chapter the poem is pulled from is named “beneath the postcard” and discusses topics such as

Black power/activism, civil disobedience, police violence, racism, poverty, climate change, and political corruption. Besides the ones on climate change, most other pieces in the chapter are addressing some form of non-environmental injustice in marginalized communities.

Figure 18, Picture of the “Four Corners of Death” 271

271 Andrew Keatts (Photo Credit to Sam Hodgson), “Support Grows for Bringing Downtown Style Planning to Southeastern Section,” Voice of San Diego, last modified June 4, 2013, https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/support-grows-for-bringing-downtown-planning-to- southeast/. Moore 116

However, all these injustices citizens are faced are quite interconnected. People do not face them separately: they face them all at the same time. Freeway pollution and the lack of public transportation can lead to asthma, which can seriously strain someone in poverty as they now must deal with higher healthcare costs and putting food on the table. One passage from another work in Sunshine/Noir II tells this tale of interconnected injustices in Barrio Logan:

Juanito was tired. Tired of his father slowly dying from a cancer brought on by harsh chemicals he had used to clean with while working on the very site his son now stood in front of. Tired of his madrecita working too many hours at the various jobs she had to endure to pay the rent on their dilapidated home since her husband could no longer do so. Tired of his older brother Beto not being around anymore. Cops had caught Beto tagging after a shipyard security officer saw him hitting up a wall with anti-pollution slogans. He was doing five years to make an example for any other potential anti-shipyard taggers. The District Attorney received campaign donations from the maritime industry, and in return she made an example of this barrio kid to prevent future incident like this from happening…His dad dying, his mom slaving away while fighting off harassment, his brother locked up, his sister gasping for air with every breath. He felt they all depended on him to do something, anything for the barrio they call home.272

B. Beltrán’s writing about the young boy Juanito in Barrio Logan is far too common. Even though it is unclear whether the writing is true or not (does it even matter?), the writing is powerful and attests to the injustices some San Diegans are facing everyday like the other works.

Specifically, the police violence, pollution, corruption, sexual harassment, and poverty Juanito’s family is experiencing happen today in both Barrio Logan and Southeast San Diego. In his second piece a few pages before, B. Beltrán writes: “Barrio Logan is one of the most stereotyped neighborhoods in all of San Diego. People who don’t live here have negative thoughts about my barrio. That it is crime ridden. Full of gangs. Violence plagued. But Barrio Logan has gotten a bum rap over the years. It is not the crime-infested slum that people think it is. Thing have

272 Brent E. Beltrán, “The Rock: Resistance Barrio Logan Style,” in Sunshine/Noir II: Writings from San Diego and Tijuana, ed. Kelly Mayhew and Jim Miller (San Diego: San Diego City Works Press, 2015), 194-5. Moore 117 changed for the positive and Barrio Logan has become a place where working families can once again raise their children in a positive, affirming way.” 273

Figure 19, Comic of Barrio Logan and Politicians 274

273 Brent E. Beltrán, “Livin’ La Vida Logan,” in Sunshine/Noir II: Writings from San Diego and Tijuana, ed. Kelly Mayhew and Jim Miller (San Diego: San Diego City Works Press, 2015), 192. 274 Junco Canché, “Junco’s Jabs: Jerry Sanders and Kevin Faulconer Share Their Disdain for Barrio Logan Residents,” in Sunshine/Noir II: Writings from San Diego and Tijuana, ed. Kelly Mayhew and Jim Miller (San Diego: San Diego City Works Press, 2015), 193. Moore 118

In sum, all these insightful works from Sunshine/Noir II have helped me look at the bigger picture here in these communities and see how interconnected the injustices are. Like R. Beltrán though, I too refuse to give up these streets and communities despite the challenges that accompany them. Some may see it as a sign of defeat as R. Beltrán notes, but I think we both disagree and see the streets (and literature) as a place of revolution.

For anyone who picks up this thesis later, either for fun or research, note that this report is not complete. It will never be complete. It should never be complete. I may have presented some implementable environmental and city planning recommendations, but I have not addressed the other injustices that accompany them. These need to be addressed too. What good is a pedestrian-friendly street if people are afraid to walk on it due to gang violence or racial profiling? What good is walking or biking outside if you are only harming your body with air pollution? What good is public transportation if people cannot afford tickets for their family?

What good is a new community plan if it does not address environmental justice, overcrowded schools, food deserts, or climate change? These are just a few examples of interconnected systemic issues that go beyond this report’s capacity, but they are needed. Whoever picks this up, please considering addressing these injustices too. Many community activists have been doing this work for decades, and I applaud their hard work. But much is still to be done in the future to further repair the harm that has, and is, being done. I do not mean to say that is my work is flawed or useless. Rather, I am trying here to recognize its limits and see beyond the bigger systems behind the injustices these two communities face to give an idea on how to proceed.

This paper is merely a starting point, not a finish line. This is going to take the work of activists, city planners, politicians, community members, churches, farmers, and much more for years to come. Moore 119

Appendix

Skyline - Paradise Hills Community Planning Meeting

On January 14, 2020, I attended the Skyline-Paradise Hills Community Planning

Committee Meeting as a community member. This community planning committee covers the neighborhoods of Skyline Hills, Paradise Hills, South Bay Terraces, North Bay Terraces,

Lomita, and Jamacha. The meeting was held in the Skyline Hills Library for a few hours. The meeting began with reports from the police department, government representatives, and community planners committee. Some community members then proceeded to ask the police officer about gang activity on Reo Drive and how to view crime reports. In addition, another community member let all attendees know about upcoming neighborhood gardening and landscape projects. Afterwards, there was some technical information about committee elections and the three action items on the agenda. One of the action items was about giving a permit extension to T-Mobile for their tower project, and the second was a technicality over a landscape project. The third agenda item was about getting support for the “Better Energy Franchise

Agreements for Use of Our Public Right of Way” by a representative of the Climate Action

Campaign. This was about renegotiating the franchise agreement the city has with SDG&E to have lower rates for customers.

Moore 120

San Diego Promise Zone All Partner Meeting

On January 29, 2020, I attended the San Diego Promise Zone All Partner Meeting. I was invited to the meeting with the help of Eric Henson, who I interviewed a few days prior. The meeting was held in Valencia Park/Malcolm X Library for a few hours. According to the City of

San Diego’s Promise Zone website, “America has 22 federally designated Promise Zones. In

2016, San Diego proudly became home to one of them. The San Diego Promise Zone (SDPZ) covers 6.4 square miles and stretches through parts of East Village, Barrio Logan, Logan

Heights, Southeastern and Encanto. It spans portions of Council Districts 3, 4, 8, and 9 and areas within the 92101, 92102, 92113 and 92114 zip codes.” 275

Figure 20, San Diego Promise Zone Area 276

275 “San Diego Promise Zone,” The City of San Diego, accessed April 27, 2020, https://www.sandiego.gov/staging/san-diego-promise-zone 276 Ibid. Moore 121

Moreover, “The San Diego Promise Zone (SDPZ)…is home to the City’s most disadvantaged and underserved communities. More than 80,000 San Diegans live in SDPZ.

Unemployment is high (15.61 percent), and poverty is concentrated (39.06 percent). The area struggles with low educational attainment, insufficient access to healthcare and healthy foods, rising crime rates and the least affordable housing in the country.” 277 To address these concerns, the federal government is working with local leaders to provide support. At the January meeting

I attended, some topics addressed were small business grants, business corridors, student internships, and even a roller derby. There were several ongoing projects to support small business, help students get government internships, anti-gang education/restorative practices, and urban agriculture. In addition, Diane Moss of Project New Village spoke about her urban agriculture project, such as how they acquired ownership of a property and are making a mobile farmer’s market to better address food insecurity. In addition, the meeting discussed how federal grants received were being allocated. Lastly, a representative from U.S. HUD went over opportunity zone regulations, how the community can attract more investment, and how to build more community wealth. Overall, the meeting discussed projects that local community members are working on and how to increase the economic activity in the zone.

277 “Economic Development: San Diego Promise Zone,” The City of San Diego, accessed April 27, 2020, https://www.sandiego.gov/economic-development/sdpromisezone Moore 122

Resources for Further Information and Links

Pueblo Watershed and Chollas Creek Pollution

“The Pueblo Watershed is 60 square miles of predominantly urban landscape in San

Diego drained by Chollas Creek, an urban coastal stream that empties into the San Diego Bay.

As a result of urban runoff, Chollas Creek and the mouth of the creek in San Diego Bay is classified as ‘impaired’ by the California State Water Resources Control Board. It contains hazardous levels of metals including copper, lead and zinc. The Pueblo Watershed is home to 20 low-income neighborhoods, collectively referred to as Southeast San Diego (SESD). There are

591 vacant lots in SESD, many of which are brownfield sites. The Global Action Research

Center (The Global ARC) conducted a survey of all 591 of the lots, assessing each sites potential for productive re-use. The CEC enlisted the help of 91 undergraduate students from UCSD, and

58 undergraduate students from San Diego State University to help conduct the survey.” 278

Another link to similar research on heavy metal contamination at Chollas Creek is here: https://labs.biology.ucsd.edu/schroeder/outreachproject.html.

Urban Agriculture Potential

According to Eric Henson, when he attended a Project New Village meeting in 2011,

SDSU and UCSD presented their research on the potential for urban agriculture. They found that: “If 5% of the 4th District's land was dedicated for community gardens, it would result in an annual $500,000 dollars in sales. 10% of land would account for $1.3 million dollars in sales.

278 Keith Pezzoli, “Progress Reports: University of California-San Diego: Community Engagement and Urban Agriculture: Addressing Concerns About Toxicants in Soil, Water and Plants,” National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, accessed May 30, 2020, https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/srp/Programs/progress_report.cfm?Project_ID=P42ES0103379104&nOrder=7. Moore 123

20% would result in an estimate of $2.7 million dollars in sales. The students also recommended some of the revenue could be allocated to redevelopment agencies in the county.” 279

279 Eric Henson (Policy Advisor for Councilmember Monica Montgomery, Fourth District), email sent to the author, May 20, 2020. Moore 124

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