City Heights

Kumeyaay people lived on this land first. After Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, it claimed the land and distributed it to ranchers. In the 1880s Abraham Klauber and Samuel Steiner bought more than 240 acres of unincorporated land northeast of Balboa Park and named it City Heights.

On November 2, 1912, voters approved incorporation as the city of East San Diego. On December 31, 1923, voters approved annexation into the City of San Diego by 1,344 votes to 1,109, and the area became a neighborhood again under the name City Heights.

City Heights has long been known for its mix of cultures. After the Vietnam War, refugees from Southeast Asia arrived at Camp Pendleton, and Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai refugees settled in City Heights in the 1970s and 1980s. From the 1980s into the 1990s, resettlement agencies also directed refugees from the Somali Civil War here.

Today there are sizeable Vietnamese, Somali, Cambodian and Laotian communities, and residents also come from Latin America, Africa and other parts of Asia. The median age is about 30, and most of the housing is multi-family.

The Little Saigon San Diego Foundation was established in November 2008 to revitalize the Vietnamese business district on El Cajon Boulevard. On June 4, 2013, the City Council approved the Little Saigon Cultural and Commercial District, a six-block section of El Cajon Boulevard from Euclid Avenue to Highland Avenue.

Little Saigon signs were revealed near the El Cajon Boulevard exits on Interstate 15 on February 1, 2019.

The major commercial streets are University Avenue, El Cajon Boulevard, Fairmount Avenue and Euclid Avenue. The area along University Avenue and the Teralta West neighborhood are generally regarded as the community's downtown.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, new schools, a library and a community center were built through public and private partnerships. The model of a walkable urban village in City Heights fed into the City of Villages plan in the city's 2002 General Plan.

Metropolitan Transit System buses serve the community, including Rapid service. In 2018, freeway-level Centerline transit stations on State Route 15 opened at El Cajon Boulevard and University Avenue to speed up the Rapid bus.

The main roads are University Avenue, El Cajon Boulevard, Fairmount Avenue and Euclid Avenue. Interstate 805 runs along the western edge of the community.

The public schools are run by the San Diego Unified School District. They include elementary schools such as Central, Cherokee Point, Hamilton, Euclid, Marshall, Edison, Rowan and Rosa Parks, and middle schools including Wilson and Mann. Hoover High School and the Crawford Educational Complex are the public high schools.

The community also has several charter schools, the private Waldorf School of San Diego, and the Mid-City Campus of the San Diego College of Continuing Education.