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San Diego has been caught up in and often at the forefront of some of the monumental changes of our century. As our nation explodes into this next millennium it is appropriate to reflect on those historic changes, and then project forward to the next 100 years.
This century is a story of immigration and expansion. It also is a story of great technological achievement. Immigration and technology transformed us as a people. People alive at the beginning of the century could not imagine, even in their science fiction, the society we have become.
In 1900 San Diego was a backwoods border town hidden in the extreme southwest corner of the United States, more Mexican than American. Alonzo Horton and his fellow citizens had abundant dreams of development, some of which were ultimately realized. Downtown development was rapidly under way in the first third of the century, only to become a victim of suburban expansion throughout much of the rest. But there is a sense of symmetry in history as Downtown development has once again captured the imagination of the local development community.
Our town did not rise in a vacuum. Its growth and development has been part of a monumental societal transformation. The confluence of events that created San Diego are the same ones that created urban America. The three great inventions of the 20th century that fashioned our environment and directed how and where we now live are the elevator, the air conditioner and the automobile. They changed our world, our lives, and, most significantly, the shape and direction of our growth and development as an urban society.
The Elevator
In 1903, Otis introduced the design that would become the "backbone" of the elevator industry: the gearless traction electric elevator, engineered and proven to outlast the building itself. This ushered in the age of high-rise structures, ultimately including New York's Empire State Building and World Trade Center, Chicago's John Hancock Center, and Toronto's CN Tower.
Before our cities went "out," they went "up" — because the elevator could take them there. The central business districts (CBDs), principally in our Northern and Eastern cities, developed vertically during the first half of the century as growth and demand for those spaces increased, and the value of the dirt dictated the trend. The CBD came about as our nation's work changed from the farm to the factory and the office.
What evolved were metropolitan areas oriented around the CBD where people worked, shopped and lived. The commuter trains, the bus and trolley systems provided the linkage to the central workplace. The early 20th century shaped that urban society around the center of the city, and that is where we stayed for the first half of this century.
Downtown San Diego’s development was no exception to this trend. It developed, as did the surrounding residential communities of Golden Hill, Hillcrest, Mission Hills, North Park and points east, in accordance with their relationship to our own CBD. Downtown was the beneficiary of most of the regional retailing including Marstons Department Store, Walker-Scott, Jessops Jewelers and others which formed the basis for San Diego’s first half of the century business and commerce center.
Air Conditioning
One of the first buildings in America to be air-conditioned was Carnegie Hall, 100 years ago. Because of the Great Depression and the demands of World War II, air conditioning did not hit its stride until the early 1950s. But when it hit, its impact rapidly gave rise to the great Sunbelt migration of the second half of the century.
Cities such as Houston, Phoenix and Atlanta can trace their growth roots to the air conditioner, which enabled people to comfortably live and travel in the inhospitable summer climates of the South.
But it wasn’t until World War II that a south-oriented and a bi-coastal United States really came into being. World War II was the first war Americans fought in two directions. We needed bases that could operate throughout the year and on both coasts. Most of those built over the past 60 years are on the Atlantic, Pacific or Gulf Coasts. And virtually all of the armament plants went to the coasts. From Virginia through Georgia, and then the Gulf Coast from Pascagoula to Galveston, and San Diego to Bremerton became boomtowns.
GIs in vast numbers moved through California. That is how modern San Diego was discovered, populated and has grown during this millennium's second half. Our boomtown growth was primarily the result of the infusion at the end of the war of retiring GIs who settled into sunny San Diego to start their lives launching a trend that continues to this day.
Conversely, at the end of World War II, the industrial infrastructure of the northern cities had been worn out as a result of the phenomenal output efforts of the war. The combination of enormous pent-up demand, resulting from five years of 100 percent employment and forced saving, created massive opportunities for new manufacturing and capital investment. Much of that new investment was in the South. As a result, the Sunbelt was born, dictating growth patterns for the remainder of the century.
World War II was a monumental change agent in many other areas, as well. The war caused us to enter into the electronic age of jets, radar and telecommunications. The halfway point in the century put us into the next wave of civilization. But we didn’t fully appreciate that yet.
The Automobile
The automobile was the quintessential tool, literally reshaping metropolitan areas from clusters of high-density communities oriented to a CBD to a decentralization that led from a vertical to a horizontal future. With the auto we built highways leading us out of town. Places of employment, shopping and leisure followed.
We evolved from a classic historic society of rich and poor into a society in which there was a middle class. Following World War II the GI bill provided a free college education, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) restructured and made attainable mortgages for this new middle class and the Federal Highway Act built our access to the suburbs. All three greatly influenced the coming decades of San Diego development.
This new middle class attained discretionary income, a first for a mass population. The discretionary buyer was a powerful one — both through politics and purchasing. This created demand for shopping centers, entertainment and leisure land uses. Demand led to flexibility because consumers had the power to request more choices.
The master planned community was a 20th century invention. And much of modern San Diego is housed in its offspring. San Diego had a strong contingent of entrepreneurial developers who participated in the master planned movement such as Irving Kahn who built Rancho Penasquitos, Marty Gleich who designed and built all of Serra Mesa and Clair Burgener who built Clairemont. Their efforts at master planning were among the most innovative in the nation.
The Authors: San Diego’s leading real estate analysts, and the license plates of the cars they drive, are, from left, Sanford Goodkin, Gary London and Alan Nevin. Goodkin is the dean and a sought-out futurist. His former students (employees) London and Nevin are expert number crunchers with perspective.
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During the 1960s Harry Summers started a project called Rancho Bernardo. Over the years the project was developed and heralded throughout the United States as a successful example of the "new town" movement to combine high quality live and work environments. Although it has been very successful in attracting housing and employment in manufacturing, offices and high tech, few Rancho Bernardo residents actually work in Rancho Bernardo. Hence, the project is a development success but has not been able to achieve the ultimate goal of persons working and living in the same community.
The geographically diverse employment centers in the county and the relative paucity of jobs Downtown (less than 4 percent of the county's total) have precluded the work/live dream from materializing.
Now that we are at the end of the century, we must reflect on what we have wrought. We are a community of paradoxes. We are blessed with a beautiful climate, a diversified economy and optimistic citizens. Yet, we are embattled with an ongoing debate over our growth and our inability to manage it, much less control it. The concomitant traffic jams, the lack of affordable housing and stagnant government leadership give rise to thoughts of a troubled tomorrow.
The new technologies of the '90s will again transform our society in perhaps even a more dramatic way than the events of the past 100 years. The demise of General Dynamics — the most visible fallout of the end of the Cold War — a company which once regularly employed more than 15,000, is the prototypical example of the economic change that has marked our local community. GD's principal location in Kearny Mesa now is being redeveloped as a mixed-use commercial, industrial and residential project, with minimal evidence of yesterday's aerospace domination.
Most important to recount as we turn to the next millennium is the enormous importance of the University of California, San Diego. The technological innovations its professors and students have spawned, from Qualcomm to MP3.com, suggest our destiny for the next century.
Within the realm of UCSD, the miracle of medicine and health care has resulted in the extension of human life to almost double from the beginning to the end of the century. What this means to San Diego is that no matter how much we "control" our growth, the existing population will be around for much longer. There are dramatic land use and real estate consequences to this scenario, including the design of new senior communities, with multi-levels of service and medical care.
The higher density designs of projects in our urban areas also are a result of the empty nester and senior need for high-quality lifestyles around a full- service environment. This particularly bodes well for places like Downtown San Diego as well as University Towne Center and other dense, modern urban environments.
The other aspect of our growth also comes from within. During this century the number of children per household has fallen from five to two. Yet, San Diego will continue to add 35,000 persons per year as a result of internal, natural growth alone, not including in-migration. This is the reason that new communities are building up throughout San Diego and in the South County in particular.
Our choices today are phenomenal. Yet, there are many new challenges that may invite new ways of living, and new methods in maintaining quality of life and housing our burgeoning population.
We once again are looking back to our urban, vertical beginnings as a partial solution to managing our growth and development in an increasingly complicated society. It is this issue that suggests the demarcation point between one century and another.
Next month: A real estate vision for the 21st century
The authors are real estate strategists and consultants practicing in San Diego.
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