Downtown Ocean Beach seems like a coddled momma's boy afraid to grow up. The small San Diego community just south of Mission Bay is a curious little enclave where the outdated downtown clashes with the cost of housing. The residents seem in denial about the hustle-bustle of capitalism and stubbornly resist the modern amenities like Starbucks. Shoes are optional and suntans are mandatory.
On a lazy late Sunday afternoon after a football game at Qualcom stadium, we drove west until the 8 Freeway brought us to Ocean Beach in search of dinner. The area is a great place to get swept away in sunburns and beer-burps, but from planning perspective, the commercial core seems precarious. The residents hate corporations and redevelopment, and they fear gentrification like it's the super-bug. In the meantime their little downtown looks like it suffers from low-revenue and retail vacancies.
Like a lot of beach subdivisions in Southern California, the subdivision of Ocean Beach dates back to the 1880s and once included an oceanfront amusement park. Today, the downtown is characterized by free and available street parking and diminishing quantities of vacant retail spaces the closer you get to the beach. The main drag, Newport Avenue, is nothing like the affluent city to north that shares the same name -- nor would it want to be. The sidewalks are wide and fraught with skateboarders and dogs. The retail mix ranges from antiques stores to head shops to taco-beer-burger restaurants. The only office space I noticed was mixed-use with a taco restaurant. There were a couple tourist shops, one was selling t-shirts in an unsightly box-store with 40-foot ceilings and yellow fluorescent lights.
Drinking on the beach is a major source of revenue for an area where spring break is a sabbatical, and Fourth of July and New Years Eve are holy days. Some days there are as many as 40 dogs splashing unleashed in the surf. Though seemingly too large and out-of-place, the pier connects a block south of the main street to a residential area on the hillside and serves for a great view from the end-focal point of the downtown.
Ocean Beach is dense, white, and accommodates a high share of college educated residents with lower than average incomes (http://zipskinny.com zip code 92107) so why can't they get it together? The residents don't really depend on downtown stores like poor communities rely on transit and mom-and-pop bakeries. They should welcome a little gentrification and redevelopment to help bring the area into the 21st century, but I guess living in the slow lane, nestled away in this nearly forgotten beach town is good enough. People are usually afraid of change, and Ocean Beach only changes what party-event it will have next.
Aaron Engstrom
