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Downtown San Diego is located on San Diego Bay. Coronado and Point Loma separate the bay from the ocean. Ocean Beach is on the west side of Point Loma. Mission Beach and Pacific Beach lie between the ocean and Mission Bay, a man-made aquatic park. ... more »
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Belmont Park Birch Aquarium at Scripps Coronado Island Del Mar Thoroughbred Club Imperial Beach La Jolla Legoland® California Maritime Museum of San Diego Mission Bay Old Town San Diego San Diego Aerospace Museum San Diego Chargers San Diego Museum of Art San Diego Padres San Diego Zoo Seaport Village SeaWorld® San Diego Soak City U.S.A. San Diego
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Airports Downtown San Diego is located on San Diego Bay. Coronado and Point Loma separate the bay from the ocean. Ocean Beach is on the west side of Point Loma. Mission Beach and Pacific Beach lie between the ocean and Mission Bay, a man-made aquatic park. La Jolla, an affluent community, lies north of Pacific Beach. Mount Soledad in La Jolla offers views from northern San Diego County to Mexico.
A popular way to see tourist attractions in San Diego is to buy the Go San Diego Card
The University of California, San Diego and nearby research institutes on Torrey Mesa provide a base for technological innovation and there are numerous high-tech and biotech companies in the area, such as Qualcomm, Neurocrine, and Illumina. Major tourists attactions include the city's beaches and bays, Balboa Park with its many museums, the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, San Diego Wild Animal Park (in Escondido, north of the city) and Old Town, the site of the original Spanish settlement.
San Diego (pop. 1,305,736 as of 2005) is a coastal Southern California city located in the southwestern corner of the continental United States. It is the second largest city in California and the eighth largest in the United States. It lies just north of the Mexican border (shares border with Tijuana, Mexico), and is a home for United States Navy and Marine Corps bases, many miles of beaches, and a mild marine climate. The annual mean temperature is 64.4 degrees Fahrenheit (18°C). San Diego's economy centers on tourism, trade, agriculture, ship-building, the military, biotechnology, computer science and electronics.
Mountains rise to the east of the city, and beyond the mountains are desert areas. Cleveland National Forest is a half-hour drive from Downtown San Diego. Numerous farms are found in the valleys northeast of the city. The city of San Diego itself has deep canyons separating its mesas, creating small pockets of natural parkland scattered throughout the city.
Military bases in or near San Diego include U.S. Navy ports, Marine Corps bases, and Coast Guard stations. San Diego is the home port of the largest naval fleet in the world, including two Navy supercarriers (the USS Nimitz and the USS Ronald Reagan), five amphibious assault ships, several Los Angeles-class submarines, and many smaller ships.
One of the Marine Corps' two Recruit Depots is located here. San Diego is also known as the "birthplace of naval aviation," although Pensacola, Florida makes a rival claim.
The area has long been inhabited by the Kumeyaay people. The first European to visit the region was Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, Cabrillo claimed the bay for Spain in 1542. The site was named San Miguel by Cabrillo. On Nov. 12, 1602, Don Sebastian de Viscaíno came ashore with his party on the day of St. Didacus (San Diego in Spanish) and celebrated a mass in the saint's honor. By coincidence, Viscaíno's flagship was named San Diego.
He renamed the place San Diego after the 15th-century saint In 1769, the Presidio of San Diego (military post), which overlooks Old Town, was established almost at the same time as the Mission San Diego de Alcala by the Franciscan friars led by Junípero Serra. By 1797 the mission had become the largest in California, (over 1,400 natives were associated with it), but its fortunes declined in the 1830s when it lost its township status.
With the end of the Mexican-American War and the gold rush of 1848, San Diego was designated the seat of the newly-established San Diego County and was incorporated as a city in 1850. In the years before World War I, the anti-capitalist labor union IWW had a major impact on labor struggles in San Diego.
The Navy and World Fairs
Significant U.S. Naval presence began in 1907 with the establishment of the Navy Coaling Station, which gave further impetus to the development of the town. San Diego hosted two World's Fairs, the Panama-California Exposition in 1915 and the California Pacific International Exposition in 1935. Many of the Spanish/Baroque-style buildings in the city's Balboa Park were built for these expositions (especially for the one in 1915). Intended to be temporary structures, most remained in continuous use until they progressively fell into disrepair. All were eventually rebuilt using castings of the original facades to faithfully retain the architectural style.
After World War II, the military played an increasing role in the local economy. But at the end of the Cold War the local economy experienced a downturn due to cutbacks in the local defense and aerospace industry. San Diego leaders sought to diversify the city's economy, and San Diego has since become a major center of the emerging biotech industry. It is also home to telecommunications giant Qualcomm.
Pensions
A series of scandals has rocked the city in recent years. With mounting pressure due to underfunding of pensions for city employees that began prior to his administration, Mayor Dick Murphy, in April 2005, announced his intention to resign by mid-July. A few days after his resignation two city councilmembers, Ralph Inzunza and deputy mayor Michael Zucchet - who was to take Murphy's place - were convicted of taking bribes in a scheme to get the city's "no touch" laws at strip clubs repealed. Both subsequently resigned. The judge set aside (overturned) the guilty verdict in the case of Michael Zucchet.
Bribes?
On November 28, 2005, U.S. Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham resigned over a bribery scandal. Cunningham represented California's 50th congressional district, which mostly lies outside (north) of the city of San Diego proper. He is currently serving a 9 year sentence in prison.
Urban Revival
Downtown San Diego has been enjoying an urban renewal since the 1980s, beginning with the opening of Horton Plaza, the revival of the Gaslamp Quarter, and the construction of the San Diego Convention Center. The Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC), San Diego's downtown redevelopment agency, has transformed what was a largely abandoned downtown into a glittering showcase of waterfront skyscrapers, live-work loft developments, luxury hotels and a slew of cafes, restaurants and shops.
Construction Boom
The North Embarcadero is slated to have parks in addition to a waterfront promenade. And Balboa Park will be linked to downtown with a view corridor. The recent boom in the construction of condos and skyscrapers has brought with it a gentrification frenzy, and some people are concerned that speculators have played too big a role in the condo market downtown. In the meantime, the city is committed to a "smart growth" development scheme that would increase density along transit corridors in older neighborhoods (the "City of Villages" planning concept.) Some neighborhoods are resisting this planning approach. But "mixed-use" development has had its successes, especially the award-winning Uptown Shopping Center in Hillcrest.
The latest accomplishment of CCDC has been the recent inauguration of PETCO Park. The once-industrial East Village adjacent to the new ballpark is now the new frontier in San Diego's downtown urban renewal.
Freeways & Highways
As the automobile is the primary means of transportation for the region, the greater San Diego area is served by an extensive network of freeways and highways. This includes Interstates 5, which runs north to Orange County and south to Mexico; 8, which runs east to Imperial County and Arizona; 15, which runs north to Riverside County; and 805, which splits from I-5 at Sorrento Valley and rejoins it before the Mexican border. Notable state highways are the 54, 125, 94, 163, 67, 52, 56, and 78 freeways. The San Diego-Coronado Bridge, which spans San Diego Bay, is signed as part of California State Route 75.
Several regional transportation projects have been undertaken in recent years to deal with increasing congestion problems on San Diego freeways. This includes a massive expansion of Interstates 5 and 805 around "The Merge," a notorious rush-hour spot where the two freeways meet. Also, an expansion of Interstate 15 through the North County is underway with the concept of high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) "managed lanes" in the freeway median. A tollway (The South Bay Expressway) linking State Route 54 and Otay Mesa, near the Mexican border, is also under construction and is expected to open in 2007.
Public Mass Transportation
San Diego has trolley, bus, Coaster, and Amtrak service. They primarily serve the downtown and uptown areas. The Amtrak and Coaster trains currently only run along the coastline. A planned trolley extension along the 5 Freeway will link up to the UTC/UCSD areas. Newly expanded Trolley routes and a new underground stop at San Diego State University opened in 2005, with more Coaster train stops and services to be added in 2006 and 2007.
Bus
The bus is available along almost all major routes within the city proper, although buses tend to be concentrated downtown and around various transit centers. Typical wait times vary from 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the location and route. Trollies arrive every 5 to 15 minutes (depending on time of day), with lines extending from Old Town all the way south to the US-Mexico border in San Ysidro, and west-east from Old Town, traversing Mission Valley all the way to neighboring El Cajon and Santee. Ferries are also available every half hour crossing San Diego Bay to Coronado.
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San Diego International Airport
San Diego International Airport, also known as Lindbergh International Airport or Lindbergh Field, is the primary commercial airport serving San Diego. It is the busiest single-runway airport in the nation, serving over 17 million passengers every year, and is located on San Diego Bay just a mile or two from downtown. It has scheduled services all over the USA, Mexico, Hawaii, and Canada and serves as a focus city for Southwest Airlines. Other airports include Brown Field Airport (Brown Field) and Montgomery Field Municipal Airport (Montgomery Field).
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* San Diego enjoys mild, sunny weather throughout the year. Average monthly temperatures range from about 57 Fahrenheit (14°C) in January to 72 Fahrenheit (22°C) in July, although late summer and early autumn are typically the hottest times of the year. Snow and ice do not occur in the wintertime. "May gray and June gloom", a local saying, refers to the way in which San Diego sometimes has trouble shaking off the fog that comes in during those months.
Temperatures soar to very high readings only on rare occasions, chiefly when easterly winds bring hot, dry air from the inland deserts (these winds are called "Santa Anas"). The average annual precipitation is less than 12 inches (300 mm), resulting in a borderline arid climate. Rainfall is strongly concentrated in the cooler half of the year, particularly the months December through March. The summer months are virtually rainless. Rainfall is highly variable from year to year and from month to month, and San Diego is subject to both droughts and floods. Thunderstorms and hurricanes are very rare.
Climate in the San Diego area often varies dramatically over short geographical distances, due to the city's topography (the Bay, and the numerous hills, mountains, and canyons): frequently, particularly during the "May gray/June gloom" period, a thick "marine layer" cloud cover will keep the air cool and damp within a few miles of the coast, but will yield to bright cloudless sunshine between about 5 and 15 miles inland - the cities of El Cajon and Santee, for example, rarely experience the cloud cover. This phenomenon is known as microclimate.
Temperature - Yearly Average
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Distances are calculated as the crow flies, and are provided as an aid in planning only.
* This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Source wikipedia.
