San Diego photologs from the 1970s • Hacker News Board

Re: San Diego photologs from the 1970s

#31

Post by littlexsparkee » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 8:27 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #21

It is shocking how quickly California developed from agriculture to this, and how it basically stopped developing further after hitting this point. These photos could just as believably be van nuys in 2026. No wonder why we have a housing crisis. Progress and building to meet demand has been refused for almost 60 years.

That was my biggest gripe growing up in SD - felt like Caltrans / SANDAG abdicated responsibility for developing good transit/bike/ped infra, doubling down on car dependency. It should be a mecca of active transportation given the weather!

Re: San Diego photologs from the 1970s

#32

Post by thelonelyborg » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

and not a single beach in sight!

Re: San Diego photologs from the 1970s

#33

Post by asdff » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 8:39 PM UTC

littlexsparkee wrote: post #31

asdff wrote: post #21

It is shocking how quickly California developed from agriculture to this, and how it basically stopped developing further after hitting this point. These photos could just as believably be van nuys in 2026. No wonder why we have a housing crisis. Progress and building to meet demand has been refused for almost 60 years.

That was my biggest gripe growing up in SD - felt like Caltrans / SANDAG abdicated responsibility for developing good transit/bike/ped infra, doubling down on car dependency. It should be a mecca of active transportation given the weather!

It is actually absurd the amount of freeways there are in San Diego. How many north south and east west freeways are there? And they are like sometimes 1 mile or less apart from another parallel running freeway. Then you have all these thick roads where its 6-8 lanes across with a 50 mph speed limit basically freeway capacity right there. Probably the most "built for car" urban area in california IMO, with orange county a close second for basically the same reasons (lot of freeway redundancy and also high capacity high speed roads). LA county would be closer but they never finished their highway master plans and it shows with some of the freeway void spaces where planned freeways were never built for varying reasons. They have those 50mph high speed roads but its limited to the comparatively newer sections of LA county like santa clarita, which is very much built in a "san diegan" way compared to the older san fernando valley.

Re: San Diego photologs from the 1970s

#34

Post by mlsu » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 8:39 PM UTC

gonzalohm wrote: post #23

markkat wrote: post #15

IMHO comparably, cars today look depressing. So soulless, so similar, so boring. White/grey/silver/black, maybe a few boring blue or burgundy.

Nowadays car brands charge you upwards of $1k to get a special color. And even then, you can only pick from at best 5 colors. It's sad

And it's even worse because the colors now could be so good because of modern technology. The potential is so high

Re: San Diego photologs from the 1970s

#35

Post by ksd482 » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 8:55 PM UTC

markkat wrote: post #15

IMHO comparably, cars today look depressing. So soulless, so similar, so boring. White/grey/silver/black, maybe a few boring blue or burgundy.

And they are bigger too. Everything is bigger.

Re: San Diego photologs from the 1970s

#36

Post by stevenfoster » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 9:02 PM UTC

Wild there's a Safeway sign in there and not Alpha Beta, Fedco, and the old Coronado bridge sign.

My parents grew up around this time and a lot of it still looked liked this when I was a kid in the 90s.

I always wanted to move back to this San Diego, but it no longer exists. Appreciate whoever did this work.

Re: San Diego photologs from the 1970s

#37

Post by lapetitejort » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #21

It is shocking how quickly California developed from agriculture to this, and how it basically stopped developing further after hitting this point. These photos could just as believably be van nuys in 2026. No wonder why we have a housing crisis. Progress and building to meet demand has been refused for almost 60 years.

I love looking at historical photos of Southern California if only to re-enforce this exact phenomenon. At one point the largest vineyard in the world existed in Southern California [0]. Just a small patch of green and some abandoned buildings remain [1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guasti%2C_California

[1]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Guasti,+Ontario,+CA+91761/

Re: San Diego photologs from the 1970s

#38

Post by corlinp » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 9:08 PM UTC

Wow- the entire Point Loma area pretty much looks the same as it does today. Too bad they didn't drive down Newport to see Hodad's.

Torrey Pines area definitely looks the most different, mostly because of the growth of UCSD I'm thinking.

Re: San Diego photologs from the 1970s

#39

Post by alexjplant » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 9:25 PM UTC

cstone wrote: post #13

jimt1234 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing that whole area is gonna be razed as part of the Midway/Sports Arena redevelopment, but I feel like as long as MCRD stays put, Les Girls will always have a home. LOL

The most recent draft of the Midway Rising Specific Plan ( https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/2025-09/dsd_app... ) says Les Girls stays; the development doesn't go north of Kurtz St. By my reading of the map, it means that that Midway Rising will cover the Salvation Army store and everything west of it between Sports Arena and Kurtz St (including the current parking lots). Of course, if/when Midway Rising d…

Rock and Roll San Diego (the aforementioned rehearsal space) is slated to be part of the redevelopment :-( as is Soma. I only moved here 6 years ago and it already feels like the end of an era.

Re: San Diego photologs from the 1970s

#40

Post by jallmann » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 9:26 PM UTC

littlexsparkee wrote: post #31

asdff wrote: post #21

It is shocking how quickly California developed from agriculture to this, and how it basically stopped developing further after hitting this point. These photos could just as believably be van nuys in 2026. No wonder why we have a housing crisis. Progress and building to meet demand has been refused for almost 60 years.

That was my biggest gripe growing up in SD - felt like Caltrans / SANDAG abdicated responsibility for developing good transit/bike/ped infra, doubling down on car dependency. It should be a mecca of active transportation given the weather!

Agreed it's a bummer.

There's a lot of low-density sprawl in San Diego county which makes effective transit difficult, and because you have to drive everywhere, sentiment trends anti-bicycle. The previous CEO of SANDAG tried to push a mobility-centric vision but left because of intense pushback from folks who wanted more funding for roads and freeways, rather than transit and bike paths.