The inaugural Downtown San Diego Partnership “State of Downtown” delivered a dose of reality when the September 15 morning event’s final speaker ranked San Diego’s urban core high in weekend vibrancy and low in daytime vibrancy due to safety issues.
“You know how to throw a good weekend – it’s just that the city hasn’t extended that to the workday, and safety is the big part why,” Gensler Global Cities Lead and Senior Associate Sofia Song said.
Song was passing on data from Gensler’s City Pulse 2026: The Downtown Report. The research arm of the global architectural firm reached out to 35,000 individuals in a survey of 34 United States cities.
Among its peers, San Diego ranked “more fun, on paper” than any other city but trailed all others as a safe urban area, Song said. Just 27% ranked San Diego ”good” or “excellent” in safety.
“I know this isn’t news to the [Downtown San Diego Partnership],” Song said. “They have a really strong Clean & Safe program. And I know safety is central to what San Diego is working on. What this data adds is external validation and benchmarks. To show how San Diego compares to every other city.”
“It’s an amazing city and we’re working with our partners to attract more business to downtown,” DSDP President & CEO Betsy Brennan said after the event. “I need to see where we rank on safety, but we don’t rank high. We definitely need to improve both the perception and the reality of safety.”
Brennan pointed to some of the comments Song made about fixes to the community that don’t cost a lot of money and can be accomplished rather quickly.
“I think Sofia had some good ideas, like lighting, and some of the environmental design you can do that doesn’t cost millions of dollars,” Brennan said. There can be beautiful architectural design that is welcoming to people, where they want to linger.”
Visitor lingering is a key, according to Song. Length of stay is more important than number of total visits to a city, she said.
Brennan said it’s possible to clean up areas and make them safer. “But if you don’t put in positive activity then there’s no activity.”
An issue that recently brought downtown San Diego worldwide negative attention was a late-night brawl in front of a Fifth Avenue taco shop. Video clips of Gaslamp Quarter guests fighting, and San Diego police officers pepper spraying the crowd went viral.
The viral melee caused the SDPD to enact “Operation Last Call,” which increased staffing in the Gaslamp Quarter by more than two dozen officers. Those staffing numbers are currently in place.
Until funding dried up, city officials were using bollards to block traffic on downtown Fifth Avenue so throngs of weekend and nighttime pedestrians had space to walk in the street.
Brennan was asked if this now-defunct precursor to a Fifth Avenue Promenade design would have helped deter situations where sidewalks are narrow, pedestrians are drunk, hungry and operating in close quarters.
“There’s definitely tactical urbanism that can be done, that’s easy to put in and not expensive,” Brennan said. “Whether it’s a promenade or a less expensive version that is awesome and beautiful.”
Brennan added that the Fifth Avenue Promenade is still on the table, despite no apparent available city funding or interest from the mayor’s office to put it back in place.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria attended the DSDP’s State of Downtown event but, along with much of the crowd, didn’t stay to hear Song’s presentation of the Gensler report.
During his time at the podium, Gloria noted that the city is “a little short on cash,” referring to back-to-back annual city budget deficits that led to program cuts and service and parking fee increases.
A downtown resident, Gloria said that when he walks his dog twice a day every day, “what I see in my daily life with my own eyes and and what I see on social media are two different things. You can tell your own downtown story or you can allow people who do not live or work or care about downtown to talk about downtown.”
He said the former will create positive experiences for the 700,000 cruise ship passengers slated to stop off in downtown this year, and urge them to come back again and again.
“When I walk around downtown, I see progress,” Gloria said. He pointed to the impending demolition of the shuttered California Theatre, refurbishment of the San Diego Convention Center and 1,200 housing units under construction as some examples of progress.
“Those things don’t get enough play on social media or in the actual media or around dinner tables or office tables,” Gloria said.
The mayor pointed to “the unhoused” as a primary cause of downtown’s issues. “Homelessness is the most complex problem there is,” he said.
Song reinforce part of Gloria’s speech with her own recent experience in downtown San Diego.
“Yesterday, I flew in and checked into my hotel,” Song told The San Diego Sun. “I was going to go to CVS and then grab a bite to eat and head into the office. The streets were empty, but the only people left on the street were the unhoused. I realized I didn’t feel safe walking around. And I’m from New York City…”
Brennan was asked for a final word on the State of Downtown. “We can easily change the physical environment of downtown and we can work together to change the perception of downtown,” she said. “It is doable.”
During the State of Downtown, DSDP chairmanship changed hands from US Grant General Manager Douglas Korn to ACE Parking Executive Chairman and Owner Keith Jones. SDSun
