by Michael J. Stepner and Mary Lydon / Times of San Diego / Feb. 4, 2026
For decades Paris, Barcelona and Brooklyn have been held up as models for humanely scaled, mid-rise housing neighborhoods.
This density is created by four-to-six story residential buildings. These communities have high rises and retail woven throughout, with pleasant walkable, tree-lined streets.
Here in San Diego, the award winning, 230-acre Civita urban village in Mission Valley stands in as our local model.
Mid-rise housing is part of Mayor Todd Gloria’s “Neighborhood Homes for All of Us” initiative. This type of housing is both necessary and appropriate — but it must be in the right location and provide the type of housing that affordable to those who need it.
The city’s 1979 General Plan stated in its urban design section that “the quality of the community is of overriding importance to the individual, since the most basic human needs must be satisfied close to home.” This is as true today as then.
Currently there is a lot of mid-rise housing being built. It is being built along commercial corridors and in the older neighborhoods.
Impact Housing is a modular multifamily housing developer with a vertically integrated business model designed to deliver housing faster and more efficiently. The company currently has seven active projects in San Diego, including two major projects near San Diego State University. One project, now leasing, includes 324 apartment homes and is transit-accessible via the Mid-City Rapid bus line. The second project, which is under construction, will deliver 483 apartment homes and is deed-restricted to low-income households 80% of AMI. It is walkable to the Grantville Trolley Station and a major regional employer, Kaiser Permanente. Both projects are located near retail and neighborhood services, which are expected to benefit from the addition of hundreds of new residents.
Mid-rise housing also fits in with the redevelopment of underutilized strip mall shopping centers. A 2022 state law allows for housing in these centers without requiring developers to go through an expensive and time consuming zoning change.
These kinds of sites could be identified as opportunities in Gloria’s new initiative, allowing old shopping centers to be turned into real neighborhood centers.
Unfortunately, some mid-rise home projects are also being built in isolated locations where there may never provide a neighborhood environment.
Many large high-density projects build out to the maximum, leaving whatever space remains after providing parking as its “public space.”
Examples include the apartment development in Mira Mesa, west of I-15 and north of Mira Mesa Boulevard, the apartments on the former US Post Office site on Midway and the new building on 6th avenue in Hillcrest between Robinson and Pennsylvania.
In all of these cases, in our quest to build more housing we have neglected to build a community.
As Guardian architecture critic Oliver Wainwright wrote last month, “new apartment blocks — even at the high end — do little to disguise the fact that they are simply physical spread sheets of units, expressions of brutal economic efficiency, occasionally garnished with a thin architectural dressing.”
Many of the 52 community plans in the city of San Diego are being updated or already have been. The community plans must be the guide when projects are looking to be built in lower-resource areas. We can’t lose focus that we are building neighborhoods and not just providing housing.
But mid-rise housing still possesses advantages, such as providing needed housing that is affordable, replacing obsolete buildings and empty lots, taking pressure off of single-family neighborhoods and providing new consumers to improve the economic viability of nearby commercial areas.
There are other components to consider when building on an existing commercial corridor. The environment may need to be improved. Housing on a traffic artery is not
ideal — but if the city can lower car speeds or provide crossable streets, they can work.
In addition, wider sidewalks, street trees, street lights and places to stop and sit should be taken into consideration. Services and public facilities must be available. These are the responsibility of both the city and the developer.
And the city needs to take advantage of the opportunity to build apartment neighborhoods. These urban neighborhoods are medium in scale, near transit and have services and street life. Local examples include Civita in Mission Valley, the Uptown District in Hillcrest and the apartments on the General Dynamics property in Kearny Mesa.
A great national example is Detroit’s Palmer Park Historic Apartment District, with outstanding architectural character and garden suburb landscaping. An excellent place for families and professionals alike.
Barcelona remains the international standard for mid-rise density housing that provides outstanding neighborhoods.
New apartment housing in San Diego is up 10% from three years ago. That’s good news, but we have more work to do.
We need to also remember that relying on increased housing supply without addressing affordability, social issues and economic issues is inadequate.
“The house itself is of minor importance. Its relation to the community is the thing that really counts,” wrote Clarence Stein, architect, designer of the 1915 Balboa Park Fair and housing advocate.
Michael J. Stepner, FAIA, FAICP, is former city of San Diego Architect and Professor Emeritus of the New School of Architecture and Design. He is the recipient of the 2024 AIA San Diego Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also a board member for San Diego Coalition for Public Places.
Mary Lydon, the principal of Lydon Associates, has held leadership roles with the Urban Land Institute, the Downtown San Diego Partnership, and Housing You Matters. She served on the city of San Diego Planning Commission. She currently serves on the boards of the National Center for Creative Land Recycling, UCSD Housing Policy and Design Center, San Diego Coalition for Public Places and Humble Design San Diego.
We are not Paris, Barcelona and Brooklyn. And we do not have, politicians without pocket less pants.
Choosing Barcelona is a limping comparison an unattainable ideal for San Diego. Barcelona has a density of over 40,000 people per square mile in some of those iconic areas cited in the article, further those communities date back to the mid 1800’s, and have grown organically since then. I’d also argue that the kind of diverse socio-economic mix found in many European cities goes against the grain for many Americans. People are used to seggregate – show me where students, young families, retirees, affluent and the not affluent live side by side? Brand new luxury apartment complexes, or suburbian single family homes don’t allow for that kind of healthy mix. How to build a “community” in a City where raising real estate and rent prices make it impossible even for many young natives to continue to live here. Social housing, like in Europe (Barcelona, Germany, Vienna…) does not exist here and it is frouned upon by so many and does not fit in our cut throat capitalist system. I don’t know know how an American solution that works can look like, with so many cultural forces working against it. And we all love it over there when we visit, but just copying Europe will not work.
Eva, I’ll tell you where students, young families, retirees, affluent and the not affluent live side by side – OB!
I’ll admit that it is probably less true now than in the past, but still…
Why is there never a discussion about ‘Midway Rising’…LESS!
For decades residents of Paris, Barcelona and Brooklyn have been held up, robbed by the modern day robber apartment barons; the Publicly Traded Real Estate Investment Trusts, US Owned Corporate Landlords that are beholden ONLY to shareholders. Corporate Landlords have systematically accelerated rental extortion. Exorbitantly increasing rents in Paris, Barcelona and Brooklyn required to generate the profits necessary to satisfy those shareholders. Profits from unrealistic rent increases have been the most harmful contributor to inflationary catastrophes in every sector of these economies Spanish, French, and American additionally an ever increasing list of hundreds of small, medium and large businesses have been forced to shutter.
In almost every case, all of that subsidized, real estate wealth leaves Paris, Barcelona and Brooklyn extracting all of that wealth from Paris, Barcelona and Brooklyn to be spent elsewhere like super-duper yachts with billion dollar price tags in order to compensate for small penises and quite possibly for a necessary getaway vehicle when the people finally do turn on them.
Mayor Todd Gloria’s “Neighborhood Homes for All of Us” initiative is 100% Corporate Rental, brought to you by robber baron corporate landlords.
The only way to contain costs that is the result of the legislated monopolization of housing we’ve been subjected to, is to require the sale of a HUMONGOUS number of luxury apartments built since TARP. All units should only be sold to full time residents, and should emphasize not just include first time buyers. Start with every corporate landlord and Real Estate Investment entity not headquartered in California. We’d get Wall Street out of the controlling position they have enjoyed thanks to Gloria supported legislation.
Results: The shareholders get paid out. Rents and properties values are given the opportunity to stabilize while tax moneys will be generated via new home/condo ownership. Revenue that does not exist thanks to corporate apartment subsidies that are costing the taxpayers as thousands of units sit vacant in some cases for years on end.
No mid-rise, or high-rise, apartment blocks being built now add anything positive to the cityscape, aside from just cramming more and more people into already congested areas. These buildings are sterile and ugly and advertise only the speed with which they are thrown up over any aesthetic considerations.
Without excellent public transportation options, the mid-rise housing model can not function. Paris, Brooklyn and Barcelona all have efficient means of transportation, San Diego simply does not, and adding bike lanes won’t fix this situation either!