Broadway Heights, San Diego, CA

Broadway Heights is a seven-street hilltop enclave in southeastern San Diego, surrounded on three sides by the city of Lemon Grove. Mallard Street climbs up from Federal Boulevard and marks the line with Encanto to the south, and a landscaped sign at the foot of the climb asks drivers to take it slow. City approval for the tract came in the 1950s, and most of its roughly 190 houses were finished around 1960, so the streets read as one era from end to end. Single-family homes are all there is, with no shops or apartment blocks mixed in, just houses facing houses along the top of the rise. What sets the neighborhood apart is how organized it is. The Broadway Heights Community Council meets every month and runs a pancake breakfast, a cleanup day, a block party and a holiday decorating contest, and a youth council meets on its own. In 2010 residents won a campaign to rename Weston Street, which became Martin Luther King Jr. Way, the first San Diego street to bear his name. There is no park on the hill itself. Chollas Lake Park, a short drive away in Oak Park, has a 2.2-mile loop around the water, shady eucalyptus trails and fishing piers. Berry Street Park in Lemon Grove is closer for a quick playground stop. Food means heading downhill. Federal Boulevard continues east into Lemon Grove, where the choice of restaurants widens. Groceries come from the Albertsons on Broadway in Lemon Grove, and Highway 94 is close for the drive downtown. Living here means driving for almost everything, and the walk out passes a tire business and parked trucks at the foot of Mallard Street before you reach anything useful. Broadway Heights is small enough that the community calendar reaches every house, and on block party day the whole neighborhood fits on a single street.