Encanto, San Diego, CA

Chaparral covers the slopes of Encanto, and on some hillside lots in this southeastern San Diego neighborhood a few chickens or a goat still wander behind the house. The land was first divided into lots in 1907 and marketed to buyers who wanted a house with room for a small farm, and it has kept more of that semi-rural feel than the newer tracts around it. Detached houses are scattered over the hills and canyons of the old South Chollas Valley, with quiet dead-end streets and view lots that look toward downtown. Two newer apartment projects now stand along the rail line over Imperial, part of a city plan that adds density near transit and leaves the hillsides as they are. Imperial Avenue from 61st to 69th Street was named the San Diego Black Arts and Culture District in 2022, and the lamp posts there still carry Eddie Edwards' 24 painted panels of neighborhood life from 1993. Caribbean Taste, in Trolley Stop Plaza, has been cooking Jamaican jerk chicken and oxtail, along with a goat stew, for close to 20 years. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Park on Skyline Drive and the Encanto Park Recreation Center on Wunderlin Avenue cover the ballfields and playgrounds. Just over Highway 94 in Oak Park, Chollas Lake Park has a loop of a little over two miles under eucalyptus and piers for fishing. Daily life runs along Imperial. The Encanto/62nd Street trolley station is a quick way downtown without the freeway, and Imperial has a couple of independent markets for groceries, and the big chain supermarkets are next door in Lemon Grove, which borders Encanto to the east. Many Imperial storefronts are empty or boarded up, so the commercial strip has far fewer places to eat and shop than the neighborhood's size would suggest. Low-lying streets also took real damage in the January 2024 floods. Climb 61st Street toward O'Farrell and the view opens all the way to the downtown towers, while down on Imperial the murals keep telling the neighborhood's own story.