Fox Canyon, San Diego, CA

Fox Canyon covers only a handful of blocks around the intersection of Euclid and University avenues, making it one of the smallest of the fourteen neighborhoods that make up City Heights in San Diego. Most of what defines it sits right on that intersection, with homes filling the short streets behind the storefronts. The anchor is the Tower Bar on University. The Art Deco building went up in 1932 and started life serving sodas to drivers, and today it is a dive bar that books punk, metal and rock bands most nights and keeps the doors open until 2 a.m. A block east, small Somali and East African kitchens share a row with a Vietnamese sandwich counter. Red Sea Ethiopian, just west across the line in Fairmount Village, has been pouring coffee with a table-side ceremony since the 1980s. Homes are a tight mix of older single-family houses and modest multi-unit buildings. Lots are small and the streets are short, so the neighborhood reads as a few residential blocks set between two busy roads. For open space, residents head out of the neighborhood. The 47th Street canyon, called Olivia Canyon, has an open space trail just to the west, and Wightman Street Park sits just to the east. Down Euclid in Swan Canyon, City Farmers Nursery has sold plants since 1972, keeps goats, chickens and miniature donkeys on the lot, and shares space with Nate's Garden Grill. Groceries mean a trip to El Super at University and Fairmount, or to the markets on El Cajon Boulevard. Buses run along University, and State Route 15 is close by car. Size works both ways. There is no park or full grocery inside Fox Canyon itself, so nearly every errand starts with a walk to a busy corner. That same corner gives the neighborhood its landmark, a 1930s tower where the bands start playing once the shops close.