Otay Mesa West, San Diego, CA

On a hillside in what is now Otay Mesa West, John Montgomery launched a glider in August 1883, and a 90-foot wing salvaged from a B-24 bomber has stood in Montgomery-Waller Park since 1950 to mark the flight. The neighborhood fills a wedge of southern San Diego between Interstate 5, Interstate 805 and State Route 905, with Chula Vista across the Otay River to the north. Housing is largely single-family tracts from the residential boom that began in the late 1960s. Townhouse rows and apartment complexes fill in some blocks, and Palm Avenue and Coronado Avenue carry the shopping. The parks are a strong point. Montgomery-Waller Park pairs its monument with the Montgomery-Waller Recreation Center and Little League fields, and Palm Ridge Park and Silverwing Park add more fields and play space. Otay Valley Regional Park follows the northern edge, protecting the river bottom's habitat, and its ranger station sits on Beyer Boulevard just past the line in Palm City. Tacos El Gordo, the Tijuana family taco shop, has its Palm Avenue outpost at 3265 Palm, where the spicy adobada is the order. Taco shops and small family counters fill in the rest of Palm Avenue and Coronado Avenue. Northgate González Market on Coronado Avenue is the big grocery stop, and the Otay Mesa-Nestor Branch Library shares that stretch of road. The Iris Avenue trolley station puts the Blue Line inside the neighborhood, and the three freeways on its borders make the drive north or to the border crossing easy. Those freeways also wall the neighborhood in on three sides, so the blocks beside them live with steady traffic noise, and most shopping sits in strip centers built around parking lots. Otay Mesa West works as a South Bay home base, with a river park out the back door, a trolley stop and Tijuana-style tacos a short drive from most front doors.