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Official community planning area: College Area
Published fit 42 uses default walkable weights and a $2,500 ACS rent budget — the same number as the San Diego table. Your current weights score this 42.
Data period. ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024) · SDPD Oct 2025 – Sep 2026 · OSM Oct 2026. ACS and SDPD retrieved 2026-10-14; OSM retrieved 2026-10-14. Editorial copy last revised Sep 2026.
SDSU is the search. The official plan is College Area. Median age is 25.4, the youngest in this set. Rent is $2,089. Violent Part I is 4.3 per 1,000. School ratings are not in this snapshot — the age is the tell, not a campus assignment.
Best in San Diego for familiesWalkable San DiegoUnder $2,500 rent
Default walkable weights, $2,500 ACS rent budget. Same axes as the city table and the FAQ.
135 violent · 349 property · 15.5 per 1k (Oct 2025 – Sep 2026)+24 vs city set
Limited school data0 vs city set
OSM: 8 groceries · 15 cafes · 93 transit · 19 parks-11 vs city set
$2,089 ACS median vs published $2,500 rent budget+4 vs city set
OSM: 15 cafes · 41 restaurants · 3 bars · 19 parks-16 vs city set
From College Area, a typical weekday is 20 min to Downtown, 18 min to UTC, 16 min to Mission Valley. Not live traffic.
Mission Valley is the fastest of these three job centers from here.
Civic Center, Gaslamp · +3 min vs the city-set median
University City, the campus · -1 min vs the city-set median
Malls, the stadium · +1 min vs the city-set median · fastest of these three
Minutes are baked from neighborhood geography to three job centers — not Google, not this hour’s traffic.
The ACS median rent is $2,089 — every occupied rental mixed together, not the 1-bed in the window.
That is 32% of median household income — over the 30% HUD line. A household at this area’s median income ($78K) could “afford” about $1,951 a month at 30% of pay.
64% of households rent. Median home value is $874,240.
ACS 5-year median gross rent for San Diego city. Up 70% since 2014. College Area is 10% below the 2024 city median.
Overlapping 5-year ACS windows (B25064), not asking rent. Census does not publish a rent series for each official neighborhood, so the line is the city place. The dashed mark is this area’s ACS 2024 median.
HUD treats 30% of income as the cost-burden line. We do not split ACS rent into 1-bed vs 2-bed. Method.
Within a short walk of this official community planning area: 8 groceries, 15 cafes, 19 parks, and 93 transit stops.
Daily errands and coffee are realistic on foot. Parks are close — 19 mapped parks in that radius. Transit is dense (93 stops or stations).
15 cafes and 41 restaurants make this one of the busier food pockets in the San Diego set.
OpenStreetMap, 800 meters. Not a Walk Score license. More groceries than 9 of the other 19 areas in this city.
ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024) · 5 census tracts · SDPD Oct 2025 – Sep 2026 · OSM 2026-10-14
Crime is SDPD Part I reports per 1,000 ACS residents — not a judgment of who lives here. Home and rent figures are ACS medians, not live MLS. Read the method.
What it is like to live here, beyond the scores.
SDSU is the search. The official plan is College Area. Median age is 25.4, the youngest in this set. Rent is $2,089. Violent Part I is 4.3 per 1,000. School ratings are not in this snapshot — the age is the tell, not a campus assignment.
Scores on this page stay inside San Diego. College Area is the official community planning area; other names are searches, not extra polygons. School ratings are not in this snapshot. A neighbor on the schematic map is not a shared fence. SDPD counts are the department's FBI violent and property flags — Part I homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, plus burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Arson is not in those flags. Police beats are not this map.
Compiled from Zillow neighborhood guides, 5280 Magazine, Chicago and San Francisco resident guides, Mpls With Love, Eastside LA reporting, Seattle Times coverage, Boston planning-neighborhood writing, Philadelphia neighborhood writing, Portland neighborhood writing, Washington neighborhood-cluster writing, San Diego community-plan writing, and local writing, 2025–2026. Editorial — not part of the fit score.
Public posts from r/sandiego that mention this neighborhood. Not Nextdoor, not people on this block, and not part of the fit score.
No r/sandiego posts in this snapshot mentioned College Area.
Last 90 days, snapshot 2026-09-01. Method.
Straight answers from the numbers on this page.
College Area sits on the quieter side of this San Diego map (safety 74 vs city 50). SDPD logged 4.3 violent and 11.2 property incidents per 1,000 residents — 15.5 combined. Visitors count in those numbers. This is not a judgment of who lives here.
ACS median rent is $2,089 — studios through large apartments mixed together. About 64% of households rent. Median home value is $874,240. Survey medians, not a listing you can message tonight.
Walk is 13 here vs 24 for the San Diego set — you will likely drive or ride for a weekly shop. Inside 800 meters: 8 groceries, 15 cafes, 93 transit stops, 19 parks. Not a Walk Score license.
Family fit depends on the school rating nearby and how much quiet you want. Nearby school rating is thin in this dataset. Median age is 25.4. That rating is not your assigned campus.
20 typical weekday minutes to Downtown. Not the app on your phone this hour. Other job centers are further down this page.
About 31,285 people. Median income $78K. 50% have a bachelor's or higher.
Kensington, City Heights, Normal Heights sit closest on this map. If you are choosing between two official community planning areas, start with College Area vs Kensington.
Closest on this schematic map, scored with the same published walkable weights as the San Diego table. Distances here are not street geography.
College Area vs KensingtonCollege Area vs City HeightsCollege Area vs Normal Heights
$2K ACS median rent
The official plan is Mid-City: City Heights. 76,398 people, the largest central plan in this set. Income is $65,086 and rent is $1,773. Bachelor's share is 23%, the lowest here. Violent Part I is 5.9 per 1,000 and property is 8.4 — a rate for a wide plan, not a verdict on one block.
$2K ACS median rent
30th Street is the search. The official plan is North Park. Cafes and houses on the same grid. Rent is $2,034. Violent Part I is 3.2 per 1,000, calmer than the plan to the west. Median age is 35.8.
$2K ACS median rent
South Park is a search inside Greater Golden Hill, not its own polygon. Rent is $1,980. Violent Part I is 2.7 per 1,000, one of the calmer central reads. The park is the lawn. The houses are the rest.
$2K ACS median rent
Adams Avenue is the search. The official plan is Mid-City: Normal Heights. Rent is $1,888, one of the lower central medians, and the home median is $778,085. Violent Part I is 4.6 per 1,000. A small grid, not a campus.
$2K ACS median rent
Talmadge is the other name on the same line. The official plan is Mid-City: Kensington-Talmadge. Houses and a canyon, not a strip. The home median is $1,265,367. Rent is $2,002. Violent Part I is 5.1 per 1,000.