by John M. Eger

January 25, 2026

Thanks to the San Diego Tourism Authority for what they call, “Sweet Spots for San Diego Street Art,” a list of murals and buildings the city is most proud of including the ARTS DISTRICT Liberty Station, once a Navy training center, seen as a mecca for food, art and niche shopping, and a place you can see some early colonial reproductions; Chicano Park at National Ave & S. Evans St., which has some 80 artworks over seven acres of parkland, reaching high into the sky on the concrete pylons supporting the Coronado Bay Bridge; the Sea Walls Project, also called Murals for Oceans at 38 and 4th where 18 murals designed to raise environmental issues have been painted.

More important than the buildings, Fred Kent, a leading authority on revitalizing cities, argues, is whether there are gathering places for people to hear a string quartet, watch a dance routine or a chess match, or simply meet, enjoy themselves, and give life to the city… although San Diego has some great buildings.

North Park, a community within the city, does have a 90-minute walking tour through the neighborhood, where guides explain the stories and techniques behind dynamic street art and graffiti. Areas like Balboa Park, Barrio Logan, and Oceanside, state-designated hubs, openly invite visitors to explore their arts and culture experiences. And of course, all the local galleries actively promote themselves, as do our theater and the libraries. The MTS offers free rides to ArtWalk and integrates art into its transit system. Visitors and residents are also encouraged to use online resources like KPBS, San Diego.org, and Vanguard Culture to learn more about several other opportunities in San Diego.

But obviously San Diego can and should do much more…and the council says it will.

On April 22, 2025, the San Diego City Council (San Diego) adopted a broad citywide plan that integrates artwork and creative elements into public spaces such as sidewalks, streets, and plazas. According to the Mobility Master Plan, which includes the arts program, called AROW, “to promote a sense of place, foster engagement and connectivity, and promote cultural expression in the public 

The council believed that “Art can be integrated into right-of-way infrastructure in various of forms, including street furnishings, lighting, performances, temporary installations, wayfinding, and paving materials,” but not unusually, leaves it to the various departments to “support the implementation of the City’s Public Art Master Plan.”

To date, only a handful of projects are in progress, although $12.2 million investment in local arts and culture in fiscal year (FY) 2025 was funded for nonprofit organizations for film screenings, exhibitions, performances, festivals, parades, and other community events, which is about the usual amount. The city funds, as the city annually funds local nonprofit organizations to cultivate and enhance arts and culture activities across all City Council districts, generated from the Transient Occupancy Tax collected from visitors staying in hotels, motels, and other accommodations, are awarded through the Organization Support Program (OSP) and Creative Communities San Diego (CCSD). 

Some of the projects, some that have not yet been reported back to the city, are as follows:

• Adams Avenue Business Association $26,945 Adams Avenue Street Fair — major free music & street festival. San Diego
• Armed Services YMCA – San Diego $178,205 Big Bay Boom July 4th fireworks & celebration. San Diego
• Asian Culture and Media Alliance ~$8,800 Asian & Pacific Cultural Festival. San Diego
• Best Practice ~$12,475 Year-long exhibition & events series in Logan Heights. San Diego
• Casa Familiar ~$40,374 Multi-event arts + culture programming for San Ysidro/South Bay. San Diego
• Centro Cultural de la Raza ~$7,641 Día de los Muertos procession & community event. San Diego
• San Diego International Fringe Festival (SD Fringe) ~$118,628 Multi-disciplinary arts festival. San Diego
• San Diego LGBT Pride ~$204,091 Pride celebration & year-round arts programming. San Diego
• San Diego Film Foundation ~$152,620 San Diego International Film Festival. San Diego
• Ocean Beach Merchant’s Association ~$24,851 Ocean Beach Street Fair & Chili Cook-Off (music, art, community art zone). San Diego
• North Park Organization of Businesses ~$25,296 North Park Music Festival. San Diego
• Poway Center for the Performing Arts Foundation ~$11,724 Free virtual performance curriculum for students. San Diego

Even though San Diego’s official policy plan, like the Art in the Right-of-Way program, emphasizes things like art-infused street furnishings, lighting, temporary installations, a wayfinding art in the public right-of-way, most of those elements are still largely in planning or pilot phases and not widely installed across city streets yet. Moreover, there hasn’t yet been a large rollout of city-directed murals, artistic paving, artistic bike lanes, aesthetic street lighting art, or integrated wayfinding art along sidewalks as a standard part of public right-of-way improvements. San Diego

To push this vitally important issue and the arts and culture plan forward, just to have been awarded the following awards with some expectations: 

Placemaking, as it is now being called, is taking place in cities across America. San Diego is clearly in the lead and needs to be regularly assessing how well it’s doing. Maybe this will fall to the City’s Art and Culture Commission, or maybe the new Assistant Deputy Director in the Economic Development Department, leading the City of San Diego’s Dept. of Cultural Affairs.