Often characterized by its rich historic past, National City is in fact the second oldest city in San Diego County. Incorporated on September 17, 1887, National City is a major area for in-dustrial business and urban neighborhoods, over-taken by a majority of business commuters. With these industrial sites and homes neighboring each other, residents experience extensive environmental degradation and pollution.
National City is among the top 10% of zip codes in California for combined impacts of pol-lution and population vulnerabilities. The city has a 77.9% mark for traffic density, with most of the population throughout the day coming from commuters who use this business hub. The residents of National City are not the primary cause for the disruption of the health of the environment, yet they suffer from the impacts.
This project attempts to address these injustices through a sustainability assessment of National City that will help the residents create a community in which they can thrive. This assessment will touch on multiple aspects of sustainability including environment and nature, good government, material well-being, psychological well-being, physical health, time and work-life balance, social vitality and connection, education, arts and culture. Through this assessment, residents can better understand how to improve their environment and in turn their quality of life using the resources and facilities needed to do so.
This project to preserve the environmental, social, and economic components of the Nation City community and to improve the ability of regeneration was made possible by the efforts of the Sage Project and SDSU. National City’s culture, location and need for environ-mental justice inspired the initiation of this project to better the community and improve the residents’ quality of life through a sustainable reality for the urban community of National City.
This report represents original work by the students of San Diego State University’s (SDSU) Fall 2014 PSFA 100 Sustainable Development as part of SDSU’s Sage Project and its partnership with the City of National City. This course was led by Jessica Travis at SDSU and inspired by the Sage Project’s partnership with National City.
Read the final student report delivered to the local gov/community partner.
The Sage Project Contact Info
Kristofer Patron
Program Administrator
kpatron@sdsu.edu
(619) 594-0103
University Faculty Contact
Jessica Travis
Sustainability
Local Government / Community Contact