North Park, where you now walk, arguably best represents San Diego's contemporary urban identity: a walkable, densely built, arts-and-food-focused district that was once a streetcar suburb and has been reinvented as one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city. North Park grew up in the 1910s and 1920s as San Diego's streetcar network expanded northeast from downtown. The North Park Theatre, opened in 1929 on University Avenue, anchored the neighborhood's commercial strip for decades.
Bungalow courts, craftsman houses, and California Mediterranean apartment buildings filled the residential streets. After the postwar decline of streetcar culture and the rise of the automobile suburb, North Park went through decades of disinvestment. The reinvention began in the 1990s and accelerated through the 2000s: artists, musicians, and small food entrepreneurs moved into cheap commercial spaces, creating an informal cultural scene that attracted the investment that followed.
Today North Park has the highest concentration of craft breweries of any neighborhood in San Diego — itself the craft beer capital of California — as well as the concentration of independent restaurants and music venues that gave it the unofficial title of San Diego's arts district. The North Park Theatre has been restored as a concert venue.