Craftsman bungalows and independent coffee shops line the streets around you here, a pocket neighborhood just southeast of Balboa Park. South Park developed primarily in the 1910s and 1920s, and its modest scale and residential character have been preserved more completely than in many comparable San Diego neighborhoods. The neighborhood shares its identity closely with adjacent Golden Hill to the east, which developed slightly earlier in the 1880s and 1890s as one of San Diego's first streetcar suburbs.
Both neighborhoods were affordable by San Diego standards through the late twentieth century, which meant they were accessible to artists, young professionals, and the kind of independent businesses that cannot survive in more expensive districts. That affordability has eroded significantly as San Diego's housing market tightened after 2010, but the physical character of the neighborhoods — small parcels, pedestrian-scale blocks, mature trees — remains. Grape Street through the heart of South Park is lined with the bookshops, wine bars, and plant stores that define a certain strain of contemporary urban neighborhood identity.
The Community Garden at 25th and Grape has operated continuously since the 1970s, one of the oldest in the city.