While many Little Italys across America are diminishing either due to the growth from adjacent ethnic neighborhoods or the dispersion of Italian families from these areas, San Diego’s Little Italy is a stable ethnic business and residential community – and has been since the 1920s. Little Italy San Diego represents the city’s oldest continuous-neighborhood business district.

At one time, more than 6,000 Italian families lived here and toiled to build San Diego into the center of the world’s tuna industry. Unfortunately, even San Diego’s stronghold has suffered nearly 30 years of decline due to the construction of a major highway and the decline of the tuna industry. But, in the early 1990s, property owners and family-run businesses decided to take matters into their own hands. Today, San Diego’s Little Italy is not only a model urban neighborhood in its own city, but a model for the Little Italys throughout the country.