City Heights is a dense urban community in central San Diego, California, known for its ethnic diversity. The area was previously known as East San Diego. City Heights is located south of Mission Valley and northeast of Balboa Park. City Heights is notable as a home to refugees and immigrants, with significant communities of Vietnamese, Somali, Cambodian, Laotian, and Latino residents. Many social and cultural resources, retail stores, and restaurants are operated by and/or serve the non-white population. Major commercial streets include University Avenue, El Cajon Boulevard, Fairmount Avenue, and Euclid Avenue. City Heights is densely populated and has mostly multi-family apartments and homes. History Colonization of Kumeyaay lands Like much of central, southern, and east San Diego County, City Heights sits on Kumeyaay territory. The area was occupied by Spain with the arrival of Spanish soldiers from New Spain and the Baja California peninsula in the 18th century. When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, it claimed the land and secularized the mission system, distributing the lands to rancheros. When the United States annexed the land, the modern era of American settler colonialism began. Settlement and any later development was facilitated by the forced removal of Kumeyaay people to reservations begun by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1875. American settlement In the 1880s, American entrepreneurs Abraham Klauber and Samuel Steiner purchased over of unincorporated land northeast of Balboa Park, hoping to profit from the area. Together they named it "City Heights," though it was also known as the "Steiner, Klauber, Choate and Castle Addition" after the earlier developers of the property. The area was subdivided, and on November 2, 1912, eligible area voters voted to become an incorporated city known as East San Diego. Population boomed in the next few years from 400 in 1910 to 4,000 during the incorporation. On December 31, 1923, the City of East San Diego voted, 1,344 to 1,109, for annexation into the City of San Diego, becoming once again a neighborhood known as City Heights. The East San Diego trustees did not immediately recognize the annexation in early 1924. Complete annexation occurred over the next few years with the City of San Diego taking over. Emergence as an urban center During most of the 1930s, 1940s, and the 1950s the area had some suburban housing and was a commercial center for middle-class white residents, while people of color were segregated in south