On January 7, some of golf’s biggest names—Tiger, Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele, Ludvig Aberg, and Wyndham Clark—will walk into a packed stadium designed specifically for this spectacle. A three-on-three match. Tee shots and longer approach shots will be hit into a massive 64-by-53-foot simulator. The short game will take place on a real putting green equipped with sophisticated hydraulics that morph and shift the surface for each hole. Golfers will be mic’d up. They’ll be held to a strict 40-second shot clock.
ESPN will broadcast the debut of TGL Golf across 80 countries to millions of golf fans, including Agustin “Augie” Pizá, the San Diego architect who designed several of the holes for this future-of-golf moment.
When I reach Pizá, his excitement is palpable. He quickly apologizes for his strained voice before jumping into a slew of topics including architecture, the Chargers, Picasso, philosophy, and, most of all, the future. An award-winning golf course architect, Pizá’s San Diego-based design firm was tapped to help design several holes for “Tomorrow’s Golf League” (TGL), created by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in partnership with the PGA TOUR.
“One of the things that I wanted [to do] was to challenge the top players, but also to have fun,” says Pizá between sips of tea. “It’s made-for-TV entertainment.”
This hybrid model unshackles the sport from traditional rules. It will be staged at SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida—a stadium custom-designed for TGL. Teams will compete in 15-hole matches, split between “triples”—3-on-3 playing alternate shots—and “singles,” or head-to-head play. Matches will take no more than two hours, and, borrowing from other sports, there are timeouts and referees and similar to fantasy sports, there’s the “Hammer,” an option for teams to go for (or lose) double the points on a hole.
“To have actual teammates competing with you affecting the result is such a cool thing. I know Rick, I know Cam and Fitzy pretty well, and I think we’re just going to get closer as we compete in this league,” Schauffele says, referring to his teammates Rickie Fowler, Cameron Young, and Matt Fitzpatrick, respectively. Among them are 17 PGA Tour victories and three major championships. They’re joined in TGL by league co-founders and all-time greats Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, along with 18 other top golfers. A four-team playoff later this year will determine the inaugural TGL champions.
The virtual environment also lets the course designers run wild, something Pizá had been preparing for his whole career. He learned the foundations of course design during stints at Nicklaus Design and Fazio Design, two of the top course design firms in the world, and he expanded his design sensibilities at the University of Edinburgh’s golf course architecture program.
“I think one of our biggest competitive advantages is that mix of the contemporary United States–-not afraid of building bigger stuff, bolder stuff—but then having the ecological-friendly, minimalist approach from the U.K.,” Pizá says about his eponymous firm Pizá Golf.
One of his first solo projects was at Club Campestre Tampico in Mexico. There, he started improvising on the tenets of course design with “just a touch here and there, just an accent here and there—things that rarely you would see on a course.” Pizá’s is the language and pride of an artist, which caught the attention of TMRW Sports, the entity behind TGL. (In a reference to its parent company, TGL stands for Tomorrow’s Golf League.)
So far, Pizá has designed eight holes for TGL, but his most striking is Temple, “a hole design inspired by ancient civilizations… and found in the mountains of South America,” according to the league’s website.
Courtesy of Pizá Golf
“I was playing around with two triangles and I pinched them in the middle, and I thought, ‘This could be, I don’t know if the ultimate, but a very exciting risk-and-reward hole,’” Pizá says. An errant tee shot risks losing the ball in the (fictional) valley below, and players who don’t try to reach the second, farther triangle will be left with a long approach shot to an elevated island green. “We’re very lucky to have clients that believe in us and that are as crazy as we are because if we didn’t, we would just be theorists.”
But Pizá is, in fact, a theorist. Everything has a purpose. Designing courses is like making an album. Butterfly Golf, in which four sets of six-hole loops create different courses on one site, is the future of “grass golf.” TGL isn’t a competitor to grass golf, it complements it; and what we see in TGL is 25 years of the evolution of the mind, Pizá’s mind. Talking with him, he seems less a golf designer and more an inventor.
“Art and architecture don’t know boundaries, they don’t know borders if you’re an artist… if you’re great at what you do.” Only someone raised by two teachers from Tijuana who established their studio in San Diego could put this all into practice. If Pizá is an inventor, then he is helping create the future of golf, and if TGL takes off, then he better stock up on tea. He’ll have a lot more talking to do.
Then, I ask him if it’s his goal to be history’s greatest golfer from San Diego. Schauffele entered that conversation in 2024 by becoming only the 16th golfer ever to win the British Open and another major championship in the same year. On top of that, he’s got an Olympic gold medal from the 2020 Tokyo games and a win at the 2017 Tour Championship. He’s now ranked number two in the world. Yet he shows little interest in chasing down Phil Mickelson, Billy Casper, and other San Diego golf legends.
So I ask him what aspect of his game he wants to improve, and the answers spill out. No one self-flagellates like a golfer. “It really is a big goal of mine to be the best player in the world, to get to the top of that mountain,” the 31-year-old Scripps Ranch High alum says. “The saying ‘so close, yet so far’ really hits hard, because for me to have a career year and win two majors and to be further away from number one…”
Schauffele trails off, then finishes the thought: “Cheers to Scottie for kicking everyone’s ass.”
He’s referring to Scottie Scheffler, the only man above him in the Official World Golf Ranking. Schauffele’s season last year was great, but Scheffler’s was legendary. He tallied nine victories, including one at the Masters; won a gold medal at the Paris Olympics; and took home the FedEx Cup, golf ’s season-long competition. Schauffele is undeterred.
“As soon as I get a few steps up, I seem to fall further down the mountain, but I’m pretty stubborn for being as chill as I can be,” Schauffele says. “Hopefully, that pays off in the end.”
Schauffele doesn’t have a ton of length. He ranked 33rd in driving distance last year. His ball striking is celebrated, but he ranked sixth in strokes gained. He didn’t crack the top 10 in putting. You’d be hard-pressed to identify a superlative skill of Schauffele’s or find a statistic in which he ranks first. He’s a jack-of-all-trades golfer, very good at a lot of things. His greatest trait, however, is his work ethic.
Courtesy of San Diego State Unviersity
Ryan Donovan, the head golf coach at San Diego State University, says Schauffele is the hardest-working guy he’s ever had in the program. “He was always competing, always improving, working on things,” Donovan adds. He tells me that, as a senior, Schauffele switched his classes to the evening so he could practice every day until sunset. Three years later, Schauffele was voted the PGA Rookie of the Year.
And for all his success—all his time playing on the world’s best greens—he still recalls fondly his years at San Diego’s humble municipal tracts. “The most fun I had was in high school, when we were at Torrey Pines and the sun’s setting over the ocean and we’re scrambling to finish on the ninth hole in the dark,” Schauffele says.
If Schauffele doesn’t think about any one tournament or being the best golfer from San Diego, then it’s because all he thinks about is practice. Of course, that’s the only way to win the Masters, to become one of the greats.
“I started playing golf when I was 16,” David Moon says. “I’m married to the game, and I love this brand.”
His affection for Honma Golf is understandable. Clubs from the BERES line, with smooth metals dyed silver, gold, and red, look more like pieces of jewelry than they do sporting goods. It’s Moon’s job, as the company’s ecommerce and customer service manager, to sell those clubs, although that title doesn’t fully capture his role running Honma Golf’s three-person Carlsbad operation.
Courtesy of Honma Golf
Founded in Japan in 1959, the company developed a devout following, mostly in Asia, for its meticulously designed and unusually sophisticated golf clubs. They aren’t manufactured so much as they are crafted, but for decades that luxury went largely unnoticed in North America. In an effort to grow in Western markets, Honma Golf setup shop in Torrance in Los Angeles County, then Cyprus in Orange County. Finally, in 2019, the company landed in Carlsbad, known as the “golf equipment capital of the world.”
That may sound like a roadside oddity or an obscure Guinness World Record, but in Carlsbad the moniker is serious business. A block from Honma Golf is Titleist’s Carlsbad office. TaylorMade and Callaway are headquartered on the other side of Palomar Airport. That makes three of golf’s “Big Four” brands within two miles of each other, and you can’t swing a club without hitting dozens of smaller companies like Cobra and Honma. “It’s good to be in the mix with the big companies,” Moon says. “We’re not moving any time soon.”
Courtesy of San Diego Tourism Authority TaylorMade Golf production facility
According to a report from the city’s economic development division, there are no less than 116 firms in the sports innovation and design industry cluster, which includes the city’s world-renowned golf equipment manufacturers. “We’re claiming over 2,300 employees in that sector, which is more than six times the national average,” says Bret Schanzenbach, president and CEO of the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce. “It also generates good income—averaging $130,000 per employee per year in annual earnings.”
Callaway and TaylorMade together earn over $5 billion annually, or about $5 for every golf ball the world manufactures in a year. And the story of selling golf balls is inextricably linked with the story of Carlsbad.
Long a farming town, Carlsbad didn’t incorporate until 1952. Its population as of the 1960 census was just over 9,000, and not many people outside of San Diego County had heard of the town until the La Costa Resort, opened in 1965, began hosting the PGA’s Tournament of Champions in 1969. A 34-year-old Gary Player, at the height of his legendary career, fended off the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Lee Trevino for the trophy that year.
Courtesy of The Club at La Costa
“I believe it is the way courses should be set,” Player told The New York Times after his victory at La Costa, now known as the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa. “It’s as fine a course as I won on.” High praise from a man who had taken the crown at the British Open nine months prior. La Costa would go on to host the tournament for the next 30 years, and the city grew around it.
That’s due in large part to Ely Callaway and Gary Adams. A textiles executive from Georgia, Callaway brought his fledgling golf club company to Carlsbad in 1983. A year later, Adams came to town with TaylorMade, a company he started in Illinois that had some success hawking “metalwoods,” a departure from the traditional all-wood sets.
In 1991, Callaway took the novel idea a step further and invented the Big Bertha driver, the first made entirely of stainless steel. The club head was massive yet light in the hand. It felt like the future, because it was. The story of golf—and Carlsbad—became centered around engineering, research and development, and technological advances. It mirrored the digital revolution rooted in Northern California. The Bay Area had Silicon Valley. Carlsbad had Titanium Valley. Honma Golf resides on Innovation Way.
Courtesy of TaylorMade Golf
“If you’re a golf company, do you want to be based in Illinois, or are you going to go to a place like California where you can golf year round?” Schanzenbach says. Carlsbad has “infrastructure, plus the weather, plus the quality of life, and the ability to bring in top [golf] professionals to your facility to test out your equipment,” he adds. “You want to bring them to a place where, afterwards, you can go out to a really nice course with beautiful weather and treat them.”
But the local industry has hit the rough in recent years. According to the city, employment in the sector declined 16.3 percent between 2018 and 2020, a trend that started back in 2013, despite overall golf participation being up 30 percent since 2016, according to the National Golf Foundation. While the weather in Carlsbad is still perfect, some of the factors that fueled its explosive growth, especially cheap land and plentiful labor, are today tilting against it.
Courtesy of TaylorMade Golf
“Coming out of Covid, one of the biggest things we were hearing from our membership was the challenge with finding and then retaining talent for their companies,” Schanzenbach says. “I know TaylorMade has done a good job with it. But [for] the middle-tier companies, it’s hard.”
Honma Golf felt this firsthand.
PGA tour pro Justin Rose signed with the company in early 2019, and a few weeks later, he won the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego. Honma was finally making inroads in the US, then Covid hit. “All the momentum stopped,” Moon says.
Sales slumped, then the company struggled with staff turnover and recruiting executive and marketing teams to achieve its goals in North America. The realities of high costs, intense competition, and hiring challenges set in, but Honma Golf is undeterred. By reorganizing its marketing team and refocusing on its core market segment of golfers interested in premium clubs, the company feels there are better days ahead. “2025 is going to be a good year,” Moon predicts.
Courtesy of Topgolf
It’s a retrenchment not unlike Callaway Golf’s. In September, the company announced it was spinning off Topgolf, the chain of entertainment-focused driving ranges it acquired just four years earlier. The company wants to focus on its traditional golf equipment and apparel business, the one based in Carlsbad—the one that helped make Carlsbad.
After Covid’s industry-wide disruptions, the future of the local golf manufacturing industry is coming into focus. So far, it looks a lot like the first 40 years: You can’t play golf without Carlsbad.
San Diego, with its gorgeous coastal views and year-round sunny weather, is a golfer’s paradise, offering an impressive array of courses that cater to all skill levels, whether your scorecard usually consists of eagles or bogies. For locals and out-of-towners alike, exploring these courses will not only test your skills but also immerse you in the breathtaking scenery that San Diego is known for.
Courtesy of Coronado Golf Course
Coronado Golf Course
Coronado Golf Course, opened in 1957, is one of San Diego’s more walkable courses. Cited as a top SD course by the Golf Channel, the well-maintained public course offers views of the Coronado bridge and boats out on the water. The onsite restaurant serves American bites (including vegan options) for brunch and lunch.
2000 Visalia Row, Coronado
Courtesy of Torrey Pines Golf Course
Torrey Pines Golf Course
Consistently ranked as one of Golf Digest’s 100 greatest courses, the challenging Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla hosted the 2021 US Open and puts on the annual PGA TOUR’s Farmers Insurance Open. Named after the rare Torrey Pine tree, which only grows along the San Diego coastline and Santa Rosa Island, the course has made its way onto many golfers’ bucket lists.
11480 N Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla
Courtesy of Fairmont Grand Del Mar
The Grand Golf Club
Located at the luxurious Fairmont Grand Del Mar, The Grand Golf Club and its 50,000-square-foot driving range are open to hotel guests. Three-hundred-and-sixty degree views of each hole are available online, helping give you a leg up if you’re trying to improve your handicap. And if your kiddo dreams of becoming a future Masters champion, this course is the perfect place to take them, as children 12 and under can play and rent clubs for free.
5300 Grand Del Mar Way, Del Mar
Courtesy of Park Hyatt Aviara
Aviara Golf Club
Aviara Golf Club is San Diego’s only course designed by the legendary Arnold Palmer. Situated within Carlsbad’s Park Hyatt Aviara, this layout includes strategically placed bunkers and water features that provide both pretty views and tough obstacles. And, if you’d like to level up your gear game, the course’s TaylorMade Aviara Performance Center allows you to test clubs with 3D motion analysis technology. The club offers both public and resort fees, as well as online course videos that provide insight into hole details and potential strategies.
7447 Batiquitos Drive, Carlsbad
Courtesy of Rancho Bernardo Inn
Rancho Bernardo Inn Golf Course
Designed by golf course architect William Francis Bell, the Rancho Bernardo Inn Golf Course has hosted both PGA and LPGA events. Its 18th hole, surrounded by old-growth trees, is a fan favorite. Golf lessons are also available at the Carlsbad course, whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned golfer needing a couple tips or tweaks.
17550 Bernardo Oaks Dr, Rancho Bernardo
Courtesy of Singing Hills Golf Club
Singing Hills Golf Club
Singing Hills Golf Club supplies golfers with three courses in the Dehesa Valley of San Diego County. The Willow Glen course runs along the Sweetwater River and features narrow fairways, while the Oak Glen course is known for rolling greens and a beautiful, yet difficult, fifth hole. The nine-hole Pine Glen course is ideal for beginners or those looking to squeeze in a quick round.
3007 Dehesa Road, El Cajon
Courtesy of Mt. Woodson Golf Glub
Mt. Woodson Golf Club
The course at Mt. Woodson Golf Club in Ramona is tough—but you don’t need to worry about having an audience for any whiffs. Each hole is so secluded it’ll feel like you and your buddies are the only ones on the course. Open to the public and surrounded by serene, rocky hills, the club also houses a bar and grill with some of the best prices in town (hello, post-birdie BLT for under $9).
16422 North Woodson Drive, Ramona
Courtesy of Goat Hill Park Golf Club
Goat Hill Park Golf Club
Originally built in 1952, Oceanside’s Goat Hill Park Golf Club was one of the first golf courses in San Diego County and began as a regulation-length nine-hole setup. In the early 1990s, it was redesigned into an 18-hole course, enhancing its appeal to golfers seeking a fun time on the links and a laid-back atmosphere.
Admiral Baker Golf Course, located within the historic Navy complex near Tierrasanta, is notable for its two distinct 18-hole courses—the North and South. The lush fairways and well-maintained greens are complemented by facilities like a driving range and eatery.
Jordyn Berg is a freelance writer whose favorite topics include food and travel. A Pacific Northwest native, she delights in exploring the best of San Diego, by searching for hidden gems, experiencing must-try restaurants, and soaking in the city’s amazing views.
The Best Gym in San Diego Isn’t Really a Gym Anymore
Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped "athletic" from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
There’s a version of San Diego that lives in two extremes. On one side, the 5 a.m. crowd: biohackers, marathoners, people who’ve already logged a cold plunge before your alarm goes off. On the other, the after-dark crowd, the ones chasing sunset happy hours and late dinners with friends. Everyone seems to be either optimizing or unwinding, and most of us feel like we’re failing at both.
Fit, San Diego’s reigning Best Gym for the third year running, has built its entire identity around erasing that divide.
Walk into one of Fit’s three San Diego locations on a Tuesday afternoon and the lines blur fast. Someone’s mid-set on the squat rack. Someone else has a laptop open at a café table a few feet away, half-working, half-people-watching. A group is trading plans for the weekend’s event by the recovery lounge. Nobody’s in a rush to leave.
“We’re not competing for the same people,” says Emily Waybright, Public Relations Manager at Fit, addressing the arrival of a national luxury gym chain in San Diego this year. “We don’t really feel like we’re in the gym category. It’s this unique thing.”
That unique thing has a name now. Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped “athletic” from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
It’s a small wording change with a bigger idea behind it. Fit was never built around escaping the workday. It was built around the people who genuinely like what they do, and who want workouts, work, and friendships to happen in the same place instead of three separate ones. Because sometimes red light therapy with a stranger turns into weekend plans.
Fit’s philosophy traces back to its founder, who started the brand nearly two decades ago after failing to find a gym he actually wanted to belong to. He looked instead to the old-school country club, where people came for a shared interest and stayed for the community. His version was made for a younger generation, minus the golf, plus the loud music.
Which makes it a little ironic that the very award putting Fit back in the spotlight this year is Best Gym.
What does the best traditional gym look like when the definition of a gym is becoming less traditional? It’s a fair question, and Fit’s answer is that the fitness industry itself is shifting. The 45-minutes-in, 45-minutes-out model is giving way to something closer to a genuine third space, the kind of role the office and the bar used to play before remote work and changing nightlife habits rearranged how people spend their time
For Fit, community isn’t a marketing add-on to fitness. It’s the through-line. Members aren’t just paying for a treadmill; they’re paying for an entire day of social wellness that’s built on performance, recovery, connection, and a plan for the next event on the calendar. That’s a much harder membership to walk away from.
Ambition and ease aren’t opposites here, they exist side by side, where passion and play share the same morning. On September 12, Fit is hosting Sol, a full day wellness festival at Fit Social. The morning focuses on wellness classes and vendors and then the evening is a full party with multiple DJ sets and an open bar. Think of it as a kick-off to locals’ summer in San Diego.
Ready to see what a social wellness club actually looks like? Visit fitclubs.com, or follow along at @thefitclubs on Instagram.
Friday, January 5 | 7:00 p.m. | Pechanga Arena San Diego
“Do you still have $2 beer nights?” I recently asked a Gulls ticket sales rep. After a brief hold, they got back on the line to deliver the saddest news in the era of post-Covid inflation: $2 Bud Lights at Friday home games have been replaced by $5 Blue Line Blonds.
Blue Line Blond Ale isn’t Bud Light—the latter is the best beer on earth, after all—but Friday night at the Gulls is still one of the best happy hours in San Diego. In their first home game of the new year, the Gulls take on the Bakersfield Condors. Six of the Gulls’ nine wins on the season came in December, offering a glimmer of hope that the team can climb from last place in the AHL’s Pacific Division. Whether the Gulls continue their winning trend or not, $5 beer nights are a win-win for fans.
Monster Jam
January 13-14, 27-28 | Snapdragon Stadium
Are motorsports defensible in the face of climate change? Debatable. Is Monster Jam even a sport? Also debatable. What’s not up for debate is its enduring popularity, a peculiarity of American culture that The New Yorkerrecently explored. “We sell four million-plus tickets a year,” Jayme Dalsing, Monster Jam’s senior director of global operations, told the publication. “That’s more than Taylor Swift.”
As Swift counts her billions, I don’t think she’s too concerned about Monster Jam, but the motorized traveling circus does have one advantage, at least to San Diegans: it actually comes to town. Monster Jam renews its San Diego residency over two weekends at Snapdragon this month. The last time Swift played San Diego was in 2015.
SDSU vs UNLV Women’s Basketball
Wednesday, January 17 | 11:00 a.m. | Viejas Arena
The SDSU women’s basketball squad has quietly won six straight games and 10 of their last 12 to finish the 2023 schedule at 10-3. They have a slate of winnable conference games to kickoff 2024, but none will be more pivotal than their January 17 matchup against UNLV, who lead the Mountain West Conference at 11-1. It’s a rare 11:00 a.m. start as one of the program’s Field Trip Days so that local youth can attend a game, so take that first sick day of 2024 and cheer on the Aztecs with the future of San Diego.
Farmers Insurance Open
January 24-27, 2024 | Torrey Pines Golf Course
The field isn’t set yet for the annual Farmers Insurance Open, but last year’s champion and world No. 7 Max Homa is sure to be at Torrey Pines Golf Course defending his crown. Jon Rahm, who won the Farmers in 2017, as well as the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, will likely join him. Neither will be the crowd favorite though, not if Scripps Ranch High and SDSU alum Xander Schauffele joins the field.
The world No. 6 can hang his hat on having won a Tour Championship, an Olympic gold medal, and a Ryder Cup, but one thing missing from his résumé is a win in his hometown. At this year’s Farmers Insurance Open, Schauffele will try to become the seventh San Diego native—following Phil Mickelson, Scott Simpson, Craig Stadler, Greg Twiggs, Billy Casper, and Gene Littler—to hoist the trophy.
San Diego Mesa College vs. Santa Ana College Baseball
Saturday, January 27 | 1:00 p.m. | San Diego Mesa College Baseball Field
I am under no illusion that many San Diegans will attend the season opener for an average community college baseball program in the middle of a weekday. With 13 conference championships, 20 regional tournament appearances, 231 alumni transferred to NCAA or NAIA baseball programs, and 34 alumni having played professionally, the San Diego Mesa College baseball program is one of the most successful in California.
And one of those alumni is responsible for some of the most groundbreaking moves in the sport. In various management roles in MLB, Billy Eppler established the Yankees scouting department, brought Shohei Ohtani to the U.S. from Japan, and set a record $375 million payroll with the New York Mets. Not bad for a former ballplayer from Allied Gardens. After the holidays and weeks of the sun setting at what feels like noon, the Knights kicking off their season is worth celebrating. Baseball is back!
The logic was fair and sound: Cultural institutions and events help attract visitors. Those visitors pay hotel taxes. So, the people agreed, some of that hotel-tax revenue should go back into maintaining the cultural ecosystem that helps bring those visitors and that money.
Projected as a five-year plan, the measure was supposed to increase funding to $17.9 million by 2017.
It never did. The penny was never guaranteed, so each year the city used part of it for other priorities. By 2023, the money going to arts and culture was up to about a half a penny. Even as TOT revenue has gone up significantly.
In 2019, TOT revenue was $245 million.
In 2025: $325 million.
One fix would be to guarantee the penny. Not simple, given San Diego’s financial woes. But the alternative—eroding the culture that makes San Diego San Diego, give it its identity—also doesn’t feel wise. Plus, even a locked percentage still rises and falls with tourism, which is why culture advocates want a guaranteed floor on top of it.
Another solution would be to give the arts commission actual authority.
“It’s an advisory body,” says arts commissioner Kamaal Martin. “You’d be hard-pressed to find anybody who takes our advice.”
Photo Credit: Katie Gardner & Matt Furman
He described the commissioners debating real, consequential questions this year, like whether and how to divide the cuts between funding pools. But those conversations “don’t connect to whoever’s actually deciding,” Martin says. “We haven’t been entrusted with decision-making about relevant things nearly enough.”
Christine Martinez is building political infrastructure through her organization Arts+Culture:San Diego—which is starting a 501(c)(4) lobbying structure not unlike police and fire unions. Martinez is also keeping her community actively engaged. “We won’t be caught off guard next year like we were this year,” she tells me.
Then there’s the evergreen issue of affordability and accessibility. Kiplinger’s most recent report ranks San Diego as the 11th most expensive city in the US, based on cost of living. The average home value is $980,700 (the US median is $540,000), but San Diego’s median household income is only one-third greater than the national level. Rent is also 66 percent higher than the national average ($2,716 vs. $1,636).
This is why San Diego has long suffered from the creative brain drain—creatives leaving for more affordable cities. “Artists are free to live wherever they want, and they will go where the rent is affordable,” says Jennifer de Poyen of Space 4 Art. “When they leave, they take their gifts with them, and their contributions, and their economic impact.”
One saving grace is the presence of Tijuana, where the cost of living is about 60 percent lower than San Diego, per Numbeo. Tijuana has long functioned as an affordable neighborhood for many in San Diego’s creative culture. It’s part of the reason why the binational identity is such a constant in our galleries, music, theater, murals, and culture. While that cross-border blood flow is one of San Diego’s most compelling attributes, few artists living that life would call it convenient or easy. A city is at a disadvantage when its culture creators have to cross a border to go home at night, and cross again the next morning to work.
In May, San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved a $2.75 million arts initiative of its own. It includes an Artist Space Grant Program aimed directly at the affordability crisis, as well as an artist-in-residence program, a dedicated Binational Creative Economy Investment, and a one-time investment in the Black Arts and Culture District in Encanto.
Bob Lehman of San Diego Art Matters has been doing county-level, binational organizing for years; in 2023, he helped get the county’s arts commission reestablished after 30 years of defunctness. That’s important because it gives arts and culture an official seat in county government, advising the County Board of Supervisors on arts and culture policy. He also brought in consultant Laura Zucker, who ran LA County’s arts program for three decades, to build a real regional plan.
“I really believe we’ll have something set up here that other communities come and look at,” he told me. “A national template other cities come to learn from.”
When asked who decides which artists will get the new grant money, county arts commissioner and executive director of the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center Monica Delgadillo Hernandez doesn’t hedge.
“That’s part of the infrastructure we’re going to be building,” she says. “What should a panel of reviewers look like? Should it be the commissioners? Should it be other folks? A supervisor?” She was just as candid that the commission itself doesn’t reflect San Diego’s population—Chicano communities are roughly a third of the city, she tells me, “and that’s not represented at the table yet.”
Photo Credit: Katie Gardner & Matt Furman
What Other Cities Prove Is Possible
The great news is that none of these solutions have to be invented from scratch. Numerous cities serve as examples of what’s possible—if we have the will.
Jonathon Glus—Prebys Foundation Senior Fellow for Art & Design, the Executive Director of the Art + Design District, and board president for California for the Arts—worked in Houston before coming to San Diego. The Texas city dedicates 74.5 percent of its hotel tax to arts grants by formula, and that support is guaranteed. Washington, DC locked in dedicated arts funding in 2019. Salt Lake City, my hometown, has run a voter-approved arts tax for almost 30 years, most recently reauthorized through 2034. And just this summer, New York City pushed cultural funding to a record $323.8 million, even incorporating an emergency fund.
Denver’s model is interesting because instead of a city-dependent funding model, theirs is a 0.1 percent regional sales tax. In place since 1988 and renewed by voters three times, their Scientific & Cultural Facilities District has distributed between $54 million and $85 million to arts, culture, and scientific orgs—each of the last 12 years.
This is part of a three-part series. This is Act III. See Act I and Act II here.
None of these cities got there by accident. They decided, on purpose, that arts and culture were worth protecting from politics—and, in some cases, worth building an entire identity around.
“That’s how Miami has flipped the switch,” says Glus. “People go to Miami for culture as much as they do the beach.”
San Diego has spent decades selling itself backward: Beach and weather first, culture as an afterthought you might stumble into. Glus would love to see the strategy flipped: Visitors should come for the art, “and then, by the way, you’re on the beach.”
Photo Credit: Katie Gardner & Matt Furman
So What Happens From Here?
“I do think it was a wake-up call for the community,” de Poyen says of the budget fight. “People understand that our funding is vulnerable. It was a lesson in how much power people have when they coalesce. But wow, is it painful.”
Glus says he’s genuinely optimistic. “The players have all changed seats, but the work is moving forward.”
“I believe optimism is a moral duty,” says Martin, who’s both power-fist and polite.
In eight months, there will be another budget fight. Everyone I talked to expects it will be worse. But something happened this spring that can’t be undone.
“I hope this rupture has brought us together in a moment of self-realization,” says Leticia Gomez Franco of the Balboa Art Conservation Center. “I hope we stop being so transactional; we begin to see ourselves and each other as partners in this work.”
That’s the whole ask, really. And it’s on all of us.
This is part of a three-part series. This is Act III. See Act I and Act II here.
Aaryn Belfer is a writer and editor specializing in nonfiction across art, architecture, and culture. Once upon a time, she wrote a provocative column for San Diego CityBeat (RIP). She was a runner up in the 2025 Matchbook Stories contest at the San Diego Central Library and is irrationally happy about it. Currently in her Soft Girl Era, Aaryn has expensive taste in (mostly flat) shoes and will choose a great art exhibit or live jazz concert over almost anything else. Except, possibly, Javier Bardem.
Growing up, Laika Nur, MD, Scripps Clinic sports medicine specialist, loved watching beach volleyball when the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour came to her hometown of Chicago. A talented volleyball player herself, she remembers sitting in the stands all day, and once, even got a couple autographs. Years later, Dr. Nur was attending a professional event focused on women’s sports, and the discussion turned to a new professional women’s volleyball league. The general manager and coaching staff for San Diego’s team, the Mojo, happened to be in attendance, and Dr. Nur took the opportunity to ask them if they needed a team doctor. Flash forward to the Mojo’s inaugural 2024 season, when Dr. Nur officially became the team physician. Click here to read more about Dr. Nur and how she incorporates lessons she learned on the court into her practice.
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