Habitat and Historic Preservation with Angeles Leira

The Finest City

This week, we had a chat with Angeles Leira, former C-3 board member. During her 30-year tenure as city planner, she experienced a diversity of challenges corresponding to massive growth in suburban development in the region. She shares how she came to live in San Diego from Spain, and why she got involved with C-3. Angeles gives us an inside look at the city's planning department in the 1970s, and C-3’s influence on the practice of urban planning, as well as notable battles in the fight for progressive values. You'll hear about what’s changed in the last 50 years, what hasn’t changed, and why history is our city's DNA.

Timestamps:

[2:49] Angeles discusses being born in Spain and how she came to live in San Diego for over 60 years.

[8:04] How did Angeles fall in love with planning? What was her career path like before she came to C-3?

[10:09] Angeles’s mother was a marine biologist and mentee of Roger Revelle at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. What does she remember about the SIO academic community?

[13:53] How was the assessment of the city’s land-use policies related to community empowerment and development within environmentally sensitive lands?

[17:29] A successful community plan is one that enhances the way people already use their community and neighborhood.

[18:23] What were some of the micro- and macro-battles in the 1970s where a conflict occurred between a community, group, or citizens and policymakers/developers?

[39:15] Angeles talks about coming to understand the different perceptions that you have when you are in different levels of government. Not everyone can think the same way, even when using the same information.

[41:02] Angeles discusses her experience advocating within the planning department.

[47:42] As societies become powerful, they become very dictatorial. And when you are dictatorial, you have no flexibility.

[49:29] As societies ebb and flow, time is one of the solutions and utter failure is the other one. Angeles explains.

[54:53] Angeles fights hard for habitat preservation and historic preservation because habitat preservation gives us the basic structure of the city and our history gives us our personality and our DNA.

[55:27] Angeles discusses her relationship with C-3 and how she discovered the organization. What made her choose to become involved?

About C-3

In its 60 years of existence, Citizens Coordinate for Century 3 (C-3) has brought together local thought leaders from planning, design, policy, academia, community development, and more to address our region’s distinctive and pressing land use challenges. In founding C-3 almost 60 years ago, architect Lloyd Ruocco’s vision was to bring together our region’s most creative minds from the arts, sciences, academia, and government to share ideas, learn new perspectives, and build fellowship around the idea of creating livable communities.

Opportunities for Advocacy and Engagement:

C3sandiego.org