![]() ![]() “As we’ve gotten bigger, so have our problems.” “This image of San Diego being a quiet little paradise eroded in the ‘80s,” noted Maurice Friedman, a professor of philosophy and religious studies at San Diego State University. As they adjusted to the rapid-fire transformations around them, the emotional pendulum swung harshly, making it increasingly difficult to find a safe, comfortable middle ground. No matter where one looked in San Diego, there was change and activity in the ‘80s that rattled San Diegans’ psyches. “If nothing else, the ‘80s put San Diego on the map,” said Sam Popkin, a political science professor at UC San Diego.īy the decade’s close, however, many San Diegans might well have chosen obscurity over the accolades and notoriety-fleeting though they often were. Finally, the city began to shed its skin as a quiet Navy backwater-a process likely to be magnified as its explosive growth continues unabated into the next century.įrom a financial scandal that ensnared the city’s mayor to a killing spree at a McDonald’s restaurant, from sporting spectacles to racial tensions to increasingly urgent efforts to avoid “Los Angelization,” San Diego was a recurring blip on the nation’s radar screen throughout the 1980s. ![]() Even so, the 1980s was a remarkable period in which San Diego news frequently was national news. There was a definite sense here in the ‘80s of turning the corner.”Īny 10-year period in a metropolitan region of 2-million-plus people is all but certain to produce a welter of watershed events and individuals clamoring for the chronicler’s eye. “We may not want to admit it, but we’ve become a very big city with big-city problems, as well as attributes. “The ‘80s was the decade in which San Diego, for better or worse, came of age as a major city,” said Dennis Rohatyn, a professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego. ![]()
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