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The National City Earthquake Safety & Outreach Initiative

Ada Inman — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 16:41:12 +0000

This report contains a series of policy proposals developed by San Diego State University (SDSU) students, in collaboration with National City officials and the SDSU Sage Project, to increase the use of existing earthquake preparedness resources among National City residents. The primary focus of student research was the California Earthquake Brace + Bolt program and encouraging homeowners to engage in seismic retrofitting. Additionally, students developed policy recommendations aimed at increasing general earthquake safety, awareness, and education. Being located in Southern California, earthquake preparedness
is a topic the SDSU community is very familiar with and many students were able to use this as an opportunity to draw upon prior knowledge in their research.
Students worked to create policy suggestions specific to National City, based on methods proven effective in similar municipalities, by researching how the area’s demographics may impact the use of community resources. National City is a heavily Hispanic city, with a large population that does not speak English as a first language. As such, many of the policies in this report focus on bridging that gap in communication and establishing trust between community members and those with access to earthquake preparedness resources. Another major trend among policies developed by students was a focus on finding creative ways to lower the economic burden on residents interested in seismic retrofitting. This led to the creation of several innovative proposals focused on helping residents pay for seismic retrofitting, primarily where other government programs would not suffice. These policies may be more difficult to implement than direct outreach, but they represent an alternate approach the city could take to encourage seismic retrofitting.
The policies presented in this report were chosen for their adaptability as part of a larger earthquake awareness initiative, as well as their ability to function independently. As stressed by National City officials, the city budget does not have any extra funding for extensive earthquake preparedness programs. The purpose behind choosing policies which can operate independently is to work around these constraints and offer solutions that may be more budget-friendly. These policies are categorized based upon the type of actor affected: resident, government group, or external organization.

Using GIS to Assess Seismic Vulnerability in National City

Ada Inman — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 16:38:10 +0000

This report presents a comprehensive assessment of seismic vulnerability in National City, completed by students from San Diego State University’s Geography 584 (GIS Applications) course in collaboration with the Sage Project and the City of National City. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the project combined a parcel-level inventory of residential buildings with geophysical and social data to identify patterns of vulnerability across neighborhoods. Key factors analyzed included soil type, slope, and liquefaction risk, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s Social Vulnerability Index. These elements were incorporated into a Weighted Linear Combination model to produce a composite vulnerability score for each parcel in National City. Due to time constraints, the final analysis in this report was conducted for all parcels citywide; however, future work will refine the queries to focus specifically on residential parcels. The results highlight where physical hazards and social vulnerabilities overlap, providing city officials with a data-driven foundation for hazard mitigation planning, infrastructure retrofits, and targeted community outreach.

The City of National City Hazards Preparedness and Mitigation Plan

Ada Inman — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 16:32:39 +0000

“This report, developed through a partnership between the City of National City and San Diego State University’s C P 690 graduate course, presents a comprehensive Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP) addressing three primary natural threats: earthquakes, floods, and fires. In assessing these threats, the report identifies National City’s intersecting environmental, infrastructural, and social vulnerabilities, including aging housing stock, low-lying, flood-prone terrain, seismic fault proximity, and a high concentration of low-income, elderly, and renter populations.
Each hazard chapter outlines current conditions, risk factors, and targeted mitigation strategies rooted in climate adaptation, environmental justice, and equity-based planning. For earthquakes, the report highlights over 15,000 homes and 892 businesses at risk, calling for seismic retrofitting, soft-story building inventories, and zoning overlays to limit new development in liquefaction zones. The flood section responds to events like the January 2024 Paradise Creek flood with proposals for green infrastructure, upgraded stormwater systems, and protective zoning. Fire mitigation focuses on structure fire risks due to overcrowding and aging infrastructure, recommending public education campaigns, fire-safe building codes, and emergency preparedness programs.
A central theme throughout the report is inclusive, multilingual, and culturally responsive community engagement. The report proposes youth disaster ambassador programs, neighborhood outreach events, resident-led advisory committees, and partnerships with schools and nonprofits to build local resilience capacity. Tools like CalEnviroScreen and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Risk Index guide equitable resource allocation by identifying the most socially vulnerable areas.
The report aligns closely with the City of National City’s General Plan, Climate Action Plan, and Housing Element, ensuring consistency across city policies. It emphasizes the importance of embedding resilience into land use decisions, infrastructure investments, and emergency planning, with particular attention to protecting low-income, elderly, and linguistically isolated populations. By integrating data-driven assessments with community knowledge, the report positions the City of National City to proactively address hazard risks and build a safer, more equitable future for all residents.

Sustainable Transportation in City of National City: A Community Perspective

Ada Inman — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 16:29:40 +0000

In Fall 2024, San Diego State University (SDSU) student researchers enrolled in Dr. Norah Shultz’s Sociology 407 course collaborated with National City and SDSU’s Sage Project to support ongoing efforts aimed at improving transportation access, safety, and sustainability in District 1. This collaboration was part of a larger initiative tied to the City’s Sustainable Mobility Plan, a strategy funded in part by a Caltrans Sustainable Communities Grant. The grant enables planning efforts that center equity, encourage walking, biking, and public transit use, and promote inclusive community participation. Within this framework, the student-led research sought to gather feedback from individuals who live, work, operate businesses, or commute in and around District 1. The goal was to better understand how existing transportation systems influence experiences of mobility, safety, and access in this part of the city, with special consideration to walking, biking, and public transit.
The class organized into four research groups, each focused on a specific topic area: non-car traffic, older adults and their unique mobility needs, drainage infrastructure, and car traffic. Over the course of the data collection period, researchers gathered responses from residents, business owners, and commuters familiar with District 1. While each group explored a different factor impacting transportation, common themes arose. Respondents raised concerns about sidewalk conditions, poor lighting, signage clarity, and localized flooding. Older residents expressed appreciation for services like Free Rides Around National City (FRANC), while also noting limitations in transit stop comfort and accessibility.
Participants in the drainage group emphasized how flooding-related obstacles, notably near Paradise Creek and the San Diego Bay, interfered with safe and routine travel. Across surveys, participants appeared passionate in their desire to contribute to infrastructure planning through meetings or other direct feedback opportunities. This invested interest highlights the importance of maintaining open, accessible channels for community input in future City-orchestrated efforts. The report concludes with several community-informed recommendations, including improvements to sidewalks and crosswalks, transit stop upgrades, clearer signage, drainage investments, and more inclusive outreach strategies. Altogether, these findings offer insight into how community perspectives can support and complement the City’s continuing work to enhance mobility and transportation access throughout District 1.

On the Ground: An Applied Anthropology Study of Community Perspectives on Equitable and Sustainable Mobility in National City

Ada Inman — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 16:21:06 +0000

This report presents the findings of an applied anthropology partnership between students in Anthropology 531: Methods in Applied Anthropology at San Diego State University and the City of National City, conducted through the SDSU Sage Project. The class sought to answer the question:
“According to community members, what are the obstacles to sustainable mobility in National City, and what solutions could help expand its use?”
Through walking ethnographies, interviews, and community engagement in all four city districts, students documented both infrastructural and cultural barriers to sustainable mobility. The key findings include: access and equity gaps in transit coverage and usability; safety and infrastructure concerns across pedestrian, cycling, and transit systems; limited public awareness and trust in existing city initiatives; and persistent car dependency shaped by social and practical considerations.
Residents of National City are very involved with and consistently expressed their commitment to community improvement, paired with frustration over issues such as poor lighting, unsafe crossings, unreliable buses, and lack of awareness about available services like the FRANC shuttle.
Quotations from District 2 such as “Driving is just shorter” and “I’d rather drive than wait in the sun for a bus that might not come” capture the lived realities shaping transportation choices.
The recommendations offered in this report—expanding FRANC coverage, improving pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, enhancing safety and awareness, and prioritizing equity and accessibility—represent practical, community-grounded steps toward a more inclusive and sustainable mobility future for National City.

Paradise Creek Wetland Expansion in National City, CA

Ada Inman — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 17:19:09 +0000

The National City Paradise Creek expansion project is intended to expand Paradise Creek wetland protection and meet community needs by designing an alternative land use for the welding shop on West 18th Street in National City, CA. The goals of this project include minimizing stormwater runoff, reducing stream degradation, preserving the wetlands and open space, encouraging pedestrian activity, providing small retail, and incorporating Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) or Green Building Code Standards. Students from San Diego State University (SDSU), in partnership with the Sage Project and the City of National City, were tasked with creating these designs. After visiting the site and doing extensive research on site and cost constraints, six SketchUp site plans were created by six groups of students. The different site designs included a coffee shop/dog run, a community center/food truck area, an art studio/rental space, a community meeting space with ecological lookout tower, an outdoor fitness area, and a green roof daycare/event center. Some common design proposal aspects were recurring as they were deemed of high importance to the community and the site. Many of the site designs retain some form of the welding shop structure, introduce restroom facilities, and a design layout that would allow for intermittent flooding. It is recommended that these three aspects are incorporated into the final design in one capacity or another. With these additions and improvements to the site, the needs of the community and the City’s Westside Specific Plan can be met, all while retaining the natural function and beauty of the wetland.

Paradise Creek Public Restrooms and Coffee Shop

Ada Inman — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 17:17:06 +0000

We designed a project that combines a large bathroom space with a coffee shop and a community events area upstairs. The multiple-stall area is designed to provide easy access, safety, and a non-claustrophobic environment for people of all ages and genders. Families can visit the public restroom and coffee shop after visiting the nearby Paradise Creek Park. We wanted to emphasize connection in our design concept, as the park is located in a busy area with many visitors. To achieve this, we created a unique bench that can seat a large number of people and is adorned with educational signs. The bench is intended to evoke curiosity and playfulness and serves as a gathering area, meeting spot, and safe haven for anyone in need of a place to sit, relax, and clean their head.

National City Brownfields Community Engagement Toolkit

Ada Inman — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 16:55:24 +0000

The community engagement toolkit presented in this document is intended to be a guide for community engagement for the National City Brownfields Assessment Project, as well inform and improve community engagement for other brownfield projects across the country. The recommended outreach tools within this National City Brownfields Community Engagement Toolkit are based on demographic findings, community stakeholder interviews, a public survey, and feedback received from the inaugural National City Brownfields Assessment workshop, held on March 23, 2023. The National City Brownfields Assessment project will last approximately three years and is broken into four project phases. As shown in the following graphic below, each phase will be supported by community engagement efforts. Each phase may require different community engagement methods because applying certain engagement techniques may be more effective at one point in the process than others. For example, community mapping would be an engagement tool most effective during the Brownfield Site Identification phase, whereas a listening session may be more appropriate during the Environmental Assessment phase once the community has an understanding of the project. As such, the National City Brownfields Community Engagement Toolkit is broken up by phase of the project.

Visual System for the Brownfields Assessment Project

Ada Inman — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 15:43:03 +0000

The National City Brownfields Assessment Project is an initiative by the SDSU Center for Regional Sustainability in collaboration with National City. The client needs include a poster, event flyer, a banner, a revision to the logo’s typography and lock-up, and social media collateral. The Brownfields Assessment Project’s aim is to collaborate with the National City community to locate, assess, and plan for the future use of brownfields within the community. As such, the client’s goals included creating a brand system that would help to reinforce community trust, establish strong ties for collaboration, and to push or community-wide engagement and participation. National City is of majority Latino and Asian population, these communities find themselves to be disproportionately affected by environmental racism. National City is a densely populated urban zone within San Diego county. Due to zoning laws not coming into effect until after settlement and industrialization had taken place, a lot of the housing today finds itself next to heavy industry and abandoned sites that formerly or currently are sites for dumping. Because of this proximity between housing and industry the residents of National City are at higher risk of developing health problems than the rest of the residents in San Diego county. This is especially a problem for the population of elderly and youth in the city as they are at the most risk of health issues and death as result from environmental hazards and pollution. The challenges of this project included balancing the amount of information delivered to the public through the design, moving away from alienating academic language towards a more casual and friendlier tone, making sure to be clear on the intentions and limitations of the Brownfield Assessment Project, and to emphasize the need for community input and mutual collaboration between SDSU and the locals of National City. Other considerations included the use of multi-lingual support in choice typography and in the use of messaging, and creating a graphics system that is accessible for reuse to a non-designer. Each designer created a visual system that invigorates and communicates effectively to the general public of National City the need and importance of the Brownfields Assessment Project. This was explored through photographic images that reflect the community, and graphics that echo the call to action. The logo typography was also explored, designers chose type that would be more aligned with the needs of the client and reflective of the system each designer built. As part of the logo explorations, designers created different lock-ups with the existing logo mark or different takes on the existing mark.

National City Brownfields: Resident Thoughts on Community Improvements

Ada Inman — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 15:41:04 +0000

National City’s industrial history has led to an excessive number of brownfields plaguing the community. In an effort to rectify this problem, city officials partnered with the Sage Project on a project funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). One goal of the project is to gain insight into how community members feel about their environment and potential improvements they would like to see. Professor Norah Shultz’s SOC 407 Research and Experimental Methods class was tasked with conducting a survey-based community research project to answer this question. This cross-platform survey, utilizing in person and electronic recruitment, was created and implemented by the class. There was special care taken to learn about National City so that the questions and recruitment strategies were tailored to the community of interest. With no incentive for participation, 100 people participated in the survey. These surveys revealed a strong sense of community and a need for further education on the topic of brownfields. Issues noted were a need for improvement to the physical environment, a lack of adequate housing, and a desire for more community centers and parks rather than retail space. While continued research would be beneficial, the findings shared in this report provide suggestions for improvements in an underserved community.