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Pride Month Highlight: Diego Velasco
June 13, 2025
For Pride Month, we are highlighting Diego Velasco and his projects supporting and celebrating the LGBTQ+ community in San Diego.
Diego Velasco is Founder and Principal of Citythinkers, an urban design and planning firm, and TAP Committee Chair at ULI San Diego-Tijuana.
At Citythinkers, Diego’s projects include specific and master plans for private sector clients and projects with cities in the San Diego region, including community plan updates and coastal resilience planning among other work. Most of his work centers on design, aiming to visualize the future and create urban design concepts for how an area can change over time, while also incorporating community outreach and engagement. Diego says he has always been interested in cities and had a desire to make an impact, particularly for underserved communities.
Although much of his work is architecture and planning focused, several years ago he was asked to create an LGBTQ community recognition art piece. In 2018, HG Fenton was developing their BLVD project in North Park, a new housing development along El Cajon Boulevard. On the site of the new project was a house that was the former meeting place of LGBTQ community leaders, who convened there in 1972 to form what is now to The San Diego LGBT Center (also known as just “The Center”). To commemorate this history, Diego designed and installed an art piece on the sidewalk where the house used to be.
In the process of designing this art project, Diego worked with leaders in the LGBTQ community to develop several options, landing on one that they called Emerge. The piece is created to look like someone has peeled up the sidewalk, “exposing the foundations of the LGBTQ movement.” Diego describes it: “On the portion that pulls up you have a plaque that tells you details about the site, and on the other side carved out is the word ‘emerge.’” He says that they chose “emerge” because the leaders emerged a whole movement out of the ground(work). In the middle sits a mirror, where passersby can look down and see their own reflection. “The idea is [to make you think]: ‘This is the grassroots foundation of the movement and I’m part of it.’”
Diego also supported the legacy of LGBTQ leaders in the neighborhood through his work on the Hillcrest Focused Plan Amendment in the Uptown Community Plan, in which he helped develop an LGBTQ+ Cultural District in Hillcrest to allow for greater development in Hillcrest while mitigating displacement of residents and businesses.
“I learned that there was a need for safe spaces. And now with changes in politics, there is even more so this threat of discrimination. These kinds of spaces are really important in making sure that people feel like they’re a part of the community.”
Diego says that “cities develop in waves,” and over the past few decades, large new developments started popping up close to longstanding LGBTQ businesses and gay bars in Hillcrest, and residents became concerned that they may be pushed out as newcomers arrived in the area. Some businesses faced this reality, in fact, as in 2004 when one of the city’s few lesbian bars, The Flame (which had been around for decades) was forced to close due to noise complaints from residents in a neighboring new development. The manager of The Flame later opened Gossip Grill in a different area of Hillcrest, providing the only lesbian bar-restaurant-nightclub in the country!
Diego’s work on the Hillcrest Focused Plan Amendment helped to develop an LGBTQ+ Cultural District to address and mitigate these issues. During the process, Diego met with LGBTQ leaders, advocates, and business owners to hear from them and develop a plan that would help address their concerns. “I learned that there was a need for safe spaces. And now with changes in politics, there is even more so this threat of discrimination,” Diego shared. “These kinds of spaces are really important in making sure that people feel like they’re a part of the community.” The plan includes measures supporting long-standing local businesses, noise-related policies, and anti-displacement policies. The anti-displacement policies also require new developments to disclose that residents are living in a cultural district and what that entails.
“[Working on Emerge] showed to me that we could begin to use art in the community to commemorate and highlight our history… found objects of art on the streetscape that would signify our past and future and bring a little joy.”
The plan amendment also included a program of interpretive art elements along University and Fifth Avenue, building off Emerge. “[Working on Emerge] showed to me that we could begin to use art in the community to commemorate and highlight our history… found objects of art on the streetscape that would signify our past and future and bring a little joy.” He says that although new development may not always be welcomed, art pieces like this can bring in a positive element, as well as encourage people to slow down and walk, allowing them to notice these details. “[Art like this] adds beauty and interest to our streetscape that we’re not accustomed to seeing, and it’s a very direct form of cultural expression in its context. Commemorative art is art but it’s more than that: it’s education, it’s history.”
Diego’s work is an important example of the ways in which the land use and development field can celebrate and support the LGBTQ community. “I’m very lucky to participate in my community in a way that’s meaningful to them and is part of the work I do,” Diego says.
Thank you to Diego for sharing with us about his work, and for his time volunteering with ULI.