Thanks for the opinions! Just to be a devil’s advocate, the descriptions could apply to Pacific Beach also, a couple of decades ago:

“plans to tear down a strip mall on Palm and replace it with a new one that (I think) included a Trader Joes”

“The schools are really bad”. Here are the state test scores (2007 base API):
IB elementary 782
Crown Point Elem. 777
Pacific Beach Elem. 836

“There are lots of crappy apartments mixed in with single family” True for Pacific Beach also.

PB has a lot of SDSU students who drive up rents and keep the area trendy; they don’t just bring problems. Google Maps says that downtown IB to the Hotel Del Coronado is 13 minutes, and 25 minutes to SDSU. SDSU to Crystal Pier in PB is 21 minutes. So college students should be interested in IB.

Of course an area can fail to gentrify for many more decades…