San Diego’s Flag Is Old and Ugly. We Deserve Better.

Meaningful symbols come in all shapes and sizes: Ocean Beach’s classic seagull logo, palm trees as a modern icon of many California cities despite their non-native status and California’s incredible state flag, to name a few.   

That last one is especially powerful. The flag, adorned with a mighty grizzly bear and a lone star representing the state’s former nationhood ambitions, has always been one of my favorites. 

Over the years, widely accepted standards for flag designs have emerged. They’ve even been compiled into a handy pamphlet by the North American Vexillology Association.  

Many of my favorite flags tend to bend or break the rules. Mexico, for example, has perhaps my favorite flag. It’s much more intricate than many vexillologists (the term for flag nerds) prefer, but to me, it’s a thing of beauty. 

The striking image depicts an Aztec, or Mexica, prophecy that dates back nearly 1,000 years. In Aztec mythology, the god Huitzilopochtli told the people they’d find their permanent home when they saw an eagle perched atop a cactus eating a snake. On a small island in Lake Texcoco, they purportedly witnessed this omen. It was there they went on to found the great city of Tenochtitlán, now called Mexico City.  

The flag works not only because of the incredible art, but because of its deep meaning. Though to be fair, I’m also just partial to having awesome animals on flags (see California’s flag). I especially love when those animals are mythical. I mean, Bhutan, sometimes called “Land of the Thunder Dragon,” has a flag with a dragon on it. It’s hard to beat dragons. 

The bottom line is that flags should communicate something meaningful about the cities over which they fly. They should be symbols that draw people in and inspire civic pride. Many flags do just that. 

Then, there’s San Diego’s flag. Many may not even be aware the city has a flag. So if it’s your first time seeing it, I’m sorry.  

It’s a garish, seal-clad rectangle of fabric that flaps about outside City Hall. Its colors and design pay homage to the Spanish colonists who inflicted so much suffering on the indigenous residents of the region. 

Simply put, it’s a bad flag. It looks like a civic afterthought, as if someone realized late one night that San Diego didn’t have a flag and threw a bunch of odds and ends in a mixing bowl.  

Don’t just take my word for it, though. In a 2004 survey of city flags, the North American Vexillological Association gave San Diego’s flag a rating of 4.47 out of 10. Yet we’ve allowed this hideous flag to represent us for nearly a century. 

San Diego deserves better. America’s “Finest City” should have a symbol we can be proud of, one that better represents this region’s past, present and future – something that excites people and doesn’t just hang limply outside of City Hall. October marks the 90th anniversary of the flag’s adoption and we shouldn’t waste such a beautifully round and resonant number. We owe it to ourselves, and all future San Diegans, to do something about this civic embarrassment.  

That’s especially true when cities around the country have incredible flags. Just check out Lincoln, Neb.’s stunning art-deco inspired design, which the city adopted in 2022. Heck, even Anaheim has a half-decent flag. I ask you, my dear, fellow San Diegans, are we not worthy of having a flag at least as cool as Anaheim’s, a city that’s basically a theme park in a municipal trench coat? 

Some cities fly their flags with gusto. Chicago’s flag design can be found on everything from beer koozies and volleyballs to blankets and condom dispensers. At least one Portlander has gotten a tattoo of their city’s flag. When was the last time you saw someone repping San Diego’s flag? I’d bet never. We deserve at least a taste of that civic pride, though maybe not all the latex. 

Inspired by the recent article about the flag of Portland, I thought I would share my tattoo!
byu/Meteoran invexillology

Replacing a flag isn’t a novel idea. Cities have long had notoriously ugly flags, but in recent years many have embarked on quests to do something about them. Heck, Julian recently held a flag redesign competition and adopted an 11-year-old’s excellent design. San Diego County also unveiled a new logo last year, but its clip art corporatism leaves much to be desired. 

Utah and Mississippi are two states that have redesigned their state flags in recent years. But the most recent addition to the list is Minnesota. The state’s newly minted flag replaced a decades-old one featuring imagery offensive to the state’s Indigenous communities. Our current flag’s exaltation of the Spaniards’ arrival in the region likely elicits similar sentiments. 

rip to the dream of vertical dog as minnesota's state flag gone but never forgotten https://t.co/cDRc5cdQ7r pic.twitter.com/zalvZTTPYo

— grace s. deng is @gracesdeng.bsky.social (@gracesdeng) December 19, 2023

I must admit, there were some submissions I liked more than the one the state landed on. But regardless of whether you love these new flags or hate them, their creation is a good thing. The thousands of submissions Minnesota received represents an outpouring of creativity, an increasing public ownership of the symbols that color our world and a surge of civic engagement, as Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar wrote in a recent post on X conceding her support for the new flag.  

Inevitably, some people will reflexively defend San Diego’s flag. They’ll cite tradition or may even force themselves through gritted teeth to say they like the disgraceful third-grade art project we’ve all allowed to represent us for nearly a century.  

But we will all know that is a lie. This is an objectively bad flag. We should not heed the words of those liars. 

Detractors may also point to the fact our city has bigger problems to deal with. While it is clear San Diego has far bigger problems than a crappy flag, we also shouldn’t let that keep us from acting. Pushing for something better is always worth it, even if that better thing is small and even if the potential newness is frightening. 

Besides, whatever we may end up with can’t possibly be worse than the ketchup and mustard-stained travesty we have. Even if the final product somehow ends up being worse, hey, at least that’ll be funny, and we could all use a laugh now and again.