Most San Diego families live in child care deserts

• A child care desert is defined as "an area with at least 50 children under age 5 and having three or more children under 5 years old for every licensed child care slot."

Zoom in: Neighborhoods in central San Diego, including City Heights, North Park, College Area and Rolando, plus La Mesa, El Cajon, Chula Vista and South Bay communities, have a high concentration of child care facilities.

• But sections of those areas are also child care deserts, as are some coastal communities and much of East County.

The big picture: The YMCA maintains a database of all licensed and license-exempt local child care providers.

• It collects from providers quarterly information on cost of care, enrollment and hours to give parents up to date referrals and prices in their neighborhood.
• About 4,000 family child care providers and about 880 licensed child care centers operated in San Diego County as of October 2025, per the YMCA.

What we're watching: The city of San Diego is working on streamlining the licensing process to make it easier for child care providers to open new facilities, inewsource reported.