C3 offers a comprehensive approach to growth management by encouraging open space, high standards of urban design, and coordination of planning between public and private sectors so that San Diego's continuing development will complement its natural setting.

Our mission is to present objective information, constructive opinion and educational programs reflecting the deliberation of our members, and to weigh matters in view of their contribution toward the highest standards of environmental quality, physical design, economic benefit and social progress, according to principles set forth in Toward Permanent Paradise.

Balboa Park's House of Hospitality was the site of C3's 50th Anniversary celebration on October 6, 2011.  The location has special significance for C3:  it was here that C3 held its very first meeting in 1961; and one of the group's first successes was protecting Balboa Park from unwanted encroachment.