Preserving Chinatowns in the United States
January 23, 2024 5:14 AM Subscribe
In the summer of 2021, as Chinatowns continued to grapple with the fallout of the dramatic decline in business brought on by the pandemic and an alarming rise in xenophobia and racism against the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, the National Trust for Historic Preservation worked with Karen Yee, a graduate researcher studying at the University of Maryland, to develop a tool and research ways to identify, elevate, and preserve these treasured places that tell Chinese American history. Part of this story involves gentrification, of course, from New York to San Francisco.
Meanwhile, here in Philadelphia, it looks like they actively want to get rid of part of the Chinatown here by demolishing a shopping area in the middle of the city and a large chunk of Chinatown to put up a new arena for the 76ers to play in. As far as I can tell, there's nothing wrong with Wells Fargo Center, where they currently play, except they need to share it with the Flyers (hockey), the Wings (soccer) and concerts and they want something all their own. I'm pretty sure that having an arena right there is going to shove prices for spaces up to the point that Chinatown will die within a decade of completion.
posted by mephron at 6:32 AM on January 23 [9 favorites]
posted by mephron at 6:32 AM on January 23 [9 favorites]
I don't like going into the Chinatown in West Houston, because the traffic's horrendous. (I think that there's one downtown, but I'm not sure.) Last time I went there was to go to H-Mart with my kid.
Meanwhile, Katy (a Houston suburb) added an Asian town a few years ago, and it's doing really well. It started out as an H-Mart and 18 billion ramen places, but it's diversified nicely, and they have a Kinokuniya bookstore which is always packed. (When we lived in Katy, and my kid came home, they'd buy books there and ship them to friends around the country, with their friends Zelling them money to cover the expenses.) There's also a strip center on Mason which went Asian about 5 years ago, anchored by a Daiso.
(The places I go are more Japanese and Korean than Chinese, so it might be a derail? I dunno.)
posted by Spike Glee at 6:48 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
Meanwhile, Katy (a Houston suburb) added an Asian town a few years ago, and it's doing really well. It started out as an H-Mart and 18 billion ramen places, but it's diversified nicely, and they have a Kinokuniya bookstore which is always packed. (When we lived in Katy, and my kid came home, they'd buy books there and ship them to friends around the country, with their friends Zelling them money to cover the expenses.) There's also a strip center on Mason which went Asian about 5 years ago, anchored by a Daiso.
(The places I go are more Japanese and Korean than Chinese, so it might be a derail? I dunno.)
posted by Spike Glee at 6:48 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
I'm disinclined to offer an opinion on what should or shouldn't count as a derail here, lest I contribute to erasure, whether of specific identities or important distinctions. That said, I am interested in the questions and problems of ethnic enclaves/neighborhoods generally (AAPI or otherwise), Spike Glee, and I appreciate your comment.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:00 AM on January 23
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:00 AM on January 23
Meanwhile, here in Philadelphia, it looks like they actively want to get rid of part of the Chinatown here by demolishing a shopping area in the middle of the city and a large chunk of Chinatown to put up a new arena for the 76ers to play in.
For the full context here, the 76ers Arena will not be in Chinatown. It will abut the southern border of Chinatown and take up one square block. The shopping area is half of a giant mall, which is not doing well, and the owner of the mall wants to sell it. Almost all of the stores at street level in the mall have their doors locked and you have to go through a side entrance. The mall closes so early that, if you go see a movie that lets out at 6:30pm, you are unceremoniously herded out by security immediately. I really wanted to love that mall, but I don't, and I can see why it is going under.
That stretch of Market Street is also not doing well in general and needs a facelift. There are certainly concerns to be had about knock-on real estate price effects and displacement once the arena is built, but there is no viable alternative at this point besides "just don't build it" which means the dying mall will become a dead and empty mall. Also, it will be on top of a major transit nexus - Suburban Station - which would allow access by regional rail to a much larger section of the populace, vs the Wells Fargo Center which can only be accessed by driving or the Broad Street Line. And the central location means a much larger population of the city proper can get there via walking, biking and public transit in a shorter amount of time.
Cities are big and complicated places with lots of competing needs, and 76ers/Chinatown is a prime example. I really hope that a resolution can be met which will allow the arena to be built without causing major disruption to Chinatown.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:20 AM on January 23 [6 favorites]
For the full context here, the 76ers Arena will not be in Chinatown. It will abut the southern border of Chinatown and take up one square block. The shopping area is half of a giant mall, which is not doing well, and the owner of the mall wants to sell it. Almost all of the stores at street level in the mall have their doors locked and you have to go through a side entrance. The mall closes so early that, if you go see a movie that lets out at 6:30pm, you are unceremoniously herded out by security immediately. I really wanted to love that mall, but I don't, and I can see why it is going under.
That stretch of Market Street is also not doing well in general and needs a facelift. There are certainly concerns to be had about knock-on real estate price effects and displacement once the arena is built, but there is no viable alternative at this point besides "just don't build it" which means the dying mall will become a dead and empty mall. Also, it will be on top of a major transit nexus - Suburban Station - which would allow access by regional rail to a much larger section of the populace, vs the Wells Fargo Center which can only be accessed by driving or the Broad Street Line. And the central location means a much larger population of the city proper can get there via walking, biking and public transit in a shorter amount of time.
Cities are big and complicated places with lots of competing needs, and 76ers/Chinatown is a prime example. I really hope that a resolution can be met which will allow the arena to be built without causing major disruption to Chinatown.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:20 AM on January 23 [6 favorites]
is there an example of a major sports stadium being built in a neighborhood that didn't massively change the neighborhood for the worse, turning land into parking lots and development-heavy luxury condos?
I ask as a Chinese-American living in a city who saw knock-on effects of a new stadium on low-to-middle income Black communities where the same arguments about how 'ugly' or 'depressing' a place was were made nevermind that people have been living there for decades
I can also immediately think of many better uses for the land of a dying mall than another enormous, empty-most-of-the-time temple to capitalist consumption and nationalist fervor
cities are changing, becoming richer, turning whiter and this entire time the white middle-to-upper income folks who didn't move out following desegregation are heralding 'revival' and fixing the city as if things like community centers, parks, low-income housing etc could and should never be built. that it's affecting Chinatowns now hopefully brings more attention to it but given that Chinatown residents skew lower-income, low educational attainment vs other Chinese-Americans I sincerely doubt this will stop their erasure. powerless people are much easier to trample on for the sake of neighborhood beautification
posted by paimapi at 8:07 AM on January 23 [13 favorites]
I ask as a Chinese-American living in a city who saw knock-on effects of a new stadium on low-to-middle income Black communities where the same arguments about how 'ugly' or 'depressing' a place was were made nevermind that people have been living there for decades
I can also immediately think of many better uses for the land of a dying mall than another enormous, empty-most-of-the-time temple to capitalist consumption and nationalist fervor
cities are changing, becoming richer, turning whiter and this entire time the white middle-to-upper income folks who didn't move out following desegregation are heralding 'revival' and fixing the city as if things like community centers, parks, low-income housing etc could and should never be built. that it's affecting Chinatowns now hopefully brings more attention to it but given that Chinatown residents skew lower-income, low educational attainment vs other Chinese-Americans I sincerely doubt this will stop their erasure. powerless people are much easier to trample on for the sake of neighborhood beautification
posted by paimapi at 8:07 AM on January 23 [13 favorites]
is there an example of a major sports stadium being built in a neighborhood that didn't massively change the neighborhood for the worse, turning land into parking lots and development-heavy luxury condos?
The only example I can think of, mainly because it happened in my childhood neighborhood of Miami Gardens, is Joe Robbie Stadium, now Hard Rock Stadium. At the time, it was built out on the very edge of Miami Gardens, practically in the middle of nowhere, and the only other major construction was the widening of the road that led to the stadium. That was an obvious disruption-- I had a childhood friend who lived on that road-- but the rest of Miami Gardens didn't change much.
South Florida continued its westward expansion in the years since, and there's a bunch of newer buildings around Joe Robbie (I refuse to call it anything else), but the area around the stadium is basically its own neighborhood now.
(It's also worth noting that Joe Robbie was a unique case amongst pro sports stadiums in that its construction was entirely paid for by Robbie himself, with private financing. Pro sports will never see the like of Robbie again.)
posted by May Kasahara at 9:04 AM on January 23
The only example I can think of, mainly because it happened in my childhood neighborhood of Miami Gardens, is Joe Robbie Stadium, now Hard Rock Stadium. At the time, it was built out on the very edge of Miami Gardens, practically in the middle of nowhere, and the only other major construction was the widening of the road that led to the stadium. That was an obvious disruption-- I had a childhood friend who lived on that road-- but the rest of Miami Gardens didn't change much.
South Florida continued its westward expansion in the years since, and there's a bunch of newer buildings around Joe Robbie (I refuse to call it anything else), but the area around the stadium is basically its own neighborhood now.
(It's also worth noting that Joe Robbie was a unique case amongst pro sports stadiums in that its construction was entirely paid for by Robbie himself, with private financing. Pro sports will never see the like of Robbie again.)
posted by May Kasahara at 9:04 AM on January 23
Building in Detroit's historic Chinatown demolished, to the dismay of some advocates
posted by clavdivs at 9:55 AM on January 23
posted by clavdivs at 9:55 AM on January 23
There was an informational exhibit at my Midwestern city's annual Asian Food Festival last year talking about our historical Chinese immigrant community and the "Chinatown" that existed here a century ago. I went from being amazed to learn of the existence of a Chinatown here, to being extremely depressed to learn that it had been completely demolished and replaced by our downtown "business district" by the late 1940s.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:20 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:20 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
Strange Interlude, the same thing happened in St. Louis. There was a "small but thriving" Chinatown where Busch Stadium now stands, a victim of the massive destruction of anywhere remotely ethnic in the city back in the "Urban Renewal" days.
Now a days, you can find a Chinatown have developed on Olive in the county, but having it on a stroad is very different than in the downtown core.
posted by gc at 10:24 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
Now a days, you can find a Chinatown have developed on Olive in the county, but having it on a stroad is very different than in the downtown core.
posted by gc at 10:24 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
LA is such a weird one that the map really undersells. The original chinatown south of downtown got wiped out. And then there's the "new one" which still stands just south of the 110 by Dodger Stadium area, but that's not really LA's Chinatown these days - that's all around me where I live in the San Gabriel Valley - and even calling it a "Chinatown" is a bit of a stretch since there are folks of all stripes from around all of Asia in this broad, broad community.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:31 AM on January 23
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:31 AM on January 23
We're no longer in Houston, but I have fond memories of going out to the far west Chinatown and eating at a cheap dumpling place beloved of generations of Rice students. We'd go out there in groups of 10 or more and eat our fill to the tune of under $10 each. (There was also one nearer downtown.)
I don't know where Dallas' Chinatown is, if it has one, but last year its Koreatown got a historic district designation. And Plano, Dallas' near north suburb, is home to a lot of subsidiaries of Japanese corporations (e.g., NTT) that are in a symbiotic relationship with its mostly-Japanese Asiantown area. Not just talking about H-Mart and 99 Ranch but also a Mitsuwa grocery store is a major space in one of the centers.
One of my many subjects of random interest is the history and development of Americanized Chinese food and I'm looking forward to reading all the articles here because there's going to be a lot of overlap between Americanized Chinese food and historic Chinatowns.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 10:40 AM on January 23
I don't know where Dallas' Chinatown is, if it has one, but last year its Koreatown got a historic district designation. And Plano, Dallas' near north suburb, is home to a lot of subsidiaries of Japanese corporations (e.g., NTT) that are in a symbiotic relationship with its mostly-Japanese Asiantown area. Not just talking about H-Mart and 99 Ranch but also a Mitsuwa grocery store is a major space in one of the centers.
One of my many subjects of random interest is the history and development of Americanized Chinese food and I'm looking forward to reading all the articles here because there's going to be a lot of overlap between Americanized Chinese food and historic Chinatowns.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 10:40 AM on January 23
I'm tremendously suspicious of preservationist impulses, and the tools used, as they're favorites of NIMBYs all over.
But it's interesting cite xenophobia and racism as a cause of declining Chinatown business, when xenophobia and racism was a driving factor, possibly the driving factor, in the creation of Chinatowns in the first place. Xenophobia and racism's gotta change with the times, I guess.
The lingering effects of Covid isolation certainly continue to exert a (diminishing) economic toll. I have a feeling those expressing their xenophobia and racism, though, were probably not big proponents of Chinatown's wares and services even before the pandemic.
My sense is that Chinatowns in the US rely a great deal on tourism to be economically viable. Regardless, economic viability and local ownership needs to be the reason Chinatowns stay in existence, even with some questionable details and plenty of NIMBY drive in itself. Declaring an ethnic enclave by policy is clearly a non starter these days.
posted by 2N2222 at 10:43 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
But it's interesting cite xenophobia and racism as a cause of declining Chinatown business, when xenophobia and racism was a driving factor, possibly the driving factor, in the creation of Chinatowns in the first place. Xenophobia and racism's gotta change with the times, I guess.
The lingering effects of Covid isolation certainly continue to exert a (diminishing) economic toll. I have a feeling those expressing their xenophobia and racism, though, were probably not big proponents of Chinatown's wares and services even before the pandemic.
My sense is that Chinatowns in the US rely a great deal on tourism to be economically viable. Regardless, economic viability and local ownership needs to be the reason Chinatowns stay in existence, even with some questionable details and plenty of NIMBY drive in itself. Declaring an ethnic enclave by policy is clearly a non starter these days.
posted by 2N2222 at 10:43 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]
Washington DC's Chinatown was also obliterated by a sports stadium.
posted by Borborygmus at 10:49 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
posted by Borborygmus at 10:49 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
I was in San Diego years ago for a conference, and walking back to my hotel I stumbled across the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum which is in an area where there used to be a Chinatown, but which was mostly “repurposed,” although they offer tours of the surrounding neighborhood where a fair number of buildings relating to Asian/Pacific people living in the area. So that’s sort of an odd remainder of a now-gone community.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:50 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:50 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
I'll add Boston as a city that's struggling to figure out how to keep the Chinatown in city proper thriving despite wild gentrification. I recently ran across this story about artist Wen-ti Tsen who is creating statues to honor the everyday Chinese Americans as part of his awesome Chinatown Worker Statues project.
posted by smirkette at 11:16 AM on January 23 [3 favorites]
So far, Tsen has completed four small clay models of his planned statues, which depict a laundryman, a restaurant worker, a garment worker and a grandmother caring for a child.gentlyepigrams, if you haven't already run across these, I really enjoyed Jennifer 8. Lee's The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures In the World of Chinese Food and The Search for General Tso, a documentary on Netflix that looks at the history of the dish.
“The four figures are based on Chinese workers traditionally in America for the last 200 years,” Tsen explained. “At first, because of the discrimination, they were not allowed to have any jobs or own any business.”
posted by smirkette at 11:16 AM on January 23 [3 favorites]
I just finished Chop Suey Nation by Ann Hui; she writes about why Canadian-Chinese food (by extension, American-Chinese would likely fall under this) became the way it is instead of the real food she remembers from her childhood, how these restaurants across country all have a common thread, and how it impacts her own family unexpectedly.
Chinatowns are under the threat even in Toronto and Montreal, mostly due to development.
posted by Kitteh at 12:32 PM on January 23
Chinatowns are under the threat even in Toronto and Montreal, mostly due to development.
posted by Kitteh at 12:32 PM on January 23
is the Costco effect a thing?
if I compare Edmonton's Chinatown from 1990 to today, I think the absolute domination by big box stores and Costcos is a factor in the changes I've seen. families that have been around for 100+ years change too.
posted by elkevelvet at 12:41 PM on January 23
if I compare Edmonton's Chinatown from 1990 to today, I think the absolute domination by big box stores and Costcos is a factor in the changes I've seen. families that have been around for 100+ years change too.
posted by elkevelvet at 12:41 PM on January 23
I think that's a factor discussed when it comes to TO and MTL's Chinatowns. Families moved out to the suburbs for more room and more upward mobility.
posted by Kitteh at 12:44 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 12:44 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]
My sense is that Chinatowns in the US rely a great deal on tourism to be economically viable
in all the times I've gone to various Chinatowns across the US, the predominant nationality of the patrons of the bakeries, restaurants, groceries, and businesses were Chinese-Americans, particularly the folks who lived in or close to the neighborhood and likely would need language assistance in a white supremacist neighborhood (ie the vast majority of American exurbs that popped up during white flight from desegregation)
the money brought back by laborers and janitors and other service workers are what keep neighborhoods like these afloat. as lower income work begins disappearing and second and third-gen college-educated folks move out, Chinatowns begin disappearing which, like all things gentrification, means the most economically and socially vulnerable people begin losing accesses to basic rights and resources
plop a stadium down and it's even more of a big fuck you to a Chinatown since now you've also made housing unaffordable too which is more or less what's happening in and around the immigrant corridor in ATL we know as Buford Highway (sans stadium - zoning is more the culprit here). I'm seeing Chinese owned shipping and restaurant supply businesses being replaced by antique furniture stores, high-end vet clinics, olympic training gyms, etc, all knock on effects of the intentional gentrification facilitated by the city councils of Brookhaven and Doraville that have also made it harder for immigrant-owned businesses to obtain and keep liquor licenses, stay open later, etc.
this rapid changing of places of life into white supremacist inflected shrunken exurban shopping plazas is something that I'll never stop hating and resenting people who go out of their way of welcoming it. you moved out, built your own pretty, gated communities with zero third places and now you want the mini-fig version of it in a city that immigrants have struggled for decades to keep livable, to build communities in even while being ignored-to-hated by their municipal politicians. fuck you very much :)
posted by paimapi at 12:44 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]
in all the times I've gone to various Chinatowns across the US, the predominant nationality of the patrons of the bakeries, restaurants, groceries, and businesses were Chinese-Americans, particularly the folks who lived in or close to the neighborhood and likely would need language assistance in a white supremacist neighborhood (ie the vast majority of American exurbs that popped up during white flight from desegregation)
the money brought back by laborers and janitors and other service workers are what keep neighborhoods like these afloat. as lower income work begins disappearing and second and third-gen college-educated folks move out, Chinatowns begin disappearing which, like all things gentrification, means the most economically and socially vulnerable people begin losing accesses to basic rights and resources
plop a stadium down and it's even more of a big fuck you to a Chinatown since now you've also made housing unaffordable too which is more or less what's happening in and around the immigrant corridor in ATL we know as Buford Highway (sans stadium - zoning is more the culprit here). I'm seeing Chinese owned shipping and restaurant supply businesses being replaced by antique furniture stores, high-end vet clinics, olympic training gyms, etc, all knock on effects of the intentional gentrification facilitated by the city councils of Brookhaven and Doraville that have also made it harder for immigrant-owned businesses to obtain and keep liquor licenses, stay open later, etc.
this rapid changing of places of life into white supremacist inflected shrunken exurban shopping plazas is something that I'll never stop hating and resenting people who go out of their way of welcoming it. you moved out, built your own pretty, gated communities with zero third places and now you want the mini-fig version of it in a city that immigrants have struggled for decades to keep livable, to build communities in even while being ignored-to-hated by their municipal politicians. fuck you very much :)
posted by paimapi at 12:44 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]
.as lower income work begins disappearing and second and third-gen college-educated folks move out, Chinatowns begin disappearing which, like all things gentrification
Do you consider the kids of immigrants getting college degrees and moving out to be gentrification?
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:48 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]
Do you consider the kids of immigrants getting college degrees and moving out to be gentrification?
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:48 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]
no and it's hard to imagine how someone could see it that way? something that makes a place vulnerable to white, middle-class takeover of cities by the children of segregation-favoring exurbanites is not, itself, that phenomenon
posted by paimapi at 12:51 PM on January 23
posted by paimapi at 12:51 PM on January 23
It was the way you phrased it that confused me. Apologies.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:53 PM on January 23
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:53 PM on January 23
San Marino, CA is 64% Asian—is it a “ Chinatown”? It’s sure as hell “ gentrified” with an average household income of $174,622.
I think the work these people are doing is valuable, but they’re preserving architecture and history more than present day communities.
posted by Ideefixe at 1:18 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]
I think the work these people are doing is valuable, but they’re preserving architecture and history more than present day communities.
posted by Ideefixe at 1:18 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]
Toronto's First Chinatown was basically demolished , Two thirds of it was expropriated and razed. to the ground about 1960 in order to build the New City Hall and Nathan Phillips square.
Some part of it moved a few blocks west to the old Garment district around Spadina and Dundas.
Markham has a large Chinese population. Tons of Asian mallls, restaurants stores etc.
Including the notorious Pac mall
Notorious for knock off goods
I've never heard of Markham being called Chinatown North.
I've heard one term called an ethnoburb.
posted by yyz at 1:23 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]
Some part of it moved a few blocks west to the old Garment district around Spadina and Dundas.
Markham has a large Chinese population. Tons of Asian mallls, restaurants stores etc.
Including the notorious Pac mall
Notorious for knock off goods
I've never heard of Markham being called Chinatown North.
I've heard one term called an ethnoburb.
posted by yyz at 1:23 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]
Ideefixe - and San Marino is filthy rich as well!. And then you have Arcadia right there that's upper middle class (~60%) and then as you work your way down through Alhambra, Temple City, Rosemead, Monterey Park it gets more and more working class.
I'm fairly certain half the condos on my street here in Pasadena are owned/leased by Chinese families for their kids to attend PCC (to get into the UC system) or Cal Tech. This whole area is one big "Chinatown. Speaking of which, Pasadena just changed the historical marker in Mills Alley in Old Town to note that it had been the home of Pasadena's Chinatown until the night of 11/6/1885 when they set a fire to a laundry and drove all the Chinese residents out of town, so.... progress?
posted by drewbage1847 at 6:31 PM on January 23 [3 favorites]
I'm fairly certain half the condos on my street here in Pasadena are owned/leased by Chinese families for their kids to attend PCC (to get into the UC system) or Cal Tech. This whole area is one big "Chinatown. Speaking of which, Pasadena just changed the historical marker in Mills Alley in Old Town to note that it had been the home of Pasadena's Chinatown until the night of 11/6/1885 when they set a fire to a laundry and drove all the Chinese residents out of town, so.... progress?
posted by drewbage1847 at 6:31 PM on January 23 [3 favorites]
I'm firmly on the side of Philly's Chinatown and Washington square west neighborhood (and frankly everyone in the city I've talked to who doesn't directly profit from real estate development and speculation) in opposing the arena. I've also loved how Chinatown has evolved over time with new immigrants, including plenty of college kids. It's one of the most vibrant parts of the city and full of small independent businesses that serve the people who live there in a million different ways. It's no tourist facade theme park.
posted by sepviva at 6:50 PM on January 23
posted by sepviva at 6:50 PM on January 23
loved this post and I'm in agreement with a lot of the points that paimapi and others have made. I don't think these enclaves need to justify their preservation efforts based on how (in)conveniently they fit into the future economic landscape of the city.
and yeah as a black woman, I probably am biased. it's tiresome to hear that your sacrifice (of a space, of your time, etc.) is necessary for the realization of progress (social, economic, political, you name it).... only to be shunted to the side and told that your contribution was miniscule once it's time to share in the material or social benefits derived from that sacrifice. "oh, your property wasn't that valuable anyway... you weren't business-ing well enough to deserve your claim to these areas."
fuck us, if that's our best argument for possibly erasing communities that poured in the effort (and continue to exert their efforts) to make something of the areas to which they were once banished. if developers and city officials value the other potential uses of the area, then they can start making some offers. if they can't come to an agreement then oh well. but in a conversation about how these enclaves will continue to develop, we need to be clear on how and for whom we're defining their value. for groups with different relationships to the processes of marginalization, I'm sure we'll all arrive at different ideas of what makes these enclaves valuable or not.
but I don't think there's a need to present these communities as robust economic engines in the conversation about what makes their ongoing existence valuable. or if we do, can we be more thoughtful and precise in our reasoning beyond "step 1: purge the non-white elements.... step n: profit..."? it's an old outdated argument to suggest that businesses owned and frequented by non-white Americans are somehow intrinsically low value unless we expunge all the "inconvenient" (but bearable) reminders that Euro-America doesn't comprise the entirety of human civilization. it's time to be specific and up front about what exactly it is about non-white folks that's so unforgivable to the ego and sensibilities of the "average" American consumer (usually but not necessarily imagined as white).
are we're just that fearful of groups and people whom we struggle to commodify in some way? because if that's the issue, then once again I say, "fuck us" for wanting to treat folks like luggage that can be shoved into and out of areas for the sake of capitalist caprice.
posted by neitherly at 7:33 PM on January 23 [3 favorites]
and yeah as a black woman, I probably am biased. it's tiresome to hear that your sacrifice (of a space, of your time, etc.) is necessary for the realization of progress (social, economic, political, you name it).... only to be shunted to the side and told that your contribution was miniscule once it's time to share in the material or social benefits derived from that sacrifice. "oh, your property wasn't that valuable anyway... you weren't business-ing well enough to deserve your claim to these areas."
fuck us, if that's our best argument for possibly erasing communities that poured in the effort (and continue to exert their efforts) to make something of the areas to which they were once banished. if developers and city officials value the other potential uses of the area, then they can start making some offers. if they can't come to an agreement then oh well. but in a conversation about how these enclaves will continue to develop, we need to be clear on how and for whom we're defining their value. for groups with different relationships to the processes of marginalization, I'm sure we'll all arrive at different ideas of what makes these enclaves valuable or not.
but I don't think there's a need to present these communities as robust economic engines in the conversation about what makes their ongoing existence valuable. or if we do, can we be more thoughtful and precise in our reasoning beyond "step 1: purge the non-white elements.... step n: profit..."? it's an old outdated argument to suggest that businesses owned and frequented by non-white Americans are somehow intrinsically low value unless we expunge all the "inconvenient" (but bearable) reminders that Euro-America doesn't comprise the entirety of human civilization. it's time to be specific and up front about what exactly it is about non-white folks that's so unforgivable to the ego and sensibilities of the "average" American consumer (usually but not necessarily imagined as white).
are we're just that fearful of groups and people whom we struggle to commodify in some way? because if that's the issue, then once again I say, "fuck us" for wanting to treat folks like luggage that can be shoved into and out of areas for the sake of capitalist caprice.
posted by neitherly at 7:33 PM on January 23 [3 favorites]
I'll add Boston as a city that's struggling to figure out how to keep the Chinatown in city proper thriving despite wild gentrification.
Yeah, it's a bit disconcerting to see the luxury towers that have sprouted up over the past decade. But there are some good things happening - there are some affordable apartment buildings in the works, and the neighborhood K-12 school, the Quincy, is getting a modern building for its upper grades (which were long housed in what was originally an elementary school dating to the early 20th century).
But also worth noting is that the past decade or so has also seen the development of large Chinese-American communities in Quincy, just south of Boston, and Malden, a suburb to the north.
posted by adamg at 7:55 PM on January 23
Yeah, it's a bit disconcerting to see the luxury towers that have sprouted up over the past decade. But there are some good things happening - there are some affordable apartment buildings in the works, and the neighborhood K-12 school, the Quincy, is getting a modern building for its upper grades (which were long housed in what was originally an elementary school dating to the early 20th century).
But also worth noting is that the past decade or so has also seen the development of large Chinese-American communities in Quincy, just south of Boston, and Malden, a suburb to the north.
posted by adamg at 7:55 PM on January 23
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Side rec: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, which is worth your time and over on FanFare.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:15 AM on January 23