America's Chinatowns fighting gentrification

In Los Angeles: From affordable housing to market rate apartments.

ASAM NEWS

The fight to save Chinatowns nationwide from gentrification is being played out in two cities right now.

A landmark in Philadephia’s Chinatown will be spared the wrecking ball, at least for now, reports NPR station WHYY.

In Los Angeles, rents are expected to surge at a Chinatown affordable housing complex that is about to be converted to a market rate apartment building.

According to Capital and Main, the affordability covenant that has been in place for 30 years at the four-story apartment building known as Hillside Villa will expire in June.

Shao Zhao works at a non-profit and has lived with her mother at the Hillside Villa since 2007.

In Philadelphia: Chinese Americans fighting to preserve the
Chinese Cultural and Community Center.

“Without rent control they can continue to increase our rent with a 60-day written notice,” she says. “Some people literally can’t afford it. It would be like 100 percent of their income.”

Some 30 tenants in the 124 units have already left in anticipation of the rent increases. Many of the tenants are non-English speaking residents from China, Vietnam and Latin America.

RELATED: 'Progress' hurting nation's Chinatowns.

“When people leave, it’s not like leaving a block away. It’s literally leaving Los Angeles,” she says. “We have folks that moved to Riverside. We have folks that have moved to Tijuana.”

In Philadelphia, plans to demolish the former Chinese Cultural and Community Center have been withdrawn following protests. About 7,000 signed a petition organized by the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation urging the building owners to keep it in tact. They’ve withdrawn their plans, but plan to come back to the city with a new plan.

“If our community members want Chinatown to exist for our children, grandchildren, and future generations, we must stop the destruction of Chinatown and our historic buildings. The destruction of Chinatown will lead to the destruction of our history,” the petition reads.

A representive of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development corporation says the owner’s have expressed a willingness to reach a compromise.

“They are willing to work with us,” Wu said to Capital and Main. “We suggested they should use architects who are specialized in historic buildings.”

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Chicago's Chinatown bucking national trend; it's thriving and growing

The entrance to Chicago's Chinatown.

WHILE CHINATOWNS across the country struggle to maintain their identity, the Chinatown in Chicago is thriving and growing. The Windy City's ethnic enclave may be a model for the survival of Chinatowns across America.

"Between 2000 and 2010, Chinatown's population increased 24 percent and its Asian population increased 30 percent. Asians make up nearly 90 percent of the neighborhood's population, according to 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data," said an article in the Chicago Tribune. "Experts also say that of all the foreign-born Asians living in Chicago's Chinatown, nearly 10 percent arrived in the last three years — a stark contrast to New York and San Francisco, where immigrants no longer fuel Chinatowns."

RELATED: 'Progress' putting the squeeze on America's Chinatowns

In 2013, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning announced a plan to preserve Chinatown's cultural identity by improving public education and elderly care, bolstering transportation infrastructure and creating more public parks. In addition, the city built a new library that has turned into a new gathering place community groups and residents.

The city is committed to preserving Chinatown for its residents. In 2013, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning announced a plan to preserve Chinatown's cultural identity by improving public education and elderly care, bolstering transportation infrastructure and creating more public parks.

The City of Chicago invested in its Chinatown. Above is Chinatown's new library.

But the biggest factor in preserving Chicago Chinatown is growth and the room to grow. Unlike other cities where Chinatown's housing is at a premium, gentrification isn't taking place.

New developments cater to the Chinese residents instead of excluding them. That reinforces the bond of community and allow traditions to flourish. 

RELATED: S.F. Chinatown fighting gentrification

Instead of relying on the status quo - half of the neighborhood's residents work in the food and hospitality industry, health care and social services - Chicago has increased job training programs to create new employment opportunities and sought improvements to the infrastructure serving Chinatown.

In other words, instead of fighting change, Chinatown made sure the change - or some would call it - progress - enhanced the existing neighborhood making for a more vibrant, stronger community while retaining the traditions that make the neighborhood attractive to new immigrants and long-time residents.

San Francisco is trying some of that same strategy with the Central Subway Project connecting Chinatown to BART, Market Street and the South of Market's Yerba Buena Center, the redesign of Portsmouth Square and the recent addition of the 8-story Patient Tower to Chinese Hospital which will house a new Level 4 Emergency Center facility will be expanded: 88 beds (an increase from 54), state of the art diagnostic imaging department, Cardio-pulmonary outpatient services, 4-surgical suites, all-private ICU beds, and a telemetry unit. The new building will also house East West medicine services, pharmacy and Chinese Community Health Plan (CCHP) member services center.

Despite these infrastructure improvements, the greatest threat to San Francisco's Chinatown remains to be the landlords and developers who want to cash in by switching their low-cost rooming houses and apartments to high-end housing for the cash-rich tech workers moving into the city. If the residents can't afford to live there, those services are all for naught. 

Despite the racist laws and attitudes that created America's Chinatowns, they serve a purpose as a way-station for newly arrived immigrants and for those who want to live in a community in which they don't need interpreters and are not considered as outsiders.

To read the entire Tribune article, click here.

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