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NYC’s koreatown is only a block or two and is vertical. LA’s is several square miles and is horizontal. I’d guess that there are at least 100 times more Korean businesses in LA’s koreatown. This is pretty lopsided.
The other day they did a “which side of the country is more lush geeen” east or west. Obvious questions aren’t a problem here.
Gardena is historically Japanese, but it looks much more Korean to me now. One thing that I’ve noticed is that Japanese enclaves in LA tend to also attract Koreans. Little Tokyo is becoming significantly Korean. I think that I read that something like 20% of the Asians in Little Tokyo were Korean in 2010. Likely more now and many of the properties are now Korean owned.
The koreatown in Garden Grove was small but significant enough that it had an official designation when I was last there a decade ago.
Yea, that does happen--happens with other East Asians to some extent, too, except for the much older, historic chinatowns which if still around seem to attract mostly more immigrant Chinese including people of Chinese descent from Southeast Asian countries (though Chinese will immigrate to places that are originally Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese enclaves). I think it's not too uncommon elsewhere as well and that might be something as silly as having shared grocery / consumer product needs. Gardena is probably still quite Japanese in descent, but also probably quite a bit assimilated. I have never really thought of Garden Grove as much of a Korean enclave, so it's interesting for me to learn that.
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Originally Posted by 2Easy
Yeah it’s percentages. Overall the LA metro has a larger population and a much larger percentage. Koreatown attracts Koreans (and non-Koreans) from all over the region. I can’t comment on what happens in NJ, but given that it’s less accessible to people across the region likely limits how many it can attract from outside that area on a regular basis.
On the street level, the dense urban parts of those places in Bergen County are palpably much more Korean than just about any place in the LA metro region I've been to save for the commercial strips of Koreatown. Those places listed are of varying sizes, so the percentages yield different amounts of people, but they're also for the most part contiguous with each other and form a pretty solid enclave (also mixed with other East Asians). In LA, I went to heavily Korean schools and so naturally hung out and dated mostly Koreans in LA and that included going out to various parts of Korean enclaves especially when the people around me were really trying to dial up bringing me into the church as well. I visit the region maybe twice to three times a year (not this year, ha!), and I don't think any of the Korean enclaves in LA outside of Koreatown really has that commercial density and dense concentration of Korean population that Eastern Queens and Bergen County does. Yea, those are less accessible in some ways that Koreatown in Manhattan and Koreatown in Los Angeles, but probably more so and larger in terms of built-in local community with greater "payoff" than any single enclave in the Los Angeles region.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 10-21-2020 at 10:32 AM..
4 of the cities in the list - La Palma, Cerritos, Fullerton, and Torrance - were in LA & Orange County. 11 of the cities were in Bergen County. I ended up subbing out Torrance, CA for Buena Park (population 80k, 9k Koreans as of 2010) so that they form a more or less contiguous area.
The Korean populations of the 4 CA cities and the 11 Bergen County cities are nearly identical, at 34k as of 2010; but dividing by their total population, Bergen County's percentage was 2x as high.
County Koreans Total Population Percentage
Bergen 34,078 148,389 22.97%
LA/Orange 34,371 280,464 12.26%
So Bergen County makes a good argument for the best suburban Koreatown, but IMO Koreatown LA still tops them all
Last edited by garyjohnyang; 10-21-2020 at 11:53 AM..
New York's Koreatown is actually outside of city limits in Fort Lee and Palisades Park. These two municipalities have the highest percentage of Koreans anywhere in the United States. I've had friends from Seoul say they felt like they were back home except for the fact that they had to speak English to their American friends they brought along. Including Flushing into this makes for an interesting comparison.
Yeah, Palisades Park, Fort Lee, a couple of blocks in Manhattan, and Flushing are the main Koreatowns in the NY area. I know a lot of Koreans who have moved down to Atlanta (Duluth/Suwanee/Johns Creek areas) from up there though because of the affordable cost of living, good schools, and access to Korean businesses.
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