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Where Chinatown now is, Italians and Jews and Romanians and whatever used to live. That's the ebb and flow of city life. You cannot hope to preserve everything in amber. Life is about change and dynamism and vitality.
As someone else noted, East Harlem, which was rapidly becoming Latino, is now becoming Chinese. Whatever happens, happens. I welcome change.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PapasBear
In a scenario where many Chinese leave Chinatown because of prices, what would the neighborhood look like?
I know many people who wish to move out of Chinatown because there is a certain image associated with living in Chinatown. For Chinatown (as a neighborhood) to survive, will it have to cater to a younger crowd (build similar stores from places in Hong Kong, Koreatown (nightlife), to keep a refreshed "Asian" image) in order to keep people from leaving? (as well as to draw more locals/tourists)
TLDR;
Can a Chinatown exist without Chinese people?
What signifies a Chinatown?
Will Chinatown have to adapt to other bustling communities like Koreatown to retain a younger crowd to stay in the community?
or am I just crazy for thinking this? Would like to know what you all think!
I think the history of ethnic enclaves in Manhattan is that they dont stay ethnic very long. Few Italians left in Little Itlay or East Harlem. Few Germans left in Yorkville or Irish in Inwood. Few Puerto Ricans left around Lincoln Square. Few Jews on the Lower East Side. Whites moving into Harlem. Mexicans into Washington Heights. And so on and so on. So Chinatown IMO will end up as a vestigal Chinese community. Some restauarants, food stores, Chinese businesses, tourist attractions. But the Chinese will, on the whole, contuinue moving to larger and/or more prosperous neighborhoods elsewhere. I think what happened to the DC Chinatown will happen here. Won't be exactly the same because of architecture, zoning, public housing, all of which will make the trnsformation different. But the basic pattern will hold.
I also don't know how soon residents would be priced out because, face it, it's not the most attractive neighborhood.
Remember that there's more to a neighborhood than asthetics. Chinatown is very attractive from a location perspective. It's walking distance to Lower Manhattan, and most of the neighborhood has easy subway access (the subway ride itself is only about 10 minutes to Midtown, 15 tops), and if you're by Canal Street, it's a major hub.
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanintllctl
As someone else noted, East Harlem, which was rapidly becoming Latino, is now becoming Chinese. Whatever happens, happens. I welcome change.
You have to consider that part of the reason the Chinese population grew so rapidly (percentage-wise) is because it was so small to begin with. It might become Chinese eventually, but it would take a while (not to mention that there's also white people moving in, so that would likely hinder it from becoming a full-fledged Chinatown). Aside from that, the trend is towards more diversity, so areas that are 90% Chinese (or any one group in general) will become rarer in the future.
Remember that there's more to a neighborhood than asthetics. Chinatown is very attractive from a location perspective. It's walking distance to Lower Manhattan, and most of the neighborhood has easy subway access (the subway ride itself is only about 10 minutes to Midtown, 15 tops), and if you're by Canal Street, it's a major hub.
Chinatown doesn't seem structurally different the neighborhood to the north of it (Little Italy, NoLita, Lower East Side?) it just feels more crowded.
Quote:
Aside from that, the trend is towards more diversity, so areas that are 90% Chinese (or any one group in general) will become rarer in the future.
Hmm. I didn't know there was a trend towards more ethnic diversity rather than ethnic segregation. Any stats for that? I'm curious to see.
Hmm. I didn't know there was a trend towards more ethnic diversity rather than ethnic segregation. Any stats for that? I'm curious to see.
I believe ckhthankgod posted up some charts that showed the dissimilarity indices for different cities a while back, and there was also an article somebody posted (yeah, real specific, right? ), where they mentioned that only one or two cities grew more segregated between 2000 and 2010 (I know one was in alabama). Maybe it was The Atlantic Cities.
In any case, I found a few articles/blogs/whatever that provide some of that info, but not all of it:
Segregation itself, the decennial census report indicates, is only decreasing slowly, although the dividing lines are shifting as middle-income blacks, Latinos and Asians move to once all-white suburbs — whereupon whites often move away, turning older suburbs into new, if less distressed, ghettos.
Results indicate that segregation has been decreasing, mainly due to declines in Black segregation and White segregation with little change or slight increases in Asian and Pacific Islander and Hispanic segregation.
This link shows the segregation indices for different metro areas for the 2000 census and 2005-2009 community surveys (for some reason, the only one I can find for the 2010 census is white-black segregation).
For some reason, I couldn't change the font size before (I had to copy and paste to my email, change the font, and then paste it back here). In any case, by looking at the different census maps, it just seems that in general, even if an area went from mostly white to mostly black or vice versa, it wasn't as segregated as it was before. (For instance, the area might've been 90% white, but is now 60% black). Of course, there were some that went from 90% white to 90% black over the past 20 years (just giving an example), and there are white areas that are becoming more white and black areas that are becoming more black, but it just looks like there's more integration going on. On those census maps, there's more areas of lighter colors (indicating more diverse areas) than there used to be. Some may be due to cities diversifying in general, but I think a lot is due to more integration.
Couldn't you say the same about the East Village and Alphabet City maybe two decades ago? I remember there was a saying that went something like this... "At Avenue A, you're alright. At Avenue B, you're brave. At Ave C, you're courageous and at Avenue D, you're dead." Nowadays we have apartments going for $4000/month.
I never heard that one... The only one I heard for alphabet city was ave a stood for assault, ave b - battery, ave c - coma and ave d - death... But im going back to early to mid 90s when they used to say that... In terms of the post, recently there was an article that came out about first generation chinese immigrants being kicked out of a 54 sq. foot apartment which is amazingly, smaller than Bloombergs pitch for micro apartments in the city... I think there is still a small group of poor working class chinese moving into chinatown but it is definitely much smaller than the exodus from chinatown either into Flushing or Sunset Park... Bensonhurst seems to be more like a Fresh Meadows in the sense that the chinese that are moving there aren't so much poor working class but rather more middle class...
In terms of the Chinese taking over East Harlem where at one point the area was rapidly becoming latino... @ urbanintcl, you do realize East Harlem was called Spanish Harlem before investors and real estate agents deemed the word spanish too scary for gentrification purposes... Just like avenue of Puerto Rico on Graham ave is apparently too negative a term for gentrification purposes as well... Latinos have been in that area since the 50s, let's not rewrite history now... Especially, coming from someone whose probably lived in this city for less than five years...
Now getting back to the original point at hand... Chinese are not taking over East Harlem... I know nothing would please you more than to see another hispanic area lose its culture to the chinese folk coming from chinatown, hipsters or yuppies... but the fact is, the biggest group moving into that area right now is neither one... Mexicans and Ecuadorians are taking over many former Puerto Rican and in some cases Black areas... Chinese and Eastern Europeans are taking over a number of former Italian or diverse ethnic neighborhoods and south asians and west indians are taking over former AA neighborhoods... Amongst all the major shifts, there is a small contingency of hipsters moving into these areas and probably accounting for no more than 5-10 or in some extreme cases 15% in 95% of these neighborhoods across the city, but with all the exposure that they create for themselves, you'd believe the entire city was one gigantic Williamsburg fully equipped with starbucks, organic stores, thai spots, artisan locations from Mother Gaston to the UWS...
Point of it all being is that while Chinatown has definitely lost a good portion of its asian population in recent years, the overall majority of the neighborhood is still overwhelmingly asian and due to rent control will probably remain that way for a very long time... People really need to stop exaggerating this new phenomenon to such ridiculous proportions...
Probably one of the most hilarious things I read on here was that Bushwick post by Leonardinho I believe which claimed studios in the Bush were going for over 2000 1 bedrooms for 2500 and 2 bedrooms for 2800...
And ignoramuses who believe anything that supports their agenda without confirming for factual credibility, post and critique anyone who questions these ridiculous statements despite the fact that they know whoever writes 90% of this crap that you see all over the internet is using his/her artistic license to con a couple more suckers each day...
For the record, in terms of the Bushwick comment... The reality is that Bushwick rents have increased in recent years but are still FAR BELOW market rents in this city... I recently saw an ad for a 3 bedroom in Bushwick on zillow continue to sit at 1600 a month... That's the reality that no one wants to discuss about these areas... Gentrification over these last 4 or 5 years has been completely overblown...
I love chinatown- the food and price is so affordable! But I wish people, especially Asians, would keep the place clean. This way the image of the little town isn't pledged with trash and smell of fish.
it will just wind up being china town by name only
with a few decorations and chinese restaurants but
the actual chinese resident will get kicked out.
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), where they mentioned that only one or two cities grew more segregated between 2000 and 2010 (I know one was in alabama). Maybe it was The Atlantic Cities.
Reply to PapasBear.
