Downtown Scottsdale is livelier than Downtown Phoenix!!

[Goober13]

There was a small Chinatown on Madison Street downtown in the early 60's and prior. Nothing like San Francisco, LA or New York though.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by Goober13

There was a small Chinatown on Madison Street downtown in the early 60's and prior. Nothing like San Francisco, LA or New York though.

And today, the only thing close to a Chinatown in Phoenix is the Chinese Cultural Center on 44th Street near the 202 freeway. Not a bad attempt, but it's really nothing more than a square block of Asian styled architecture, and a small plaza consisting of some shops and a few eateries. It's nothing like the Chinatowns of San Francisco or New York City, and still not considered downtown.

[pbenjamin]

The point is that there was indeed a Chinatown in Phoenix, a brutal ghetto complete with opium dens and restrictions on where its residents could go. Sun Mercantile was one of the few businesses that exceeded the scale of the inevitable laundry. The existence of all of this is factual and well documented. Whether or not it was significant enough to have prevented the construction of the W is a separate issue.

[Java Jolt]

I'm not implying downtown Phoenix doesn't have strides to make, it will never be like New York, London, or Paris but why should it be?

Some cities have their chinatowns, japantowns, koreatowns, little Havanas and all that but isn't that just encouraging segregation?

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by Java Jolt

Some cities have their chinatowns, japantowns, koreatowns, little Havanas and all that but isn't that just encouraging segregation?

Usually they are remnants of restrictive zoning and deed restrictions, all of which are now illegal. In some cases such places have survived because either a real community, one that the people actually wanted to live in, emerged or a profitable tourist trade developed. Nothing like that remains in Phoenix.

[Java Jolt]

Originally Posted by pbenjamin

Usually they are remnants of restrictive zoning and deed restrictions, all of which are now illegal. In some cases such places have survived because either a real community, one that the people actually wanted to live in, emerged or a profitable tourist trade developed. Nothing like that remains in Phoenix.

Yes I always questioned the morality of those separate ethnic areas because they seemed kind of racist and encouraged segregation, I can see why they became illegal.

San Francisco's chinatown is pretty extensive and kind of cool to browse, shop, and eat, but I'm still glad Phoenix doesn't have too many of those racially-divided areas, we're pretty mixed and non-segregated here.