Gentrification in Chinatown: authenticity is anti-fragile, tourism (semiotic commerce) is fragile

Here's the complete series on Gentrification in Chinatown:

Prestige and its deceptions and betrayals

Prestige and distortion in Chinatown

Suits and betrayal in Chinatown

The Mobility Dilemma and the Clearinghouse Effect

Authenticity in the East Village

and a broad consideration of the government role in gentrification and the flaw in academic theory.

The MobilityDilemma and the Clearing House Effect

The Asian American Federation, the group that studied Chinatown businesses I mentioned a couple of posts ago, also studied Asian poverty in New York City. Their policy recommendations point up what you might call the mobility dilemma: efforts to increase upward mobility run the risk of displacing their target populations. Here is one of their policy recommendations:

Economic development efforts in enclave economies that encourage a diversified, vibrant business community rather than a hypercompetitive, low-margin, narrow economy would help stabilize the local economy and raise wages and labor standards. 

By "diversified" they mean non local serving businesses: semiotic, outward-looking commerce -- in a word, tourism. To upscale a local-serving produce stand into a high-end restaurant -- necessarily non-local serving since the locals cannot afford it -- will allow, if successful, higher wages for the waiters (if the manager doesn't steal the tips, a wide-spread practice as I've mentioned). But it also crowds out local-serving commerce and attracts more upscale outward-looking commerce. As prices and profits rise, so do real estate values. Soon the neighborhood is in demand from outside and landlord pressure to harass and evict locals increases. Gentrification displaces the local community.

The dilemma is parallel to the urban amenity dilemma: every material improvement in a low-income neighborhood attracts investment that eventually gentrifies and displaces the low-income community. The two horns of the dilemma both seem unacceptable: remain in poverty or be displaced to poverty elsewhere.

The AAF policy recommendation seems to ignore the historical clearing house dynamic of Chinatown. Immigrants arrive there, work hard for several years, spend frugally, save resolutely, then leave for a prettier neighborhood. Upscaling Chinatown may provide higher wages for a few, but it eliminates it as a first destination for new immigrants.

New immigrants most need work they can assume immediately and housing that is extremely cheap so they can both earn and save. AAF concludes that "Making affordable housing more available is critical to alleviating poverty." But current affordable housing programs are all geared towards permanent housing, too expensive for the needs of new immigrants. Only transient housing meets the demand in an immigrant first destination. Permanence is unnecessary and too expensive.

Chinatown today is divided between two communities, one immigrant and transient, another American-born and permanent. Current affordable housing models would change Chinatown into all permanent, but the mobility it provides for the low-income immigrant is not upward, but outward, so the problem is not solved, in Engels' famous words in The Housing Question, "they are merely shifted elsewhere."
See also in this series:
Semiotic neighborhoods vs the authentic and anti-fragile: prestige and its deceptions and betrayals
Prestige and distortion in Chinatown
Suits and betrayal in Chinatown
Authenticity in the East Village

Suits and betrayal in Chinatown

"It's so hurtful, it's just wrong!" said a Chinatown community "leader" to another Chinatown non profit director. They exchange mutual gestures of dismay.

Were they deploring restaurant management stealing hard-working waiters' tips? Complaining about a landlord allowing illegal conditions in his building so he could call the Dept of Buildings and evict all the renters overnight without any due process? Or the proposed legislation to exact punishing fines on street vendors for setting up in an illegal space instead of merely having the police ask them to move?

None of those moral crimes. They were deploring a labor organization calling a councilmember "racist." That's what upsets the suits in Chinatown.

White collar crime doesn't receive this kind of shock and dismay. A restaurant manager, donning a suit of clean and pristine pride for a photo op, stands next to a councilmember also in a suit, endorsed by the legitimacy of politics, governance and "leadership." They each lend the other its public display of respectability, shaking hands. Owning and controlling, they have nothing to complain or howl about, nothing ugly to say, nothing to taint the picture, nothing but smiles. And all the suits around are pleased.

But stealing tips -- stealing from low-wage workers who have no alternatives -- is nothing to smile about. It's vastly worse than calling a councilmember "racist."

The suit, like the semiotic neighborhood, is all about selling itself and selling out. It prides itself on its success at whoring itself, as if this were the only game worth playing.

There is no recognition among the respectable that labor stands at the bottom of the social scale, with little support, funding or clout. They have their voices and their unity, and that's just about all. To be heard, they've got to be more than loud in quantity of decibells. They've got to be loud in quality -- shocking, offensive, disturbing and disruptive, otherwise they are invisible. The cry of "racist!" whether true or not, is an honest, sincere, genuine and authentic cry about true management abuses and real living needs.

Forgive me for ranting on this, but I'm disgusted -- and I want those leaders to know that I'm disgusted -- by such displays of shock and dismay over labor tactics. In your comfortable easy chair, imagine yourself lying on the third level of a bunk bed, your only living room. Then imagine who respects your voice. Then, when you next hear "racist" yelled by labor, maybe, true or not, you'll cheer them for simply being heard.

Suits purport to be smart; suits purport to be educated. Then suits should know well the deep disparities of this world and should expect labor tactics to be loud and ugly. Here's how the game is played, and everyone knows it: power, in its echo chamber, will not listen to the disempowered unless the disempowered offend them. Then power deplores the disempowered for being offensive. I have no respect for anyone who deplores labor tactics.

I don't practice labor tactics -- I don't have the courage for it. But I recognize that, truthful or not, it gets justice. There would never have been a Chinatown Working Group were it not for the protests of Chinatown labor which included a lot of name-calling.

It's a shame, though no surprise, that in this upside-down and morally corrupt world, justice should have to be pitted against truth. But truth is merely information; justice is lived. Justice first, then truth will arrive in time. Without justice, truth will remain dressed in suits.

See also in this series:
Semiotic neighborhoods vs the authentic and anti-fragile: prestige and its deceptions and betrayals
Prestige and distortion in Chinatown
The Mobility Dilemma and the Clearinghouse Effect
Authenticity in the East Village

Prestige and distortion within Chinatown

The Asian American Federation, a social services and research non profit highly regarded within Chinatown, published a study of Chinatown in 2008 in which they found that East Broadway, the center of recent Fujianese immigration and a low-income area, was one of the most resilient, vibrant and successful parts of Chinatown, while much of the rest of the neighborhood was ailing commercially. Yet the study's recommendations completely disregard its findings of fact. Their recommendations all favor tourism with no recommendations that support the ethnic community.

Most telling are the recommendation that waiters learn more English (useless for local-serving restaurants), and the absence of any recommendation that managers stop stealing waiters' tips, a wide-spread practice among restaurant owners in Chinatown. Stealing tips removes the most easily available incentive reward for waiters to improve services like learning English. Without tips for improved service, AAF's recommendation burdens the waiter entirely. The bias in favor of management is evident: compel the waiter to learn English but still take his tips. There isn't even a recommendation for free or supported English lessons.

The power of prestige and respectability is pervasive. Growth is viewed as outward-looking towards an upscale mainstream culture, not expanding and supporting the base. So, for example, here are their findings of fact:

A number of changes in the mix of residents in Chinatown also has altered the customer base for Chinatown businesses. Over the past 20 years, growth of the Fujianese population in Chinatown, due to new immigration patterns, has generated demand for businesses supporting their food, entertainment and service preferences. Newer Fujianese-owned businesses have sprung up along East Broadway.... A lack of nightlife in Chinatown also makes it difficult for restaurants to attract evening business, and garment-industry job losses and relocations have reduced restaurants’ traditional customer base. However, restaurants catering to Chinatown’s growing Fujianese population report brisk business.... The decline in the garment industry has decreased measurably the daytime population in Chinatown, a key component of the traditional customer base.  As this traditional customer base shrinks, the growth in Chinatown’s Fujianese population and the influx of non-Chinese and some returning Chinese immigrants and retirees have created a demand for products and services catering to these markets. 

 And their conclusions:

A general lack of customer service reduces the appeal of shopping and dining in Chinatown. Limited English capabilities of staff make it challenging for people who do not speak Chinese to patronize Chinatown businesses. Gruff service from a few businesses hurts the image of all Chinatown establishments. Many stores and restaurants operate on a cash basis, which discourages those customers

 The customers mentioned are tourists with credit cards, not local recent immigrants. And "image" is a problem looking to outsiders, not to locals. The sole source for this claim of gruff service and bad image comes from the Zagat Guide -- a restaurant guide published in English for English-speaking customers. There is no Mandarin, Fujianese or  Cantonese Zagat for New York. If you look through all their recommendations, you'll see that they are equally outward, not inward, looking. And this is characteristic of many such studies of Chinatown. Whether they are positioning Chinatown non profits to obtain government funding for development or attracting private sector investment, they ignore the economic base and their recommendations threaten them with unstable, fragile commercial gentrification.

Image and money are tied together. Semiotic neighborhoods pretend with an image for sale, much as a suit allows its wearer to pretend to an image of respectability. The base of the economy is disregarded, dismissed and invisible.

Next: semiotics and deception among the suits in Chinatown, and the struggle up from the bottom.

See also in this series:
Semiotic neighborhoods vs the authentic and anti-fragile: prestige and its deceptions and betrayals
Suits and betrayal in Chinatown
The Mobility Dilemma and the Clearinghouse Effect
Authenticity in the East Village

Semiotic neighborhoods vs the authentic and antifragile: prestige and its deceptions and betrayals

(These remarks elaborate an informal presentation I gave as guest speaker at a Columbia University Urban Planning Master's Program class last year. I was asked to discuss Chinatown and the East Village as semiotic neighborhoods. The basic idea is that in ethnic enclaves, the commerce that serves local residents is more resilient than touristy commerce. 

Representations designed to broadcast identity for outsiders betray the people and culture that it purports to represent, so there's a correlation between broadcasting outside and economic fragility, as well as deception and betrayal. Authentic commerce, by contrast, doesn't represent and is antifragile -- it grows stronger in a crisis because the locals have more needs in a crisis, and the local commerce serve them. 

Nevertheless, prestige and respectability are measured in mainstream cultural standards, far from ethnicity and authenticity, and are by nature hypocritical -- invested in presenting and maintaining themselves as prestigious, respectable and mainstream, regardless of the real ethical and moral defects of the apparently respectable -- so authority, including many city planners, administrators, financiers, developers and local community opportunists, scorns and ignores the authentic stability of the enclave's economy, endangering the future of the enclave. Although an ethnic enclave can thrive and grow despite outside catastrophes like terrorist attacks, hurricanes and recessions, it is vulnerable and threatened by internal and external authorities seeking to gentrify it. Already gentrified neighborhoods seek representations of authenticity that betray the authentic roots of the neighborhood. They are stabilized by luxury commerce dependent on upscale trends.)

What is a semiotic neighborhood? Simply put, a neighborhood full of signs. Any commercial street will be lined with signs that draw to its consumers. Delancey Street signs draw to the low-income residents nearby. Times Square draws to an international tourism consumer, advertising the entire city -- that's why the signs are so large, so bright, on-the-pulse and sexy. The signs can be read as an indicator of the character of the consumer.

But semiotics of a neighborhood is not just commercial signage. There are no commercial signs on Park Avenue north of 59th Street, but the stone and stately architecture, the spareness and cleanliness of the streetscape, the absence of commerce, all send a message that this is both a residential neighborhood and a wealthy, exclusive one.

Semiotic neighborhoods can be divided among those that broadcast their signs outside the neighborhood, and those that look inward. Broadcasting neighborhoods use their signs to create an identity for outsiders, an identity they can easily read. It can be a bit of a contradiction: an ethnic neighborhood can broadcast an identity that belongs to the outsiders -- self-stereotyping -- instead of being authentically ethnic. The purpose of the identity after all is not to be authentic, but to draw customers. So notice that it's money that leads to the fakery and the fakery is a betrayal of its own.

Inward-looking neighborhoods have no such need to create such an identity. They are not pretending with a show of what they are. The commerce there simply serves the local community that already understands it for what it is -- theirs. Inward-looking neighborhoods are characterized by authenticity.

In the literature of semiotic neighborhoods, inwardly looking neighborhoods are not even considered as semiotic -- they don't try to speak to the general public or communicate using the broader language of the culture, the recognized stereotypes; the motivation of their signs are restricted to the needs of locals, with no thought of trying to impress anyone with an enhanced identity. Ironically, they have authentic identity -- because they're not trying.

Local-serving commerce has low costs, since the customers don't have to be enticed and brought to the door. The locals are a bit of a captive market. As long as the prices don't drive the locals to seek a better deal, the local commerce can rely on having its customer. When there's a crisis, even a catastrophe like 9-11 or Hurricane Sandy, the local commerce actually thrives. The local residents have more needs in a crisis, not fewer, and the residents are even more captive without transport. They must find their needs served locally.

While the authentic neighborhood tends to keep prices reasonably affordable (the customer is not entirely captive) broadcasting a neighborhood tends to raise prices. The intent of broadcasting is to surpass the profits available locally, otherwise it would stay local and not bother broadcasting at all, since broadcasting incurs advertising and presentation costs. And advertisement and image-creation must be ongoing to keep up with outside trends.

In a crisis, a semiotic neighborhood can be devastated.This happened in parts of Chinatown after 9-11. Mott Street, which had been outward-looking with antique stores and Chinese souvenir shops, lost many stores, and has only recently recovered.

East Broadway, the center of the recent immigration and lined with local-serving stores, has not been devastated in the wake of 9-11 or even the Great Recession. It's been crowded and bustling, the commerce vital and thriving.

To be continued...
See also in this series:
Prestige and distortion in Chinatown
Suits and betrayal in Chinatown
The Mobility Dilemma and the Clearinghouse Effect
Authenticity in the East Village

Should be interesting:

A rare opportunity to learn the labor perspective in Chinatown. And Peter Kwong is an authority on Chinatown. Sunday, Jan. 10, 3pm, 345 Grand Street at Chinese Staff and Workers Association.

Piketty and immigration

Just finished Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. His central claim is that the ratio of capital/labor increases as the rate of economic growth decreases because the rate of return for capital remains constant, and, he claims further, the growth rate will decline through the rest of the century as the population rate (the rate, not the absolute population) declines.

He recommends a tax on wealth/capital. But if he's right that the rate of growth will decline ceteris paribus, seems to me his wealth tax is not the only option: opening the borders should slow wealth inequality. Open borders w/naturalization would also counterbalance the political influence of wealth, Piketty's underlying complaint against wealth accumulation.

His tax could happen in Europe, but not likely here in the US. How would a push for immigration fare as a means to grow the economy? With an alliance of business with immigrants? After all, Piketty's prediction is a ratio, not an absolute quantity of wealth or its buying power. r>g holds when g increases, even though the ratio of wealth-income decreases. It would be a win-win for business and immigrants. It should not hurt unions in the long run either, although in the short run it might hurt a lot. 

A chance for Chinatown

There has been growing support for city council candidate Jennifer Rajkumar in Chinatown. Several local Chinatown leaders have explained to me their support for Jennifer and their loss of faith in Margaret Chin. Now Jan Lee, Chinatown's most outspoken activist, writes about his disappointment with councilmember Margaret Chin at the CCRC blog. It's a clear and thoughtful piece. Wednesday, Jan walked through Chinatown storefronts with Jennifer Rajkumar to discuss with the store-owners their issues and challenges.

Following up on the debate

Last night at the debate, candidate Jennifer Rajkumar cited this article at City and State. Chin responded by dismissing it as "just a blog."

The piece explains that the "affordable commercial space" that First American International Bank promised Chin in exchange for de-landmarking 135 Bowery is a fiction. There's no category of "affordable commercial space" in law or city zoning or land use or regulation or legislation.

But we already knew that. When FAIB and Chin presented to the City Council this promise of affordable commercial space they produced no contract, no written agreement, no letter, no email, no paper trail, no evidence, no document whatsoever. And, btw, the Council Committee, chaired by Brad Lander, didn't even ask about it. In other words, this was a favor to the councilmember that the council members all understood as a favor to the bank -- best not ask questions, just look away and nod assent.

And what contract could there be? How could it be enforced? What measure of affordability? How much under market-rate? How do you negotiate a give-back without getting an enforceable contract? Or even any contract?? The whole transaction was a fabric of malfeasance and cronyism.

Barron's article describes FAIB as a "Chinatown bank." But as I recall, when the bank demolished 135 Bowery, its headquarters were located in Queens, not in Manhattan's Chinatown. At a moment when Chinatown is threatened by outside capital, that's an important detail. The fact that FAIB is moving into Chinatown should not deceive anyone into thinking that they are now integral to the community. Having promoted and won the Chinatown BID and now begun developing in Chinatown, FAIB looks like the spearhead of Chinatown gentrification, an outsider preying upon the built neighborhood and its community.

It always annoys me to hear challenger-candidates mouth the empty promise formulas "If you elect me..." or "You need a councilmember who will...". I mean, after you explain how the incumbent has failed to negotiate effectively, mouthing these formulas are kind of an insult to the audience's intelligence. But in this case, it really is true that Margaret did such a poor job negotiating this deal, that you want to hear someone say, "I know how to negotiate, and I will negotiate for you."

Chin-Rajkumar debate

I attended the Chin-Rajkumar (Council District 1) debate last night. Although the audience, mostly white, seemed to be evenly divided between the two candidates, I was struck by the aggressiveness of the Chin supporters, who heckled, yelling insults, sometimes gratuitous insults. Don't get me wrong, the Rajkumar crowd booed Margaret a couple of times too, but no verbal abuse that I heard.

A friend tells me that Christine Quinn's crowd behaved with similar aggressiveness at a mayoral debate the night before, more aggressive than the other candidates' people. Quinn and Chin are both incumbents, both carrying a lot of baggage and a lot of negatives. They are both supported by big real estate money, viewed by the public as its enemy. I wonder if those negatives have put their supporters on the defensive. The worse the candidate looks, the more her supporters will lash out? People are never more vicious than when they sense they are wrong.

Chin has a lot to answer for in public: promoting the Chinatown BID that serves big businesses and big developers, despite widespread local Chinatown opposition; supporting the NYU plan (albeit with a 25% reduction) despite pretty much universal opposition from her constituency except NYU's president; de-landmarking 135 Bowery to let First American International Bank demolish it -- the very same Queens bank that promoted the BID and contributes to her campaign; supporting a SoHo BID that is also widely opposed by the local constituency; initiating a bunch of absurdly draconian bills that luckily have gone nowhere -- steep, punitive fines on street food vendors, for example, that benefit established businesses and harm the immigrant little guy getting a first start. It's been a record of one slap in the face of her constituency after another. You'd think her opponents would be the ones heckling, yelling and threatening.

Rajkumar has one negative that I can see: she doesn't have a legislative track record. Chin makes a big deal of her lack of legislative experience, but really now, City Council is a first job -- there's no legislative job below it where you can acquire experience. Chin didn't have legislative experience before she was elected either. I have not seen Chin address Rajkumar's work as a civil rights public interest lawyer. That's her record. Chin ignores Rajkumar's civil rights record entirely. Attacking her for not having experience in the job that she's seeking to get experience in is the kind of comical cheap shot you use when you have nothing substantive to say.

Chin also points out that Rajkumar never attended SPURA meetings. But did Chin attend the meetings prior to becoming Councilmember? I never saw her there when I went to the meetings before she was elected. I'm told she attended five meetings in a three-year monthly process. I'm guessing all of them were after she was elected as councilmember.

The loudest commotion occurred when Rajkumar criticised Chin for initiating a bill to jail tourists who buy knock-off goods. The audience seemed to go wild with anger. I can see the virtue of burdening the demand, though jailing tourists seems extreme. But why did the audience respond to this issue? Do they resent tourists for encouraging a blackmarket? Gang violence has subsided in Chinatown. Is there more trouble under the surface?

With all the predictabilities in a debate, that response to the knock-off bill was the most alarming moment of the evening. The blackmarket, its potential for violence, its human smuggling and the desperation it brings, its secrecy and dangers, its exploitation, are still feared and hated in Chinatown.

Division

[Cross-posted at http://chinatownforchinatown.wordpress.com/]

There are two sides debating in the Chinatown Working Group. Some want to see more tourists in Chinatown to support business. Developers, financiers, some business owners, the Business Improvement District, for example, sit on this side and arts purveyors as well. On the other side stand the labor and tenant adovocates who want business to serve the local residents. You might ask, why not have both, local services and toursim?

If only the sustainable market forces were balanced. But they’re not. Gentrification is an opportunistic tide that, once it gains an entry, will flood the locality resistlessly. To use urban planning to help the juggernaut of monopolistic market forces is unnecessary. The empowered need no help.

In any economy, there are vulnerable sectors even among the most sustainable. Local services are actually highly sustainable since local residents have consistent, reliable purchasing needs. You see those needs reflected in the streets of Chinatown. As long as the community remains, the local services will be sustainable.

Although they are highly sustainable, local services are also highly vulnerable to attack from giant outside capital which has more resources, government connections and mobility. Ironically, the least vulnerable — giant capital, developers, big businesses, chain stores — are also the least reliable because they are mobile and least tied to the locality. Like a corporation that protects itself in bad times by laying off labor, giant corporations are most capable of protecting themselves at the expense of the locality, whereas small local servers depend on the locals.

Tourism is closely tied to development and big capital — high prices and upscale values that can be marketed to upscale spending. Local services, especially in Chinatown, depend on low prices and high volume. If giant capital gains a foothold, commercial rents will rise, replacing local services, and  gentrification will displace the community, killing the viability of any remaining local services. It’s a snowball effect.

This is not to say there shouldn’t be tourism in Chinatown. There’s always been tourism in Chinatown back all the way to the 19th century. But here’s the paradox of tourism: people come to Chinatown not to see a spectacle staged for them but to experience Chinatown as it is, a lively working community, culturally distinct from the rest of New York because it serves its own. Cater too much to the tourist, and you lose the Chinatown that tourists come for. You’d then have to market Chinatown as a brand, constantly hoping that that brand doesn’t go out of fashion. Chinatown business becomes the slave of an outside community that it has no control over, and it turns a community with businesses in it into a business with no community in it.

In planning, as everywhere, there are empowered sectors that need no help, and disempowered groups that need support. Were it not for the 1% predators, the 99% disempowered would be fully sustainable. That’s why planning should always keep as its goal protecting the disempowered and avoiding giving ground to giant capital.

Margaret Chin, the developer's candidate

Margaret Chin is taking money from the Real Estate Board of New York's Political Action Committee. You'd want to ask, why would the founder of Asian Americans for Equality welcome large campaign support from real estate?

Affordable housing is built in NYC through incentives given to developers. So if you want to get any affordable housing here, you've got to welcome a market-rate developer, otherwise you get nothing.

Does that explain why Margaret voted for the NYU development (albeit curtailed)? Maybe. Does it explain why she voted for the Chinatown BID against widespread opposition within Chinatown? Maybe. Why she voted to help First American International Bank, the promoter of the BID, demolish and redevelop 135 Bowery?

The BID benefits larger property owners, larger businesses and developers and banks. But the small property owners and the small businesses are the anchor of Chinatown. At what point does a commitment to building new affordable housing sacrifice community entirely?

The city has shoved a wedge between affordable housing and community, turning affordable housing into a tool of gentrification and displacement. Look at Williamsburg. Chinatown next? The BID is a step towards the new Downtown Hotel District (DoHo?) formerly known as Chinatown.

From Crain's http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130729/BLOGS04/130729878 about REBNY's funding of Chin's campaign

From City Council Watch, Seth Barron (writer for City & State) "Margaret Chin Progressively Awful"

Sean Sweeney in The Villager "The billionaires back Margaret Chin for City Council"

AALDEF publishes new data on Chinatown land use

From AALDEF (Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund): 

[scroll down for the pdf of the study]

June 21, 2013 – The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) is releasing land use data on New York City’s Chinatown, as a preview of its forthcoming three-city study of Chinatowns and surrounding areas in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

"We have assembled data on the make-up of small businesses and properties in Chinatown that will enable us to document the effects of gentrification on Asian immigrants, who have been fighting for their community for decades,” said Bethany Li, staff attorney at AALDEF.

AALDEF, in collaboration with community partners, academic institutions, and hundreds of volunteers, spent a year recording block by block and lot by lot the existing land uses in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia Chinatowns and surrounding immigrant areas. Today’s initial release of land use data, combined with detailed analysis of Census data from the 1980s, provides a snapshot of the existing uses of New York’s Chinatown and describes its startling transformation in the past three decades.

New York’s Chinatown has served as the gateway for thousands of immigrants from Asia and is home to a thriving network of low-income residents and small businesses. However, property values in Lower Manhattan have increased substantially, and gentrification is threatening the neighborhoods’ historical and cultural significance. According to Census data, the overall population in New York’s Chinatown decreased 7% between 1990 and 2010 (from 125,574 to 116,722 people) due largely to the increase of non-family households and a decrease in family households -- a significant indicator of gentrification. As a result, many Asian immigrants face the prospect of displacement.

For example, AALDEF's study indicates that an overwhelming majority of commercial use in New York’s Chinatown consists of small businesses (94%), approximately 12% of which is classified as “high-end.” However, our survey shows that the most significant cluster of “high-end” businesses is in the area between Houston and Delancey Streets, where students and young professionals have displaced immigrant families in the past decade. "High-end" stores also dot the landscape along Allen and Orchard Streets heading towards more traditional parts of Chinatown.

“Gentrification threatens to transform these previously neglected neighborhoods into tourist centers and destroy the places where Asian immigrants have lived and worked for decades,” said Li. “We hope this data can be used to support organizing and planning efforts that help retain resources for New York’s Chinatown for current and future immigrants.”

This data was collected with the assistance of AALDEF’s community partners including Chinese Progressive Association and Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center in Boston, Chinese Staff & Workers’ Association in New York, and Asian Americans United in Philadelphia. The University of Pennsylvania’s City and Urban Studies Department provided technical assistance on mapping and data analysis.

Download Chinatown: Then and Now >

Contact:

Ujala Sehgal
212.966.5932 x.217
usehgal@aaldef.org

Bethany Li
212.966.5932 x.213
bli@aaldef.org

Impending change in Chinatown

Grieve posted the news yesterday that 11 buildings on the Bowery from Canal Street to Houston Street (83-5, 88, 103-5, 219-21, 262, 276-82-84) have just been bought by the owner of Dr. Jays, hip-hop clothing stores. With the exception of 276-84 at the corner of Houston, most of these parcels are not ideal candidates for demolition and redevelopment but the likely replacement of Chinese local-serving retail in 83, 85, 88, 103 and 105 — many of the leases are coming due – will carve out a piece of the Chinatown community.

If new commerce succeeds, it spreads. That's bad news for Chinatown, even though this portfolio was never Chinese-owned. Those four buildings are also residential, so watch out for evictions. The current hotel residents in 88 may be threatened as well. The building is overbuilt, so it's unlikely to be demolished, but it could be renovated and turned into an upscale hotel like the St. Mark's for those seeking the "authentic New York experience."

The Chinatown Working Group, Chinatown's community planning initiative, with over 50 lcoal tenant, labor and social service orgainzations participating, has been meeting on the future of Chinatown, hiring Pratt as their planning consultant. This troubling real estate/retail transaction should be right at the top of the discussion: here's the future, what can Chinatown planning do about it? 

Chin, AAFE, development, gentrification and displacement

I posted this originally as a comment at the Villager in response to an article on Margaret Chin's council campaign. 

What troubles me most about Chin is what she's been doing to Chinatown. Despite broad Chinatown protest, Chin supported a Chinatown business improvement district (BID) which will destabilize small property owners, increasing the likelihood of the selling of Chinatown properties and redevelopment that will lead to gentrification and community displacement especially of the low-income community. 

While her association with AAFE and the First American International Bank may be well-intentioned, under city zoning the construction of affordable housing brings 80% market-rate luxury housing, raising real estate values and commercial rents. NYers saw this in Williamsburg -- the community was sold an affordable housing program that resulted in wholesale transformation of the neighborhood. The affordable housing non profits can't back off the city's Inclusionary Zoning program because affordable housing development is their mission and that's what they are funded to do. The result of collusion between upscale development and non profit affordable housing is a net loss of affordable housing, deeper gentrification and low-income community displacement. 

The close relationship created in the law between those non profits and market-rate developers has placed a destructive wedge between community and the non profits that should be protecting those communities. The fault is the city administration's, but the city's gentrification program succeeds by using those non profits. AAFE strongly supported the upzoning of Chrystie Street, Houston Street and Delancey, opening the door to upscale development for the sake of 20% affordable housing, playing the city's game rather than resisting, protesting, refusing and leveraging. 

Supporting NYU development, the demolition and redevelopment of 135 Bowery (for the First American International Bank), the Chinatown BID (promoted by that same bank again) and the SoHo BID -- intended or not, it's a constellation of development and upscaling. Chin is a good-hearted, hard-working activist, but she's been caught in a game that is headed in the wrong direction for community. That's why CSWA, a Chinatown labor organization, and a Chinatown small property owners group oppose her. That's an unusual coalition spectrum -- property owners and labor. Says a lot to me.

New blog "Chinatown for Chinatown: a discussion board"

I started a blog about Chinatown planning called "Chinatown for Chinatown"
http://chinatownforchinatown.wordpress.com/

I've avoided blogging about Chinatown while I was involved with a Chinatown planning group. It's not the kiss-and-tell aspect -- I believe in transparency. But journalism gives the writer an unfair advantage within the group. It can bias the process or coerce it. But the Chinatown Working Group has mostly concluded its discussions, now waiting for its planning consultant to come up with recommendations to the group. So I can write as an outside observer.

I've asked several local voices and urban planners to post as regular guest bloggers. I'm hoping to see an open, broad discussion that will be of help to the planning consultants as they dig into the issues and challenges that Chinatown faces.

CB3 priorities

Our Community Board has sent around a notice asking for help in getting themselves more funding. But CB3 did not send around a notice announcing the Chinatown Town Hall, an extremely important community event held in CB3's district.

It has been eleven months that the Chinatown Working Group has been meeting, yet CB3 has not sent even a single notice of even one meeting. I get my notices of Chinatown Working Group meetings from CB2, even though I live in CB3's district and the Town Hall was held in CB3's district.

No doubt the community boards need funding to accomplish their goals. But those goals must include the entire community, not just the sector of the community that makes the CB look good or that is friendly to the CB.

Advertising the Chinatown process would have improved CB3's image. Continuing to undermine the process by not sending out notices will just earn CB3 more enmity. I hope CB3 will rethink its approach to the Chinatown Working Group and begin sending notices of the meetings through their e-mail list. Then I might be happy to advocate for more CB funding.

East Broadway and Allen/Pike Street are still closed, a week after the fire at the Hong Kong Market. The building next door to the fire has already been demolished and 107 is in process of being torn down. 105, 103 and 99 will be assessed for demolition next, according to councilmember Gerson's office. Meanwhile the businesses on that cordoned-off block are dying and there appears to be no effort to shore-up these buildings to save them. 109 and 107 were small 150-year-old 4-story row houses. But 105, 103 and 99 are much younger 6-story buildings with many more units in them. In what other neighborhood would land be cleared with so little interest in protecting residents and small businesses?

The cultural strength of immigration

I don't know of any successful anti-gentrification policy measure. Turning Greenwich Village into a historic district saved the buildings from demolition, but didn't save the neighborhood from gentrification. Zoning might help Chinatown if it could bring locally-hiring manufacturing jobs into the neighborhood.

Affordable housing construction has been a success in Chinatown. Unfortunately, the city's current affordable housing programs bring more luxury housing than affordable housing, and very little of the affordable housing is low-income affordable.

One organic social factor has prevented gentrification of several New York communities. Neighborhoods that continue to receive new working-class immigrants and retain them tend to keep their cultural character and resist gentrification. Chinatown has that in its favor.

But many local residents and business owners have interests that do not prioritize new immigrant needs.

The issues before the Working Group are both complex and difficult, and I haven't seen them fully hashed out. The CWG principles are all well-intentioned, but there has been no definitive analysis explaining how to get from principle to practice.

Hunter College's Urban Studies Department is producing a study of Chinatown which I hope will address these issues and conflicts. The consequences of policies need to be fleshed out clearly on paper so that all parties know what is at stake. Right now the teams seem too splintered and narrowly focused. It might be helpful for an outside, disinterested academic institution to consider the consequences of each possible policy decision.

Chinatown arch

I guess everyone involved in Chinatown affairs has an opinion on whether Chinatown should build a gateway arch. I guess knowing a few of those opinions is a sure mark of contact with Chinatown discussions. Perhaps there already is a gateway arch in Chinatown. It is intellectual and interactive, and you don't know that you have walked through it until you find yourself on the other side of it. Chinatown's gateway arch is a discussion: the discussion of the arch. Once you find that you have an opinion on it, you suddenly discover that you've walked into a place you hadn't been before, or if you'd been, you hadn't quite seen it from this angle.
:-)

People disagree on where this arch -- I mean the physical one, now -- should be located and what it should look like. The benefits of proximity to the arch might unfairly favor near businesses over far, and there's little agreement on whether Chinatown's image should recall old-country traditions or the uniqueness of the new or both. There's even disagreement whether it will be good for Chinatown at all: all the dying Chinatowns in the US have arches; Manhattan's live Chinatown alone doesn't. If it aint broke...

Of the proposals I've heard, one of Wellington Chen's is most appealing and smartest: a hologram arch. It would create a tourist attraction that will draw commerce to Chinatown, won't consume space and could even span the entirety of Chinatown itself, encompassing all its locations. I can imagine that such a hologram arch -- maybe even a transforming hologram taking traditional features and melding into modern features in turn melding into futuristic possibilities, with elements drawn from the whole immigrant history of Chinatown: African, German, Irish, Jewish and Italian -- I can imagine that as a worldwide tourist attraction. It would be a financial bonanza for Chinatown, feeding cash every day in perpetuity, like the Eiffel Tower, as Wellington likes to say. It's an irresistible proposal.

But I have qualms about tourism. It's not monolithic, tourism. Tourists who come to Chinatown for Chinatown's authentic living character are different from tourists who come to see an urban technological marvel. The latter expect to eat American fare, preferably MacDonalds, but Wendy's will do too. They might venture into a local restaurant, but only if the menu isn't too threatening. I'm fine with Empire State Building tourists at the Empire State Building, or Statue of Liberty tourists at the ferry -- there are no neighborhoods to destroy there. Chinatown has to consider which tourists it wants and how to get them.

If the goal is to attract tourists to Chinatown for its authentic living character, and not for a convenient concentration of MacDonaldses and Wendy'ses and a handful of Americanized "Chinese" restaurants, why have any arch at all? How does an arch enhance the lived character of the place?

I feel the lack of a symbol for Manhattan's Chinatown. Is there one? Its landmarks are urban and American -- rows of tenements built for Irish, Italians and Jews, a park with a Calvert Vaux pavilion, a bridge entry with a grand and grimy Beaux Arts Carrere & Hastings entrance, a bank designed to match the classical Beaux Arts bridge, minus the grime. There's Confucius and there's Lin Ze Xu, but neither one is specifically Manhattan's Chinatown nor expresses the relation of Chinatown to Manhattan. Kim Lau comes closer and should be better known, but to try to make it better known would be a task akin to lecturing a class of students who just want to get out and play.

The most distinctive image of Chinatown for me is the bright chaos of flying banners posted along Pell Street. They are a favorite among photographers. Flickr is rife with Pell Street shots. Go look. It says so much about Chinatown: that it is lively, busy, commercial, bright, welcoming, distinct from the rest of the city yet distinctively urban and New York in character.

All the most memorable images of Chinatown are of its streets and streetlife. It has no Chrysler Building, or Upper West Side grand hotels or Upper East Side marble museums, or East Village Tower of Toys (and now the EV has lost that too) or lamppost mosaics, or Greenwich Village townhouses. It does have roast ducks in picture windows, sunday-in-the-park ensembles of erhu, flute and yangqin surrounded by trees, their low branches hung with the cages of exotic song birds, and a narrow, winding street dour in its presence and darker in its past.

The discussion of the arch seems like a red herring to me. The image of Chinatown surely should be sought in what Chinatown is, not in creating what it isn't or conforming it to other places. If character shall be destiny, that creation or conformity can only lead away from the true path. But what do I know? I'm an outsider.

Maybe the funds for the arch should be devoted to finding an image for Chinatown drawn from Chinatown itself. A fauvist silkscreen of Pell Street banners?

Instead of a Chinatown arch...













jBlough flickr

...Chinatown banners.