Dr. Mary King
Author: Dr. Mary Huang
Chinatown-International District (CID) is facing one of the most likely (and likely) devastating urban planning disasters, as the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) expansion project proposes four light rail lines.At the Sound Transit conference on July 28, their announcement on the preferred route was tentatively submitted until early 2023, pending further study and “full understanding” [the] community’s concerns”. This is not a decision that can be used as a simple land use equation to determine how to technically build these routes, nor should it be. This decision affects a community, their lives, their family histories for generations and livelihoods are deeply rooted in and belong to the buildings and geographies of this part of the city that are their “home”. CID is more than just a Seattle community. It is the once larger pan-Asian and multi-ethnic core of downtown South relics.
For more than 160 years, Seattle’s Asian American community has been coerced, evicted, forced to relocate, and reduced its land holdings through policy decisions that combine economic development interests with environmental racism. The history of building projects on Asian-American occupied land shows us that the community has been lost and weakened by the impact of redevelopment and transportation projects. Living in a CID is not a matter of racial resilience for business owners and residents, as romantically touted in popular literature, but a real and ongoing struggle that will take considerable effort to get through. Collateral damage from years of urban planning decisions.
This list of destructive projects in Seattle’s Asian American core is quite substantial and condensed in this review, but it includes the construction of the NP train tunnel (1904, which brought the great Parts razed), construction of Union Station (1910-11, Chinese and Japanese homes and businesses demolished in buildings now occupied by Sound Transit), Jackson/12th/Dearborn Street Regrades (1907-09 Chinese and Japanese houses, churches and businesses were relocated or demolished), 2nd Avenue Extension (1926-28, the remains of the first Chinatown buildings destroyed), construction of the first Yesler Terrace (1939-41, demolished) 127 Japanese families, 5 Chinese families, and 20 married and Filipino residents as part of a 22-acre redevelopment project), choice of I-5 (1957-63, large tract of land dividing neighborhoods, demolished Hotels/Residential and Business), Construction of Kingdome (1972-76, threat to commercial and CID traffic and parking), Ozark Hotel Ordinance (1970-77, closing of most residential hotels and associated with I-5 project) combined), resulting in the loss of more than 3,000 low-income housing units in the CID), upgrading of Japantown (2011, increased land value for redevelopment), construction of the First Hill tram (2008-16, two years late) ) Jackson Street businesses lost 30-50% of their revenue when they opened, and social service organizations lost 70% of customers in need), and HALA and the Mandatory Housing Affordability Act (2014-17, adopted as a tandem , raising most of the historically designated communities outside the core).
Redevelopment and relocation are still underway, and higher market rents are driving gentrification. The above events were local decisions and did not begin to address serious federal discriminatory practices and policies against Asian Americans, such as a series of Chinese Exclusion Acts (1882, 1884, 1892, 1902), the Immigration Act of 1924, the illegal WWII period (1942-45) Imprisonment of Japanese Americans through Executive Order 9066, and the Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934), which reclassified Filipino Americans from U.S. nationals to aliens.
Just investigate the consequences of any of these historic acts to understand the damage done to people nearby. Each of these projects took significantly longer to complete than their respective projected completions, and the scope of the damage was far greater than expected. In all of these historic actions, and now in the ST3 proposal, we are faced with the fallacy that community businesses or residents will return after the project is complete. It didn’t happen and won’t happen, especially when people talk about an expected 10-year absence. Common sense tells us that those displaced businesses don’t get stuck waiting for a decade to return to something near “somewhere.” DEIS includes residential units that will be closed for occupancy during construction, but excludes those that will be “affected.” The narrative should include at least the 349 rental homes in the CID adjacent to the route, as well as those households that will suffer from dust and noise pollution and construction disruptions. It is questionable whether residents will be willing to put up with it for more than a decade.
Most shocking and ironic, some of the historic projects come after the city adopted the Racial Equity Toolkit (RET) in 2009, which was designed to bring social justice and voice to historically underrepresented communities . City decisions. Sound Transit is responsible for including this element in the DEIS, and they have admitted it, but there is no indication that RET was applied thoughtfully and carefully in routing. Having a meeting to tell the community what to expect is a far cry from listening and working with the community’s engagement. In the 1960s, activists and planners had embraced the importance of “self-determination,” meaning that communities were integral and active participants in determining their own futures. Contemporary urban planning must acknowledge this as a premise to begin with, because it is a fact that no one understands the community and the people who live and work there.
A new apartment building built in 2017 near the gates of Portland’s Chinatown. (Photo by Mary Wang)
Chinatowns across the U.S. are the neighborhoods with the highest percentages of gentrification, redevelopment, and rent increases among U.S. cities. These Asian American communities have also lost their quality as “living” communities of residents and businesses that are inseparable from the community’s Asian American heritage and supportive social services as places that welcome newcomers. . Seattle still has these, and it’s worth standing up to keep them rather than risk losing an entire neighborhood, like Portland, Oregon’s historic Old Town/Chinatown downtown neighborhood.
China Palms on Festival Market Street, the Louis House in the foreground on the left, and the Oregon CCBA Building in the middle of the block. (Photo by Mary Wang)
Once Chinese-American businesses spanning more than 70 city blocks in America’s largest geographic Chinatown, Portland’s core Chinese community fell victim to a series of relentless redevelopment projects. One such project was the Street View Plan approved in 2001, with construction beginning in March 2005 and finishing in September 2006. This is an improved transit corridor project that will help connect the downtown business district and is a major capital investment that will help revitalize the community. Sound familiar? Revitalization plans include a festive market street planted with Chinese pinwheel palms and 125 new street trees that have severely reduced and damaged 10 blocks of Chinatown, as well as some scattered Asian-American urban relics. The Conversation Blog notes that Chinatown’s salvation is underway, but unfortunately at the expense of the Chinese people. As the project progressed, businesses closed due to pedestrian and vehicular access issues, a bleak redevelopment period and lost foot traffic.
The Hung Far Low restaurant sign was restored and re-hanging at 4th and Couch in Portland. The restaurant moved to the Pearl District, but eventually closed in 2015 due to high rents. (Photo by Mary Wang)
By 2017, newspaper reports indicated that most of Portland’s Chinese businesses had moved to a new “Emerald District” about seven miles from the city center. Hung Far Low Restaurant moved there in 2005 after operating in Chinatown for 77 years, citing urban renewal and construction disruptions. In January 2018, the House of Louie restaurant in Portland’s historic Chinatown closed after 30 years in operation. This is the last remaining dim sum restaurant in Little Chinatown, there used to be a dozen Chinese restaurants. Potential developers have expressed interest in prime locations, and some boutique businesses have moved into the Japantown/Chinatown Historic District. Remnants of Portland’s Chinatown include the Oregon Chinese United Charity Federation Building (1911), Lan Su Chinese Garden (2000), and the China Museum (2018). The Chinatown Gateway (1986) marks the entrance to these places and the specter of what was once a vibrant community of Asian American businesses, families, and social organizations.
When this redevelopment project was completed, 20 bronze plaques were placed on the newly poured sidewalks, each displaying a different Chinese plant and information about the Portland Chinatown neighborhood’s once history. Each plaque is a lovely piece of urban art. But the markings are also an eerie reminder of the community cost of decades of poor urban planning decisions, as the plaques are like headstones in a cemetery.
Marie Wong is Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning and Asian Community Development at Seattle University.
