While the cultural authenticity and geographic footprint of Chinatowns around the United States shrink, Chicago's is growing. What can other cities learn from Chicago's model?
"At a time when traditional urban Chinatowns in Manhattan, San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia are fading due to gentrification and changing cultural landscapes, Chicago's Chinatown is growing larger," according to article by Marwa Elgaouri.
Chicago's Chinatown has even become a model for how to ensure the success of Chicago elsewhere in the United States. According to Elgaouri, planners in Chicago have recognized and encouraged the strengths in Chicago: "In 2013, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning announced a plan to preserve Chinatown's cultural identity by improving public education and elderly care, bolstering transportation infrastructure and creating more public parks." The effort includes additional public investments.
Elgaouri also includes information about the declines of Chinatowns in the United States—a storyline Planetizen has tracked since 2001, again in detail in 2007, and finally again during the most recent wave of gentrification and displacement in cities around the United States.
Read the full story: Here's why Chicago's Chinatown is booming, even as others across the U.S. fade
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