LOS ANGELES—As a new immigrant to the United States, Li Zhong Huang knew there was only one place he wanted to live: the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles, where he could be surrounded by language, food, and people from his home province of Guangdong. In 2001, he found an apartment with a shared bathroom and kitchen for $390, and moved in, relishing the sunny weather and ample transportation options of his new neighborhood.
A decade after he arrived, though, the neighborhood started changing. Construction started on two new luxury apartment condos. One, Blossom Plaza, now offers two-bedroom apartments with amenities like a pool, a shuffleboard court, and a fitness center for $2,600 a month. The other, Jia Apartments, features a pool, spa, and black granite countertops, with two-bedrooms starting at $2,500.
At first, Huang liked these developments. These new complexes were clean and attractive, replacing buildings that were old and rundown. But then, two years ago, his landlord said he needed to renovate the apartment; after Huang and his wife left for a few weeks and stayed with friends, the landlord raised the rent to $1,600 and changed the locks, Huang told me through a translator. The change happened so quickly that Huang and his wife lived on the street outside their old apartment building for a few days, trying to get back in to collect their belongings.
For centuries, Chinatowns were neglected by outside investors. When legislation reduced the rights of Chinese residents in America, they moved into close-knit communities for protection, and stayed there for years as redlining and other restrictions made it hard to move elsewhere. Investment followed wealthy white families to the suburbs, but Chinese families were prevented from coming along.
But now, as Baby Boomers and Millennials move back into center cities, Chinatowns are some cities’ hottest neighborhoods. Sale prices in Boston’s Chinatown were among the fastest-growing in the city in 2017, increasing$285,000; one of New York City’s biggest condo projects is a $1.4 billion, 815-unit tower in Chinatown that features a 75-foot swimming pool, an “adult tree house,” and an outdoor tea pavilion. According to an analysis by the website Zumper, rents for a one-bedroom in the “historic cultural” neighborhood of Los Angeles, which includes Chinatown, were $2,350 in June of 2017—among the highest in Los Angeles, more than listings in popular neighborhoods like West Hollywood and Silver Lake. A Wall Street Journalanalysis found that in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, prices are increasing faster in the ZIP codes including Chinatown than in other downtown neighborhoods.
As investors set their sights on Chinatowns across America, longtime residents are being displaced. “Once you have more luxury units, that starts demographic change, whether it’s Harlem or Chinatown—those signs for luxury housing are the beginning of the end,” Andrew Leong, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, told me. A 2013 study completed by Leong and other scholars for the Asian American Legal Defense Fund found that, between 1990 and 2010, Asians went from a majority to a minority of the residents of Chinatowns in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. D.C.’s Chinatown is down to about 300 Chinese residents, from the 3,000 who lived there at its peak.
Representatives from Chinatown Community for Equitable Development, a volunteer nonprofit in Los Angeles’s Chinatown that organizes residents (and which introduced me to Huang), told me they’re working with tenants in 10 different buildings in Chinatown to fight rent increases and proposed evictions. Katie Wang, one of CCED’s volunteers, told me that “a lot more tenants are talking about landlords harassing them, rent increases, and buildings being bought and sold.”
Some of this displacement is happening because of a lack of strong rent-control laws—Massachusetts voters passed an initiative prohibiting rent control in 1994; Pennsylvania has no state statute governing rent control. But even in places with rent control, Chinese residents don’t feel empowered to speak up when their rights are violated, often because they don’t feel like they truly belong in the larger community, said Jan Lin, a professor of sociology at Occidental College who has studied Chinatowns in Los Angeles and New York. Los Angeles law regulates the amount by which landlords can increase the rent of buildings constructed prior to 1978, but often, residents don’t know their rights, or are intimidated to push back because of their immigration status, said CCED’s Wang.
Alana Semuels is a Staff Writer at The Atlantic, which originally published this article.
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and
traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising
and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My
Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie PreferencesCookie List
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect
information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly
used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you
can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the
services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our
default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary
Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the
cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out,
etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.
Allow All Cookies
Manage Consent Preferences
Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to
ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy
choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of
your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts
of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or
Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org
to learn more.
Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the
sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to
personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal
information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and
will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal
department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My
Rights link
If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have
to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the
web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.
Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They
may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other
sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and
internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have
added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of
tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the
content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be
able to use or see these sharing tools.
If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a
privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.
Save Settings
Cookie PreferencesCookie List
Cookie List
A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a
user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your
language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also
use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are
visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking
technologies for the following purposes:
Strictly Necessary Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to
ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy
choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of
your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts
of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or
Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org
to learn more.
Functional Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to
ensure the proper functioning of our
website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site
performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You
can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as
intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your
browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org
to learn more.
Performance Cookies
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to
ensure the proper functioning of our
website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site
performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You
can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as
intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your
browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org
to learn more.
Sale of Personal Data
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by
determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and
performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such
cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still
see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices,
browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this
website.
Social Media Cookies
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by
determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and
performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such
cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still
see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices,
browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this
website.
Targeting Cookies
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by
determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and
performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such
cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still
see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices,
browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this
website.
Please read our Privacy Policy as it has recently been updated. Route Fifty uses cookies for analytics and personalization. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our use of cookies.