With more Asian Americans leaving urban cities for the suburbs, are the Chinatowns and Koreatowns going to be merely functional tourist spaces or will it just be replaced by a new influx of immigrants?
The Washington Post article titled “As Asian-Americans move to suburbs in record numbers, signs of decline in historic Chinatowns” probes the important questions, as more middle-class Asian Americans move to the suburbs.
Nationwide, about 62 percent of Asian-Americans in the nation’s large metropolitan areas reportedly live in the suburbs, up from 54 percent in 1990 and the highest ever.
To quote the study, it says, “Urban Chinatowns continue to serve a role for newly arrived immigrants with less education or lower skills who seek entry-level work, as well as for elderly residents with poor English skills who can’t drive. But middle-class families are almost nowhere to be found, and in many cities, rising downtown property costs and urban gentrification threaten their traditional existence.”
The 2010 Census points us to this new reality: New York’s Chinatown, one of the nation’s oldest, has lost its status as home to the city’s largest Chinese population. Click here to read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-asian-americans-move-to-suburbs-in-record-number…
haluhalo.com 