Just a few hundred people of Chinese heritage still live in Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown. Many have been pushed out to cheaper and safer areas.
Noah Sheidlower | CNBC
Penny and Jack Lee, now married, grew up in the 1960s and 1970s among the thousands of people of Chinese heritage who lived in apartments lining the main stretches of Washington, D.C.’s bustling Chinatown.
“Chinatown was very bright, vibrant,” Jack Lee recalled. “All of our recreations ended up being in the alleys of Chinatown.” They felt it was a safe haven, he said.
But the neighborhood didn’t stay the same for long. First came a convention center in 1982 that displaced many in the majority Chinese community. Then, in 1997, came the MCI Center, now Capital One Arena, a few blocks from the heart of the neighborhood. These developments, as well as luxury condos, caused rents to rise and forced grocery stores and restaurants to close. They also pushed residents to move to safer and cheaper areas, Penny Lee said.
Just a few hundred people of Chinese heritage still live in the neighborhood, mostly in Section 8 apartments for lower-income residents. There are now fewer than a dozen Chinese restaurants, as well as the long-standing Chinatown gate and non-Chinese businesses with signs bearing Chinese characters. Jokingly called the “Chinatown Block,” reflecting its diminished size, what’s left of the neighborhood is mere blocks from a wealthier area that contains the U.S. Capitol and the National Mall.
Chinatowns across the nation face a similar reckoning. In major Chinatown neighborhoods, luxury development and public-use projects have altered the fabric of these historic communities, according to more than two dozen activists, residents and restaurant owners. While some argue these developments accelerate local economies, many interviewed by CNBC say they destroy the neighborhoods’ character and push out longtime residents.
Some Chinatown residents benefited from the development boom, selling properties to developers or drawing more customers from increased foot traffic. Many others, meanwhile, have been driven out by higher rents, limited parking and increasingly unsafe conditions.
The changes in Chinatowns across the country look similar, though they’re unfolding at different timelines and magnitudes. Chicago’s Chinatown, in comparison with other Chinatowns with shrinking populations, more than doubled its Chinese population between 1990 and 2020.
“Those who are interested in preserving D.C. Chinatown should look toward its intrinsic value to tell the Chinese American story, the American story,” said Evelyn Moy, president of the Moy Family Association, which provides education and assistance to residents in Washington, D.C.
Noah Sheidlower | CNBC
Cities already deeply affected by gentrification and high-end development stand as templates for how the shift may unfold elsewhere. For many, housing is the problem — and the solution.
“We can’t build our way out of the housing crisis, but we can’t get out of the housing crisis without building,” said Ener Chiu, executive vice president of community building at East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation in California, which has built 2,300 permanently affordable homes in Oakland.
filed a lawsuit against the buildings’ developers and the city in October, arguing construction of the towers will create further environmental and health issues. The suit contends the developments violate the Green Amendment granting New York state residents the right to clean air.
Extell and JDS Development Group did not provide comment for this story.
Some residents have shown tentative support for the luxury buildings, saying they might make the neighborhood safer or bring in wealthier Asian residents who could boost Chinatown’s economy. Most who spoke with CNBC, however, expressed frustration over the rapid development of these megaprojects.
The Two Bridges fight is an experiment in looking out for residents’ livelihoods while “fighting against a very anti-humanity way of seeing a city,” said Alina Shen, the lead Chinatown Tenants Union organizer at grassroots community organization CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities. “It’s a response to the fact that people who remain in Chinatown feel a deep pessimism for what’s happening and from literally being in the shadow of a ledge of a mega tower.”
The struggle with luxury developers has also involved the fight for secure housing.
Manhattan Chinatown’s housing stock is “really aged,” which has led to costly fires, according to Thomas Yu, executive director of Asian Americans for Equality.
Noah Sheidlower | CNBC
Chinatown’s housing stock is “really aged,” but sparse vacant land has made creating affordable housing difficult, said Thomas Yu, executive director of Asian Americans for Equality, which has created 1,200 affordable housing units citywide. The development process for new units can take years, he said, and developers have rapidly sought out Manhattan’s Chinatown as the borough’s “last place with huge potential returns.”
Evictions, buyouts and deregulation of rent-stabilized housing have contributed to Chinatown’s population decline and illegal sublet situations, according to Yu.
Chen Yun, a tenant leader for CAAAV, said she had a landlord who for years refused to repair heating and hot water. She said she and her husband would boil pots of water at work and bring them home to bathe. They also dealt with a collapsed ceiling, she said. Yun spoke in Mandarin, translated by Shen and CAAAV communications manager Irene Hsu.
In 2005, Yun helped grow the Chinatown Tenants Union to help residents fight landlords and report faulty conditions. However, residents continue reporting similar housing issues, which Yun said has pushed some onto the streets, and more residents have mobilized to oppose developments they say could exacerbate these issues.
“No matter how beautiful or well-built these buildings are, [residents] simply can’t afford it, it’s not within their means, and these luxury buildings have nothing to do with us,” said Yun, who lost her job during the pandemic and spends much of her retirement money on rent.
Yu, of Asian Americans for Equality, said his organization is not against development but that more affordable housing should go up instead of solely market-rate buildings. Asian Americans have among the highest citywide poverty levels and have poor odds of finding secure housing, Yu said.
Some argue luxury development is eliminating affordable housing opportunities by sheer proximity, as one of Chinatown’s ZIP codes was excluded from a city loan program for low-income areas since it also included the wealthy Soho and Tribeca neighborhoods.
In Manhattan’s Chinatown, residents and local organizations said there are two interrelated fights: one against luxury development, and another to build more affordable housing and maintain existing apartments.
Noah Sheidlower | CNBC
Some residents expressed feeling an intense divide between their local government and Chinatown — fueled in part by rezoning debates, not to mention a proposed $8.3 billion 40-story jail in the neighborhood.
Zishun Ning of the Chinatown Working Group has led protests against the proposed jail, as well as against the Museum of Chinese in America, which stands to benefit from the jail’s expansion via a $35 million government investment. Ning said the city government’s “big development” agenda has “pitted us against each other.”
The museum’s leaders said they’ve been scapegoated, as they weren’t included in development talks with the city but could not turn down the money.
a hotbed for condominium and affordable housing developments.
Though communities such as Flushing have long appealed to residents across many socioeconomic backgrounds, it’s recently attracted wealthier residents moving into new developments.