Every major city or town has a Chinatown

[colin]

Phoenix has a really sorry excuse for a Chinatown. It's more like a Chinese-themed office park and shopping center, squeezed next to a freeway in an office district near the airport. There are actually signs for the exit on the 202 though.

There supposedly was more of an "Asian" area Downtown, but it was destroyed when they built the new stadiums.

[ATL4EVER]

I couldn't even imagine a ChinaTown in Atlanta.

[kurtosis]

I actually saw a stat on another forum (not sure if it's correct), that the entire United States has fewer than 3 million Chinese. That is probably much of the reason why there are so many cities down there without Chinatowns. That is less than 1% of the population. I think Canada has about 1 million Chinese, more than 3% of the population. I'm sure Australia is at least a few percent Chinese as well.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That sounds too low. The US has about 14 million asians last I heard. I'd guess maybe around half are chinese...

[ATL4EVER]

That's a lot of Asians, but I think It will grow. And eventually more cities will have districts that cater to Asian Cultures

[SCGuy]

LOL Atlanta is pretty sad. All it has are Asian malls and Chinese subdivisions, (of course built with the Chinese culture in mind.) There are, however, several proposals for International Villages on or near the Buford Highway area.

[DetroitBazaar]

Yeah, Phoenix's "chinatown" reminds me of a strip mall. Remember too, trade with China is exploding so chances are, there will be many more in the coming years. I think however, any newer "traditional" Chinatown will be in suburban areas and won't resemble anything like what we've seen in the past. I can't see a city like Detroit, all of a sudden revializing it's old Chinatown as the Freeway and other factors killed it. The area around it is basically dead at the moment as well. There's always hope I suppose.

Peace from DetroitBazaar

[PeninsulaKiddo]

Yeah, Phoenix's "chinatown" reminds me of a strip mall.  Remember too, trade with China is exploding so chances are, there will be many more in the coming years.  I think however, any newer "traditional" Chinatown will be in suburban areas and won't resemble anything like what we've seen in the past.  I can't see a city like Detroit, all of a sudden revializing it's old Chinatown as the Freeway and other factors  killed it.  The area around it is basically dead at the moment as well.  There's always hope I suppose.

Peace from DetroitBazaar

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In Virginia there is a huge Asian prescence, but because Hampton Roads ('round my area) is so spread out, I guess a Chinatown could never really form. There's only one or two ethnic neighborhoods in the region, and frankly they frighten the hell out of me.

Hampton Roads has a growing port and about 1/2 our growth is tied to China. If it brought a huge influx of immigrants and some form of Chinatown grew up in Portsmouth or Norfolk I think that would be pretty cool

And on a semi-random topic... did anyone hear about Shanghai's "England-Town"? It's officially called "Thames Town" and has British-emulating architecture and is a few miles outside the city of Shanghai. I was pretty amused by it, but it's really not much more than a suburb from what I could see on the brief news clip.

[fromdust]

nobody would think of oklahoma city as having an asian district, but it does. not really a "chinatown" we call it "little saigon", because of the rather large vietnamese population. they are in the works to make it even more asian feeling. i see it growing even bigger and better since the asian pop. is growing so fast here.

[btoy]

Actually Delta, in the United States there are loads of large cities without a Chinatown. As far as I know, none of the following cities have a Chinatown for example:

Denver

Minneapolis

Miami

Buffalo

Detroit

Dallas

Phoenix

Atlanta.......

Nearly every city in Canada has a Chinatown though, even Victoria (metro population 300,000).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I couldn't  even imagine a ChinaTown in Atlanta.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Dorville (sp?) on the North Side of Atlanta is kind of like a suburban Koreatown though.

[GregoryMCSE]

A lot of those places wouldn't make sense to have a Chinatown. I mean, Buffalo? C'mon. And Miami is obviously more spanish/caribbean inspired.

Edit: Oh yeah and Victoria is right across the... bay? from Vancouver, which, as I'm sure you know, has the highest Asian population outside Asia.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not sure what you mean? Do the chinese only like certain cities? I live in Orlando and we have a small but thriving thai and vietnamese section. Atlanta has a Chinatown, that also includes Thai, Vietnamese and mexican. I think most major american cities have a china town.

[HoustonTexan]

I've found some pictures of Houston's New Chinatown. Houston have two chinatowns. Old Chinatown located near downtown Houston. New Chinatown located on the southeast. This area resembles Monterey Park, California, a city near Los Angeles, according to Wikipedia website.

Alot of construction in the area now. One chinese busniessman said quote,"this will be the next galleria."

Hong Kong City Mall...

[PeninsulaKiddo]

I've found some pictures of Houston's New Chinatown. Houston have two chinatowns. Old Chinatown located near downtown Houston. New Chinatown located on the southeast. This area resembles Monterey Park, California, a city near Los Angeles, according to Wikipedia website.

Alot of construction in the area now. One chinese busniessman said quote,"this will be the next galleria."

Hong Kong City Mall...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not sure if I like a pre-fab Chinatown... but whatever works? Still would make a mall-shopping experience a lot more interesting lol.

[GA native_CFT]

Actually Delta, in the United States there are loads of large cities without a Chinatown. As far as I know, none of the following cities have a Chinatown for example:

Denver

Minneapolis

Miami

Buffalo

Detroit

Dallas

Phoenix

ATLANTA

Atlanta doesn't have a chinatown in the interior of the city, but there is an area about 10 minutes outside of downtown called chamblee which has a large asian population as well as many asian restaurants and stores

[ChunkyMonkey]

Atlanta doesn't have a chinatown in the interior of the city, but there is an area about 10 minutes outside of downtown called chamblee which has a large asian population as well as many asian restaurants and stores

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's just a collection of strip malls and usually intermixed with mexican restaurants, so I wouldn't call it a Chinatown at all. I've noticed a huge influx of Korean stores and restaurants displacing a lot of the chinese and vietnamese. Seems like Atlanta would most likely have a Koreatown than a Chinatown.

[darwinism]

Allan: Thanks for your Sept. 9, 2004 post. Those old pictures of Chinatown around Cass and Peterboro certainly was a reminder of mistakes made and lessons learned. If Chinatown had remained through the ages until today, I believe it will serve the city well as another tourism draw like other Chinatowns around the world have been doing.

As far as I can tell, the Chinese and the Asian community at-large in 2005 have more or less relocated their businesses and their geographical focus to Troy and Madison Heights along John R.

[tomo]

Detroit: as Darwinism mentioned, the new suburban 'Chinatown' is along John R in Madison Heights, although very sparse and spread out. However, right across the Detroit River from Downtown Detroit is Windsor which has an unofficial Chinatown along Wyandotte and, to an extent, Erie roads, which has much more dense, even walkable parts of the way. Unfortunately Wyandotte and Erie are parallel roads separated by residential. As was mentioned, Windsor, despite being a relatively tiny city still almost has a Chinatown, it's just not marked by a gate. Nice thing about visiting Canadian cities.

Dallas: no Chinatown downtown but Richardson has a few Chinese malls and a large population. I remembered Garland also having lots of Vietnamese restaurants and stores within a small area too.

Columbus: someone mentioned German Village. I think this is in a different class, German Village is a historical district and is not really populated by and does not serve a local German ethnic community. The brick roads and the storefronts are nice though.

Speaking of trying to artificially create an ethnic district... Detroit has a successful Greektown and Mexicantown, up and coming Chaldean Town, "Poletown" overlapping once heavily Polish and still commercially Polish enclave of Hamtramck which is kinda also a Banglatown (not to mention the Middle Eastern neighborhoods in Detroit and Dearborn, Via Italia in Windsor, and the Chinatown that I mentioned). And so there has been talk of creating an "African Town". Very controversial. Look it up and you're sure to read many arguments for and against the idea of creating an artificial, ethnic-based area supported by government.

[MadVlad]

Hartford had a Chinatown, here's what happened to it!!

And a quote: "Q: In the early part of the last century, Hartford had a Chinatown. Where was it?

A: It was located on the south side of State Street, between the Old State House and Front Street, which was razed for the construction of the interstate highways and Constitution Plaza. The 20 or so small businesses there included Chinese restaurants and import stores. The back rooms of some of these places functioned as opium dens.

Thanks to Karen O'Maxfield for submitting the question. Her information comes from "Hartford: An Illustrated History of Connecticut's Capital," by Glenn Weaver."

[thedude26]

Havana Cuba has a small Chinatown not too far from the capitol building. I suppose most of the Asians in the city live in that area.

[jim09091]

Boston (5th largest in country according to many websites):

[Sean Reynolds]

Salt Lake City once had a Chinatown, however in the early-50s the area was torn down for a parking garage.

Ha!

"From this spot on Second South Street, a narrow sixteen foot wide alley, lined with buildings in generally deplorable condition, ran north to First South between State and Regent Streets. As early as 1880s, this was Plum Alley, home of Yee Hing Lodge (Chinese Free Masons), Hang Far Low (restaurant), Hop Wo & Co. (dealer in fine silks), and many other businesses. Plum Alley also provided living accomodations for the Chinese bachelor population. However, behind the facades of some of these businesses were the gambling joints, providing the social outlet for many of the lonely residents."

This was Chinatown back in the early 1900s:

This is it now:

[EastSideResider]

Actually Delta, in the United States there are loads of large cities without a Chinatown. As far as I know, none of the following cities have a Chinatown for example:

Denver

Minneapolis

Miami

Buffalo

Detroit

Dallas

Phoenix

ATLANTA

Atlanta doesn't have a chinatown in the interior of the city, but there is an area about 10 minutes outside of downtown called chamblee which has a large asian population as well as many asian restaurants and stores

^^You can add Charlotte to that list...

[fromdust]

these arent very good pics, but it was getting dark, as you can see. i'll better pics soon.

if you want to get technical this isnt a "chinatown", here it used to be called little saigon, now just the asia district. this is were a decent population of vietnemese have thier business.

[TheseGoTo11]

Seattle calls its Chinatown "The International District" because it also has a lot of Thai, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese restaurants.

[Jacob Norlund - KC]

Duluth, city pop. 85,000 (a "major town") has nothing even resembling a Chinatown. In fact, there are no longer any ethnic enclaves in Duluth that I am aware of, although towards the beginning of this century there was an Italian neighborhood, German neighborhood, Jewish neighborhood, etc., I think.

[DCMetroRaleigh]

I didn't know Boston had a Chinatown.