West Coast New and Old Enclaves Fight Development

by Mike Liu
5/31/06

Seattle Little Saigon
A proposed 600,000 square-foot mixed-use development is threatening Seattle’s Little Saigon and International District communities. The development at Rainier Avenue South and South Dearborn Street will include major big box stores, luxury condos and 2,300 parking spaces.

The Vietnamese American Economic Development Association (VAEDA) estimated 75 businesses, primarily operated by Vietnamese Americans, would be displaced. The community is trying to organize local business owners and supporters from neighboring International District. One business owner remarked that, “I was told, ‘They took the blacks out of this area, then they took the Filipinos out, now it’s your turn.’”

San Francisco Nihomachi
San Francisco Japantown activists, in a bid to preserve the community, are trying to have the city designate the area as a special use district (SUD). A SUD designation would regulate uses in the Japantown area. The San Francisco Planning Commission unanimously approved the designation.

Last April, City officials signed a pact with a Los Angeles buyer, 3D Investments, of much of the Japantown area, specifically its two malls and a hotel.

Japantown residents were critical of the pact and doubted its effectiveness.

Nihonmachi or Japantown residents have been on edge since Kinetsu Entreprises, the former owner, announced its intention to sell the Kinetsu and Miyako malls and the Radisson Miyako Hotel and Miyako Inn.

The designation has a couple of additional hurdles before San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors before such a designation is granted. However, these designations only limit and do not deny capital’s destruction of communities, and the Japanese American community will have to continuously mobilize to preserve Japantown