CHINATOWN WORKING GROUP MEETING

 

From our friend, activist Rob Hollander:

 

Business and development interests in Chinatown will meet on Monday with local preservationists to figure out how to keep the economic investment engine that has long driven Chinatown from now bulldozing Chinatown. The future of the Chinatown Working Group process and of Chinatown itself depend on whether divergent needs of economy and of community and culture can be resolved.

 

 

Upscale nightlife locations serving a non local patronage are popping up in the heart of Chinatown; local businesses, having trouble keeping up with rising rents, are giving way to chain stores; swank hotels are replacing residential and office space, displacing the local community.

 

Both cause and effect of this spiraling transformation are rising real estate values. Real estate could be held in check by a zoning that stiffly limits development, restricts the kinds of businesses allowed in the neighborhood, and encourages truly affordable housing for recent immigrants and a return of manufacturing.

 

Can the Chinatown Working Group come up with a plan to protect Chinatown from real estate speculation and the invasion of chainstores and upscale hotels and nightlife? Can the group forge a coherent vision for the future of Chinatown that doesn't repeat the failures of every other Chinatown in the U.S.?

 

The question may be answered Monday.