Suburban ethnic enclaves

All that's left of DC's Chinatown is this ceremonial gate, a couple restaurants and stores, a nonprofit or two, and a public housing development for Asians with fewer than 300 residents.

Last year I wrote a piece, "Sometimes you've got to recognize reality and let things go: the diminishment of DC's "Chinatown" as an authentic place," saying DC should accept that demographic trends means that the city's "Chinatown," is no more.  

What happened is that over the decades succeeding generations moved to the suburbs, and today new immigrants move to the suburbs directly without first stopping to live in the city.

The decline of ethnic enclaves in cities is widely recognized: few Little Italy's, or Germantowns, or Polish or Irish-dense neighborhoods (there's apparently a great Polish buffet in Chicago, "Just in time for Casimir Pulaski Day: The Red Apple Buffet, filling stretchy pants since 1989," Chicago Tribune), Welsh, etc.

Today, cities, at least those with lagging real estate markets, do see new immigrant enclaves form around Portuguese (Massachusetts), Somali (Minneapolis-St. Paul), and Latino cultures.

One of the things that keeps an enclave going is people continuing to speak their native language.

This isn't entirely new.  Dearborn, not Detroit, is home to an Arab-American majority, the largest outside of the Mideast ("Dearborn, Michigan: A visit to the first Arab-majority city in the US," BBC).

The city of Mississauga, Ontario, has imposed steep fines on the companies that own the plaza for failing to stop gatherings with fireworks and loud music. Nearby residents also complain about heavy traffic.Credit...Ian Willms for The New York Times

Toronto.  The reason I write this is the New York Times has an article ("The suburb that won't sleep") about the Ridgedale community and how a major shopping center there is a focal point for people from the Mideast and near parts of Asia--speaking Arabic and other languages, legacy populations find this unnerving.

A graduate planner who wrote her thesis on the community has an op-ed in the Toronto Star ("This Mississauga plaza has been called ‘chaotic’ and a ‘nuisance.’ Its critics are missing what makes it great").  She makes the point that cities ought to want these kinds of thriving business communities.

A comment on her LinkedIn calls attention to Dragon Centre in Scarborough, now I think it's demolished but over time it became the area's first Chinese-centric mall of significant size and heft.

Note that because of the development of such shopping centers as hubs, there is a planning effort aimed at helping them to strengthen their community hub characteristics ("s").

DC area.  It's seen as an anomaly, but thriving retail districts in these places happen because of immigrant-related commerce.  Decades ago, Washington Post food writer Tim Carman reported on ethnic food finds in obscure shopping centers in the suburbs.  

Later I wrote a couple entries about how buildings are envelopes, that even dull strip shopping centers can have thriving businesses (in fact, a few weeks ago I ate at the only decent Ethiopian restaurant in Salt Lake, located in such a place.

-- "Millennials and suburban hipness and Montgomery County, Maryland," 2013
-- "More thoughts on suburban hipness (it's really about commercial hipness generally, not urban vs. suburban)," 2013

In the DC area, Latinos are especially concentrated in Takoma Langley Crossroads and Wheaton, Asians in Annandale (after a couple stops in Clarendon and Bailey's Crossroads)

Eden Center functions similarly to Ridgeway Plaza, while Ethiopians and Eritreans are more dispersed across DC's suburbs, although Ethiopians first "landed" in DC proper.  

The city still has a number of decent Ethiopian restaurants, even for breakfast.

-- "A New Chapter for the Eden Center?," Arlington Magazine
-- "At the Eden Center, historic businesses stand tall and new ones plant roots, ARLNow
-- "New Tools for Keeping Immigrant-Owned Shops in Place," (University of) Maryland Today

Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San José) of the 25th Assembly District, left, and Assemblymember Tri Ta (R-Westminster) of the 70th State Assembly District unveil the Little Saigon Freeway sign at a section of the 405 Freeway Friday, April 18, 2025. (James Carbone)

Orange County, California is home to a large Vietnamese community, strong enough to have had Vietnamese elected to Congress ("CSUF Economists Analyze Little Saigon, Largest Vietnamese Community Outside of Southeast Asia," "Here's a look at the history of Little Saigon," "CSUF report on Little Saigon inspires revitalization and growth," Orange County Register).  From the article:

Orange County’s Little Saigon comprises parts of Westminster, Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Fountain Valley and is the largest Vietnamese community in the United States. Cal State Fullerton’s 2024 profile highlighted data about businesses, employment, education, rents and mortgages, among many other factors that characterize life for the multigenerational residents of Little Saigon.

Data presented in the report was intended to help guide decision-making by community leaders. “It offers cities, small businesses, nonprofits, educators, chambers of commerce and investors credible information to support thoughtful economic development decisions,” Nguyen said.

... Ever since refugee families began arriving in Orange County from Vietnam in 1975 in the first of several waves, Little Saigon has grown organically. The CSUF report now offers a guide for strategic growth for the future of its many communities.

Conclusion.  The paper, "The politics of Chinatown development in American cities" (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies) discusses the real estate development dynamics faced by Chinatowns in a set of US cities, creating a set of types, based on the Growth Machine thesis.

I realize the dynamics of ethnic district shrinkage are likely the same for other types of "districts" in cities be they ground-up developed arts districts that lose out to real estate development, working ports that are replaced by waterfront entertainment districts, New York City's garment district, etc.

It would be interesting to develop a similar framework for suburban ethnic enclaves in terms of their development, growth, continued growth, or decline.

Aging cities | Maintaining economic dynamism in the face of aging populations at the city and metropolitan scale

The San Francisco Chronicle has a series on aging in the Bay Area, how it's faster than in other metropolitan areas, and the potential impacts going forward.

The theory of ecological succession (invasion-succession) focused on concentric rings emanating from a city's core posited by University of Chicago sociologists in the 1920s is based on the foundational belief that population keeps growing  

What if it doesn't?

The Chinatown piece's reference to the dissertation, "The politics of Chinatown development in American cities," where the author posits different dynamics for Chinatowns in different cities in terms of growth, maintenance, and shrinkage are extendable to thinking about cities.  Although plenty's already been written about growth, decline, stasis and renewal.

The basic cause of urban decline in the 1960s-1970s was outmigration--losing residents, business development, commerce, and revenues to the suburbs.  At the same time, the city's neighborhoods concentrated on low income and/or aging populations.    

Similar to the dynamics of outmigration is the consolidation of industry, movement to lower wage communities first in the US, then overseas (like apparel manufacturing, "A Mill Town Lost Its Mill. What Is It Now?," New York Times) and the Northeast/Midwest versus the South, growth shifted to the latter in the post-war period, spurred in part by the development and location of the defense industry (The Rise of the Gunbelt: The Military Remapping of Industrial America) and the seeking of broader horizons, and sun, after more than 15 years of urban decline in terms of quality of life derived from the disinvestment of the Depression and the need to focus on the war economy during WWII..

Among other effects, as populations age, they buy less stuff, which affects the success of urban retail commerce and nightlife, especially in the neighborhood commercial districts.  Schools close.  Etc.  This fact is why I was against DC's passing various tax benefit laws in favor of seniors, because it discourages people from moving and comes at the expense of neighborhood renewal.  (Although now at my age, I'd benefit.)  Places stagnate.

From "This is the real doom loop. It will change everything about life in the Bay Area":

For years we’ve heard of the potential economic doom spiral circling San Francisco, where a massive city budget deficit fueled by remote work leads to poorer services and even more residents fleeing. But another threat has been building in relative silence.

The Bay Area is getting old fast, and it’s accelerating. Though aging is a global trend, the San Francisco metro area — which includes San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Marin counties — is already the third-oldest among 20 of the largest regions in the U.S., trailing only two places in Florida. And no other region is growing older at a quicker pace.

That means fewer children, more elderly people and a declining number of 20-somethings. The confluence of demographic shifts will profoundly impact every aspect of life in the San Francisco area. Combined with rising housing costs and growing hostility toward immigration, the graying of cities and towns means the region’s continued prosperity is in doubt.

... In Berkeley, we found a once-vibrant neighborhood that is now essentially a retirement community of single-family homes. In Sonoma County, we visited a city with a family-friendly reputation that lost 35% of its children in a decade. In San Francisco, we spoke to bar owners trying to survive a one-two punch: older patrons are spending less while younger guests are drinking less.

... Of course, the Bay Area isn’t uniformly elderly. Certain parts of the region — such as around the UC Berkeley and San Francisco State campuses, the city’s Marina neighborhood and parts of downtown Oakland — are quite young.

Conversely, some areas are exceptionally old. Two Berkeley neighborhoods, Thousand Oaks and Northbrae, have median ages nearing 60. What makes these places remarkable is that, unlike most older communities, they don’t include nursing homes or senior care centers. Most of the residents have been living there for over 20 years, according to a Chronicle analysis of census data.

This affects all elements of the local economy including: 

• availability of workers
• school enrollments
• aging services and housing
• cost of housing more generally
• tax revenues
• reduced support for nightlife and other forms of urban commerce ("No drinking or late nights: How 20-somethings are changing S.F.’s nightlife scene," Chronicle)
• transit needs
• the importance of immigration as a way to continue population growth in the face of population shrinkage and the decline in fertility (as measured by births).  (This is evident in the effects of Brexit and the decline of the British economy in response to economic xenophobia.)

For example, one of the things missed in the discussion of broadening the range of types of housing in neighborhoods formerly limited to detached single family housing ("‘Missing middle’ housing plan in Montgomery County faces backlash," Washington Post), is the need to accommodate other demographics who will populate the community in the future.

And of course the non-economist discourse about the effects of immigration in US political discourse fails to consider immigration as a source of economic dynamism ("In 1965, the government tried replacing migrant workers with high-schoolers. It was a disaster," Washington Post, "How Does Immigration Affect the U.S. Economy?," Council on Foreign Relations, "Despite Trump’s claims, data shows migrants aren’t taking jobs from Black or Hispanic people," AP, "Economists Love Immigration. Why Do So Many Americans Hate It?," New Yorker).

The problem is that the average resident/citizen doesn't task themselves with thinking about and addressing these types of long term issues, in particular, neighborhood, city, metropolitan, or national decline.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing: GGW criticism of consulting team retained to write the next iteration of the city's preservation plan (helped me to articulate the 21st century narrative in favor of historic preservation)

The Greater Greater Washington blog has an article, "OP privatizes historic district study, puts it in the hands of preservation cheerleaders," criticizing the city's selection of a pro-preservation consulting firm, which has done some work for the DC Preservation League, as a bag job.  I wonder what GGW thinks about groups like the Washington Area Bicyclists Association getting city grants.

The Economics of Uniqueness: Investing in Historic City Cores and Cultural Heritage Assets for Sustainable Development

Ironically, the article demonstrates the lack of knowledge of the author and his own neoliberal biases, because Place Economics is internationally recognized for its work, one item of which is the World Bank book, The Economics of Uniqueness.

The principal of the firm, Donovan Rypkema, was one of the first people to study the economic value of historic preservation to cities, more than four decades ago.  He moved into preservation consulting from real estate appraisal--it was real estate appraisal that was his entry into the field.

-- Historic Preservation and Affordable Housing: The Missed Connection (2003)
-- "The Economics of Historic Preservation" 
-- Measuring the Economic Impact of Historic Preservation, Advisory Council for Historic Preservation
-- "Culture, Historic Preservation and Economic Development in the 21st Century"

And I don't agree with all of PE's work, such as their triage of properties worth saving in Detroit (Historic Preservation and Rightsizing: Current Practices and Resources Survey).

The new new urban pioneers.  The problem is that post-2000 migrants to the city, especially those of the GGW demographic--younger, under 40, believe that they saved the city. 

This ignores the reality that they are merely the latest generation of "urban pioneers" which have been moving into the city since the 1950s, especially in the period from 1950 to 2000, when household choice trends did not favor urban living ("Blazing a Trail: Urban Pioneer Neighborhoods," HGTV). 

I was one of those migrants in the late 1980s--it took until about 2000 for in-migration to hit critical mass, independent of the change in housing preferences, which were spurred in part by TV shows like Friends and Seinfeld showing positive images of the city.

Note like with institutions acknowledging that we are on lands taken from Native Americans, I am now cool on the term "urban pioneer" because yes, there were residents already. Although out-migration trends were driven by fear of integration it was also about suburban living as a bucolic alternative.  It's better to think of the in-migrants from those decades as people interested in investing in the city, while the out-migrants were engaged in disinvestment.

From "Urban pioneers in the making: Recontextualization and the emergence of the engaged resident in redeveloping communities," Journal of Sociolinguistics:

... The analysis highlights how despite a common thematic focus on resident engagement, personal commentaries and stories of resident activism steer away from the institutional ideal of positive problem solving toward conflict and acts of removal. I identify links between circulated metasemiotic descriptions of the ‘engaged urban resident’ and market-led urban redevelopment and argue that individual reframings and enactments of the institutionally-mandated urban persona can foster socially exclusive and spatially-purified urban neighborhoods.

From the blog entry "70th anniversary of the DC Capitol Hill Restoration Society":

In 2000, I first got involved in urban revitalization through the prism of historic preservation, when a preservationist reached out to me about the H Street neighborhood north of the Capitol Hill Historic District (from F Street NE to Florida Avenue NE).

I'd argue the disinvested historic building is more pleasing than the house next door, although for post-modernism it isn't so bad.

I remain an ardent preservationist today, mostly because the architecture and urban design is so much more humanist and aesthetically pleasing than that of today's post-modernism.  Good books on the subject include Changing Places (out of print) and Cities: Back from the Edge.

It was also a great strategy for neighborhood stabilization during the many decades that center city living was disfavored and populations shrunk.  

Preservation was cheap for cities because the property owners bore the bulk of the cost of compliance--although some argue that put undue hardship on lower income households.  For the most part, cities merely paid for the regulatory function, and brick sidewalks and historically appropriate streetlighting.

It is difficult to separate out the effects of preservation and stabilization versus "gentrification."  I'd argue that gentrification results from architectural attractiveness (mostly, there are plenty examples of tear downs and McMansionization of designate-able properties) and that preservation shouldn't be criticized for its success.  "Inward investment" by preservationists shouldn't be criticized as gentrification but as reinvesting in a city where capital for housing was often unavailable.

Rowhouse neighborhoods have a lot of density as this aerial photo of Capitol Hill by Al Drago shows.

Another criticism is that it has focused on building preservation over intangible heritage ("New York City’s Historic Preservation Movement Is Having a Midlife Crisis," Bloomberg). That by selecting certain areas to preserve, it says others aren't worth preserving, part of the argument of the book History of Urban Places.

In any case, with the rise of property rights sentiments, now at least pre-covid, the trend of city revival and the need for "more housing" amidst constrained land resources, preservation has come into attack by prominent economists and the like ("Idiocracy concerning historic preservation from both Yglesias and Glaeser," 2011), and Binyamin Applebaum in the New York Times ("Historic Preservation Is Hurting Cities," letters, "Preserving Historic Buildings," and "I Want a City, Not a Museum," letters, "Should Historic Buildings Give Way to New Housing?").

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A 21st century argument/narrative for the value of historic preservation.  Elsewhere I have argued that historic preservation had a great narrative in the days of the shrinking city--but it hasn't developed a new narrative for opportunities for HP in a growing or rebounding city.

I argue that unlike the demolition arguments of those like GGW, Glaeser, and Yglesias, that it's important to retain place distinctive qualities that make the city unique as opposed to merely a space in which to live.

In terms of theory and practice, I argue that this means respecting the "architectural ensemble of historic districts" (New Buildings Among Old: Historicism and the Search for an Architecture of Our Time"), basically the arguments of University of Notre Dame professor Stephen Semes. 

Along side a surgical insertion of new buildings, more dense, where appropriate.  Like many cities Salt Lake has lots of small apartment buildings in its core.  DC has some of this in older neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and Dupont Circle.  Such buildings are models for what we might call "sensitive densification" within pre-1930 neighborhoods.

Kennedy-Warren building, Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington DC.

DC has examples of large apartment buildings of historically-pleasing design as well.

Where Salt Lake is unusual is that it also has a pattern of duplexes, triplexes, quads, and courtyard housing.  

I argue both types of housing can be admirable additions to historic districts, provided they utilize historic preservation relevant design--which most newly constructed housing does not.

Duplexes and similar types are often but not limited to corner properties and on neighborhood arterials.  SLC's buildings of this type are worthy of a dissertation.

WRT larger apartment buildings, London offers a good typology of historic building design for newly constructed housing, the concept of which is rare in the US, with some exceptions (the works of Robert A.M Stern in NYC,  "Vintage Appeal: Why A-Listers Love New York’s Vintage Residential Buildings," Variety, older rowhouse developments in DC by EYA, BF Saul's expansion of the Kennedy Warren apartment building, etc.).

Interestingly, unlike the people profiled in the Variety article, even though they share the same demographic as the post-2000 urban pioneers and YIMBYs, they have a very different attitude towards place value versus space value.

Typical design of a post-modern apartment building across the US, this building is in Salt Lake.  Developers argue that their market research says people want design like this.  I bet they aren't showing them alternatives.

An addition to the 21st century narrative includes that of protecting intangible heritage and small businesses ("Why Historic Preservation Needs a New Approach," Bloomberg), related in the previous entry on Chinatowns.

When I first started being interested in preservation, I didn't think so much about the intangible.  Of course, it's essential to the definition of place value.

Also see "Preserving Kensington Market’s true ‘neighbourhood character’ means being open to change," Toronto Star:

There are many things that Toronto residents generally need or want, just not on their own street: mid-rise housing, convenience stores, high-rise housing, homeless shelters, low-rise multiplex housing, bars. When one of these things is proposed anywhere in the city, you can rely on hearing one of two contradictory objections.

The first is: we don’t have that kind of thing here, and introducing it would ruin the neighbourhood. The second is: we have plenty of that kind of thing here already, and adding more of it would ruin the neighbourhood.

In either case, the concern invariably revolves around “neighbourhood character,” a quality that always seems to be on the verge of destruction whenever the city evolves. Introduce something uncommon, and it’s ruined. Add more of something common, and it’s also ruined.

Compromises necessary for both preservationists and yimbys.  The shortest way to summarize the 21st century narrative is that preservations have to compromise on the addition of new buildings and density, while YIMBYs have to compromise on design appropriateness--old versus new, and drop their blindness to the negative impacts of mass demolition of historic character.  And the Star article makes this point:

In a way, the kinds of objections that have been making headlines lately serve as an indicator species for a healthy neighbourhood. But letting the objectors get their way all the time can sometimes do more to ruin a neighbourhood’s character than any proposed change.

OTOH,we could call the Glaesers, Applebaums, and Yglesias' promoters of a 21st century urban renewal program, equally heinous to that of the 20th century, because of their arguments that historic neighborhoods don't deserve protection from significant architectural change, and that the value of land is valueless in terms of place considerations.

Sometimes you've got to recognize reality and let things go: the diminishment of DC's "Chinatown" as an authentic place

 DC no longer has much of a "Chinatown," although there are some remnants, because as property prices increased and the central business district continued to grow and intensify, succeeding generations immigrated directly to the suburbs ("The End of the American Chinatown," Atlantic, 2019)  From "What makes a Chinatown Chinese?":

With traffic in no logic, streets that never seem to rest, and an earthy, old country-ish smell that greeted me on my arrival, I felt nothing but foreign in this town. All signs are in Chinese: advertisements, store windows, crates selling bok choy and other food items, newspapers, and street posters. I find myself part amused part clueless. 

San Francisco

My fascination with Chinatown began on my very first visit. As a starry-eyed tourist, I was left admiring the Chinese-style buildings and colorful elements adorning the bustling streets. I wondered what really made a Chinatown Chinese. What makes these ‘towns’ unique? Have they remained traditional as they were once? What led to the origin of Chinatowns across the globe in the first place? Below, I explore one such Chinatown in America.

For DC, that's the Annandale area of Fairfax County, which is also highly represented by other Asian ethnicities, in particular Vietnamese (which first moved to Clarendon in Arlington County post-fall of the South Vietnamese government, another example of emigrating directly to the suburbs) and Koreans.

This isn't an issue unique to DC -- "The politics of Chinatown development in American cities," Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

abstract:

Through a comparative case study of Chinatowns in Chicago, New York City, Oakland, and San Francisco, this paper argues that the variation in the trajectory of Chinatown development is contingent upon two major factors, namely, the internal cohesion of Chinatown elites (cohesive versus fragmented) and the political integration of the Chinese community into local politics (strong versus weak). Based on the two dimensions of internal cohesion and political integration, the paper creates a fourfold typology of Chinatown development: constrained development, shrinking neighbourhood, contested development, and comprehensive development. The typology provides an analytical framework to study the development of Chinatown and other ethnic communities beyond the cases.

-- "5 Chinatowns and the Communities Working to Preserve Them," National Trust for Historic Preservation 
-- Strategies for sustainable Chinatown, SF Planning
-- Revitalizing Chinatown Businesses: Challenges And Opportunities, Asian American Federation
-- "How to Save Chinatown: Preserving affordability and community service through ethnic retail," Berkeley Planning Journal
-- "Maintaining Authenticity in Ethnic Enclaves: Chinatown, Koreatown, and Thai Town, Los Angeles," masters thesis
-- "Chinatown: The Neoliberal Remaking of Culture in the Contemporary City," University of Chicago
-- "Rethinking the Growth Machine: How to Erase a Chinatown from the Urban Core," Urban Geography

-- "A New Chapter for the Eden Center?," Arlington Magazine
-- "At the Eden Center, historic businesses stand tall and new ones plant roots, ARLNow
-- "New Tools for Keeping Immigrant-Owned Shops in Place," (University of) Maryland Today

And wrt to government goals it becomes the tension between a thriving residential and commercial district and Asian identity ("Chinatown versus Chinese identity") versus an entertainment district.

Chinatown hasn't had "spectacular shopping" for decades. Gallery Place ad display, 2009.

But DC wants another try, according to the Washington Business Journal, "Tim Ma, Winston Lord tapped to lead next stage of Chinatown revitalization."  From the article:

Lord and Ma say they will act as a liaison between various legislative bodies and the community, connecting residents with programs and opportunities as well as leveraging their resources and connections with the District to mitigate challenges that community members are facing. 

The council, on first reading, also approved more than $8 million to fund construction of Gallery Square, a designated "high priority" project recommended by the task force, which aims to transform the space surrounding the Reynolds Center into a plaza that will host performances and markets. The council will consider the measure on second reading July 28.

But some residents and advocates aren’t convinced this plan will address the core challenges facing working-class Chinatown residents. Over the decades, the community has stood at a crossroads, balancing the increased foot traffic from large-scale developments with rising rent prices that have displaced small businesses and longtime residents.

This follows the creation of a "Chinatown Task Force" and aims to implement its findings.  It listed eight items as part of a presentation at an open house last year.

The Task Force’s focus areas include: 

• Visioning: Develop a strategic vision for the future of the two city blocks that make up the Capital One Arena and Gallery Place, and reimagine the potential for amenities, activities, and new uses for this vibrant neighborhood. 

• Activation: Identify temporary and permanent activation programs, including special events, to generate foot traffic and increase visitation to Gallery Place/Chinatown. The Task Force will identify and coordinate activities to enhance public safety, cleanliness, and public health resources in and around Gallery Place/Chinatown.

• Investments and Incentives: Source, evaluate, and recommend investment tools to support stabilization of existing businesses, prioritize critical capital investments, and reposition real estate assets into new productive uses.

• Community Engagement and Marketing: Promote community activations and provide updates about changes and planning for the future of Gallery Place/Chinatown.

I think it's a lost cause, not just because of the proximity of Capital One Arena, home to professional basketball and hockey, but because you can't have an ethnic district without ethnic residents and businesses (""Richard's Rules for Restaurant (Food) Based Revitalization, Salt Lake City and DC's Chinatown").  Even though the Task Force came up with a decent plan if you look at it in a vacuum separate from the reality on the ground.

-- 5 Goals for Chinatown, DC Planning

Chinatown only has a few hundred Asian residents, and has been shrinking ever since the construction of the original Convention Center in 1984.  The Task Force committee only had one Asian member, and all the co-chairs are Anglo or Black.

Are they going to provide incentives for Chinese people to live there?  From the 2013 blog entry, "Sometimes shouldn't you just call it a day: maintaining DC's Chinatown":

I think it's time to call it a day on Chinatown. For a long time, it's been Gallery Place. A handful of Chinese restaurants, a couple stores selling Asian knick-knacks, some lightpoles, and a senior housing building that looks the same as any other housing building constructed in the 1960s or 1970s doesn't make a place "Chinatown."

Compared to thriving Asian communities within other cities, such as Chinatown in Manhattan or the Chinatownization of Main Street Flushing (see "In Neighborhood That's Diverse, a Push for Signs" and "The Melting Pot on a High Boil in Flushing" from the New York Times), putting Chinese characters on signs for restaurants and other retail establishments just doesn't cut it.

Salt Lake City and Japantown.  Apparently there was a Japanese district on the edge of downtown, although it was pretty much eradicated a few decades ago with the construction of the Salt Palace Convention Center, where like Chinatown in DC, the core of the district was lost as 93 businesses closed and the population dispersed.

Down to a single block, two religious institutions--a Christian church and a Buddhist temple--remain.

As part of the creation of a "sports and entertainment district" around Delta Center arena, which now has both professional basketball and hockey after last year's relocation of the Phoenix Coyotes, there are plans for rebuilding this district ("At Nihon Matsuri festival, Salt Lake City Japantown leaders consider risks, merits of sports district," Salt Lake Tribune, "Cautious optimism for Salt Lake City Japantown’s future," Nichi Bei News).

From the SLT article:

And while project leaders say it will ultimately improve Japantown, local leaders who remember losing the culture hub to eminent domain and development in the 1960s are skeptical.

“I grew up here, and I remember as a child coming to Japantown and it was a cultural gathering place in those days,” said Floyd Mori, the festival founder and chair. “That was lost. It just went poof because all the commercial establishments were eliminated.”

I didn't know, being a recent transplant to the city, that movement for restoration predates the current Arena-related program  ("Revitalizing Japantown Street," University of Utah Alumni Magazine, Japantown Visioning Project).

I think it's headed for the same end as DC's Chinatown.  While one of the above-cited works includes a reference to Japantown in Los Angeles, the same dynamics pertain to other ethnic districts be they Japanese, Italian, Polish, German, Hispanic, Greek, Jewish districts, etc. 

If you lose the dynamism of the immigrant migration chain--first to the city then to the suburbs instead of direct to the suburbs, ethnic residents and businesses, and a strong demand for ethnically-related business activity rooted in serving the native population, there isn't enough economic, residential, and social activity to maintain the integrity of the district.

Dynamics of district failure can be extended beyond ethnic enclaves.  Thinking about the paper, "The politics of Chinatown development in American cities" (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, I realize the dynamics of ethnic district shrinkage are likely the same for other types of "districts" in cities be they ground-up developed arts districts that lose out to real estate development, working ports that are replaced by waterfront entertainment districts, New York City's garment district, etc.

Deeper insights into the Growth Machine thesis ("The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place," American Journal of Sociology). I am thinking this dissertation is well worth a complete read, because its findings along with some of the key cited works, are very much extendable to the analysis of other types of development within cities, especially in terms of decision making.  Its findings might be a very good extension to Growth Machine Theory--the book Urban Fortunes is cited, although the author doesn't believe that the theory is particularly applicable to understanding the growth and decline of Chinatowns..

I argue the Urban Regime Theory of political science provides the explanation for "how" the Growth Machine works.  The findings of this dissertation could take that further.

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"Unrelated" is the value of immigration to the revitalization of cities facing out-migration and broken economies, e.g., the Somalis in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Portugese in various East Coast cities, etc.  Writer Doug Saunders captures this in the book Arrival City ("Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History Is Reshaping Our World by Doug Saunders," Guardian).  Although Saunders focuses on much larger cities.

And the attack on immigrants by the Trump Administration. Which fails to acknowledge the importance of immigrants both to the national economy as well as to local economies, some extremely small, like Denison, Iowa.

-- "Immigrants as in-migration and city-town revitalization," 2024

No more housing filtration? (at least in big cities)

Filtration is an old concept in urban planning (also called "ecological succession," "invasion-succession theory," or "concentric zone theory").

I thought from the University of Chicago sociologists in the 1920s, but it actually was first posited in the UK.  

It presumes that people with more money move outward from the core.  As they do so they are replaced by people who on a relative basis, have improved their circumstances compared to lower income deciles.

The Toronto Star reports ("Curse of the renter: In some neighbourhoods, not owning a home now costs more than owning one") that renters there are paying more for housing than housing owners in some parts of the city.  From the article:

Homeowners have long outspent renters in Toronto’s census metropolitan area; a decade ago, their average bills were $1,516 per month versus tenants’ $1,043. That trend is still visible in areas like Toronto’s Little Italy, or a large swath of southwest Brampton.

But over the last decade, the gap has been narrowing. Where owners in all areas spent 45.35 per cent more than tenants in 2011, it fell to 38.84 per cent in 2016, and to 30.28 per cent in 2021.

Statistics Canada has noted a countrywide trend, meanwhile, of renters’ bills climbing faster than homeowners. The average tenant in Canada last year paid 17.6 per cent more than they did in 2016. The average homeowner’s bills increased by 9.5 per cent over that period. 

Toronto is home to some more extreme examples, such as the area between Queen Street and Wright Avenue, from Lansdowne to Sorauren avenues. Here, though owners are still paying several hundred dollars more per month — $2,092 to renters’ $1,790 — renters’ bills are growing much faster. From 2016 to 2021, renters’ average bills went up 48.2 per cent, versus just five per cent for owners.

“It’s quite startling,” Majid said. Generally, the area in and around Parkdale has contended with gentrification, she said, and an increase in housing “financialization” as large companies have come in and purchased older rental apartment blocks as investments. In several cases, those companies have applied for above-guideline rent increases, Majid said, requesting Landlord and Tenant Board permission to charge higher rents for reasons such as major repairs.

If older tenants are pushed out by those costs, she said the rents could surge even higher.

The concept of filtration presumes that older properties remain lower cost.

In today's economy properties are being priced as if they are new, regardless of condition, age, etc.  Maybe it's just about the price per square foot, regardless of condition.

This results in part because an increasing share of the rental housing sector is owned and managed by large firms.

And because demand is greater than supply, especially for comparatively lower cost housing.

An urban planner quoted in the article suggests a greater role for the nonprofit social housing sector as a way to counter constant repricing upward.

-- "Rents are rising everywhere: with continued supply-demand mismatch, shouldn't renter protections be universal? ," 2022

Understanding the DC housing market: demand for urban living, not the construction of new housing, is the driving force

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Originally published Friday March 12th, but republished on Saturday March 13th, because of reordering of the list of items, edits and expansions including adding an item to the list, on public housing.

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There is an op-ed in the Washington Post, written by DC housing activists, on their belief that building more housing merely fosters gentrification.

-- "D.C.’s build-build-build mind-set results in more gentrification"

From the article:

The past 20 years have made clear that the build-build-build scenario just results in gentrification, the forcing out of Black and Brown residents from D.C., and increased land values that destroy existing affordability without producing replacement affordable housing. In addition, hundreds of acres of public land have been given away or leased at fire-sale prices with all manner of financial incentives thrown in, from gap funding to tax-increment financing to tax abatement, usually for more luxury studios and trophy office space. Far from correcting for these disproved policies, the mayor’s amended Comprehensive Plan provides more of the same.

I didn't do super well at economics in college, because I'm not great at higher math, although I did reasonably well at microeconomics ("economics of the firm").  In any case, I joke that DC housing activists make me out to be a great economist, because they argue that not adding to supply, when demand is greater than supply, leads to lower prices.

(My other joke is about politicians and how politics is often trying to do everything possible to avoid having to acknowledge micro- and macro- economics.)

-- "What people don't get about the DC housing market: supply is much less than demand, so prices keep rising (a/k/a basic economics)," 2017
-- "Will DC's Housing Ever Be Affordable Again? Answer: No," 2016

One of the biggest problems in understanding the housing market is that there are many different elements to it, all happening simultaneously, it's not just one thing.

Levittown suburban housing constructed on Long Island, New York, Single family detached houses, requiring a car to get places: work, school, and home.  Mostly for white people.

But the reality of the last 20 years of the DC housing market is pretty simple.  Since 2000, demand for housing in center cities has increased significantly, compared to the 50+ years after World War 2 when people preferred to live in the suburbs.

-- "Why "gentrification" is visible now... the Diffusion of Innovations Curve of Everett Rogers," 2018

In The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream, Chris Leinberger writes that whereas before 2000, 70% of the housing market was focused on the suburbs, today 30% of the housing market is focused on cities, 30% on suburbs, and 40% is satisfied by either type of housing.  

Housing preference trends today mean that potentially 70% of households are interested in center city living, significantly increasing demand and driving up prices. In situations of high demand, people with more money dictate conditions and control the market.

Q Street NW, Georgetown, DC

Displacement did occur some in the last 20 years, as some rental housing was converted to owner occupied, and as prices rose in response to increased demand.  

-- "More about contested spaces--gentrification," 2008

But that's a different phenomenon from what has happened with the addition of new housing.  In DC, building more housing was a response to increased demand, and for the most part*, in DC, it wasn't produced through the replacement of existing occupied housing.

(* The rebuilding of public housing did occur in the 1990s and early 2000s and did result in a decreased number of units, both from making smaller complexes and adding some market rate housing.  That's a different segment of the market.

There are some instances where some apartment buildings, such as Clifton Terrace in Columbia Heights, were converted from low income to high income housing. There are a couple instances of a string of rowhouses being torn down and replaced by apartment buildings. )   

What I've learned in 20 years through close observation of the DC housing market

1.  Strong markets function differently than weak markets.  DC is a strong market.  You can also assess strength of the market at the neighborhood scale.  For the most part, all of NW DC is a strong market, and most of SW (it's so small). NE is a strong market along the Red Line Metrorail, and weaker with distance from the Red Line.  SE is a strong market west of the Anacostia River.

With a couple exceptions, the public safety cost of living east of the river is high and "gentrification pressures" won't fully build until the majority of places in higher demand areas are mostly built out.

(In weak markets, the problem is lack of demand, vacant housing, the need for neighborhood stabilization, and low prices.  Low prices can make it difficult to maintain older houses, because the cost of rehabilitation and maintenance isn't necessarily recaptured in higher value. New buildings are difficult to finance because they won't appraise high enough to cover the costs of new construction.)

2.  The markets for rental and owner occupied housing function differently.

3.  The markets function differently for higher income versus lower income housing segments, for both owner occupied and rental markets.  

For example, Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell writes, "Rents for the rich are plummeting. Rents for the poor are rising. Why?."  

In short, I'd say, there's always demand for lower priced housing, so it will continually rise in price, while certain exogeneous shocks to the high income market, or overproduction can affect prices, at least in the short and intermediate run.

4.  Proximity to Metrorail transit increases housing demand and pricing.

5.  Increased demand for center city living vis a vis the suburbs has led to higher pricing.  (In 2003, you could still buy a house in the H Street NE neighborhood for under $125,000.  Now houses there cost more than $750,000.)  Into the early 2000s, a small studio in the Cairo Building in Dupont Circle cost less than $100,000. Today the cost is upwards of $400,000--a 373 s.f. unit sold for $270,000+ in 2014.

Because of the rise in demand for center city living, more people with more resources have entered the urban housing market, increasing pricing compared to the period when there was less demand for urban housing and a great number of vacant dwellings as a result of outmigration to the suburbs in the many decades after WWII.

6.  In keeping with residential choice preferences, the greatest demand is for single family housing, especially historic building stock.  Although the addition of multiunit housing stock supports demand for different market segments that hadn't been satisfied by the previously narrow range of housing types.

Blue is zoned for single family rowhouse; pink for single family detached housing.

7.  Most of DC's SFH was built before 1935, when the nation's population was 40% of today's. Based on national population growth, DC has less housing supply relative to demand.

• US population, 1930: 123.1 million
• US population, 2020: 331 million
• DC population, 1930: 486,000
• DC population, 2020: 693,000

(According to editions of the Statistical Abstract of the United States published in the 1940s, DC's peak population, during the War years, may have been as high as 900,000 although it dropped to 802,500 in the 1950 Census, which is the highest ever official population.)

8. The supply of SFH is relatively fixed.  Demand is greater than supply, and prices rise in response.  

The land dedicated to single family housing is mostly built out.  More housing can't be added, except in odd locations where institutional land is deaccessioned.  By definition the supply of "historic" building stock is fixed, it is comprised of housing built in the past.  Houses built before 1930 comprise the largest stock of historic buildings in DC.

In short, decisions made 90-120 years ago affect today's market.  

9.  As long as demand is greater than supply, even with new additions to supply, housing costs will continue to rise.

This point is not widely understood.  For example, from the article:

The principal failed policy is that building more market-rate residential density will result in adequate affordable replacement units. It hasn’t, and it won’t. Our city’s feeble inclusionary zoning program has produced only 1,000 units in the past decade because typically only 8 to 20 percent of new units are set aside as “affordable.”

The issue in DC's housing market isn't "affordable replacement units."  It's having enough supply to meet demand.  DC's population has increased by about 90,000 from 2010 to 2020--that's 15%.  And it could have increased more had there been available housing units, especially if available at a lower price.

Note that even if not enough, inclusionary zoning adds lower cost housing units to the market, over previously levels.  The problem is the overall rise in demand for housing in DC, which has led to a "precipitous" rise in pricing.  ("Precipitous rises" don't matter if you are well off.  They matter a lot if you aren't.)

10.  Zoning rules created relatively homogeneous zones of residential units, with a limited range of types of units, forcing all segments of the market towards SFH rather than a mix of single family and multiunit housing.  This narrowing of available housing types displaces segments of the market that can't afford but also don't need traditional SFH.

11.  Because until the Great Depression and the growth of the federal government, DC was a relatively small city without much of an industrial base, housing was not built to be particularly dense.  Compare housing built at the time to cities like New York and their tenements and rowhouses, or Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Boston, Montreal, etc.

Now that demand for housing is greater, DC's housing stock is small in density, relative to demand, and less able to meet demand, further leading to higher prices.

12.  Household size has decreased, increasing the number of units required to house the same number of people.  (See the concept of "overhousing" and Eric Klinenberg's book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.)

✷ Average household size (US), 1930: 4.11

✷ Average household size (US), 1950: 3.54

✷ Average household size (US), 2010: 2.58

✷ Average household size (DC), 1950: 3.2

✷ Average household size (DC), 2010: 2.11

Now vs. Then: renovated and rehabilitated apartment building at 2nd and T Streets NE, Eckington neighborhood, DC

13.  Because of the cost of land and the extreme difficulty of redeveloping SFH, most new housing constructed is multiunit, and located on commercially zoned land, which is easier to redevelop and can be built to a higher density.

14.  DC's Height Limit, by limiting height of (multiunit residential) buildings restricts the housing supply, increasing prices.

On wide streets buildings can be taller.  But there is no density bonus for buildings close to transit, regardless of the width of the street.

Iowa Apartment Building (condominiums now)

1325 13th Street NW (near Logan Circle)

five blocks to the Shaw or Dupont Circle Metrorail Stations

Fort Totten Square Apartments

5661 3rd Street NE (fronting Riggs Road NE)

three blocks from the Fort Totten Metrorail Station

15. Irrespective of the Height Limit, constructing housing at less than maximum allowable density decreases supply and raises prices, which is an opportunity cost (along with reduced commercial and personal property, income, and sales tax revenue to the city).

The same building was empty and dilapidated in 2007.

16.  New housing is constructed at today's cost of land, labor and materials so it is priced at the top of the market.  Only over long periods of time do "new" additions to supply put downward pressure on prices, as the housing ages and even newer and higher priced housing is constructed and added to supply.

17.  It costs more to rehabilitate "historic housing" to historic standards.  In strong markets like DC or neighborhoods like Georgetown, this increased cost comes back to the bottom line by increased property values.  In weak markets like Baltimore or Cleveland this isn't necessarily the case.

18.  Every generation or so, a house may need serious rehabilitation.  This leads to an upward repricing of housing because it has been "refreshed."  Hopefully, if done through "flipping," the rehabilitation has been executed to a high standard, frequently this isn't the case.

19.  In the rental market, because of the demand-supply mismatch, substandard housing (Class B, C and D) rents for higher prices than would prevail in a weaker market. (This phenomenon of higher prices for less well maintained housing bleeds across the DC border into Prince George's County.)

20.  New rental housing, unless subsidized, is priced at the top of the market because it is built at today's prices.  Volume constraints imposed by the Height Limit and the high cost of land, labor and materials, leads for profit housing developers to focus on the highest income segments of the market.

21.  The demand-supply mismatch also creates pressure to convert smaller and older apartment buildings and complexes to owner occupied housing, which reduces supply in the rental market, leading to increased prices and displacement.

22. Conversion of apartment buildings does extend the range of housing types available in a neighborhood, increasing the opportunity for segments of the market that can afford apartment units, but not traditional SFH units.

23.  There is a lot of talk about the "missing middle" of housing types such as "rowhouses," duplexes, carriage houses, etc.  

-- "Bring Back Missing Middle Housing," AARP
-- Missing Middle Housing website (and book)

DC does have significant amounts of this type of housing.  But because of the demand-supply imbalance, this housing is priced significantly higher than it would be in a community where the demand and supply for housing is closer to being balanced.

24.  Increasing the ability to create carriage houses/alley dwellings, English basements, and attic apartments in existing housing would increase the supply of housing, and make it easier for households to pay off expensive mortgages.  But the cost of creating this housing, in the short run--to do it legally will cost upwards of $200,000 per unit, even with zero cost for land--will add to housing supply, but it won't be "affordable housing."

(In the intermediate run, funding this housing is complicated because mortgage products haven't caught up to the phenomenon of an owned house including rental units.)

-- "Calculating the costs of building an ADU," Building an ADU website/Backyard Revolution book

25.  Current zoning allows small apartment buildings to be increased slightly in size, and rowhouses can be converted into two to three unit "flats."  High demand neighborhoods are seeing an increased number of conversions as a result.  

But the housing won't be cheap.  The acquisition cost of the property is the normal cost for a single family house, plus the cost of conversion, plus the profit percentage, carrying costs, etc.

-- "A short point about why eliminating single family zoning won't result in a rise in "affordable housing" (any time soon)," 2019

A sign in front of 3625 13th Street NW announces the conversion of this single family rowhouse into three separate units.

This four unit small apartment building has been converted into a larger four unit condominium, bythe addition of a third floor ("Two-bedroom, one-bathroom condo in D.C.'s Trinidad lists for $399,000," Washington Post).

26. A more recent phenomenon is the rise of temporary housing rental through Airbnb and other programs.  In strong markets this leads to an increase in rental prices because of the reduction of supply. The impact on the owner occupied market is probably minimal ("When Airbnb Listings in a City Increase, So Do Rent Prices," Harvard Business Review, "What Airbnb really does to a neighborhood," BBC News).

27.  Reducing the supply of public and social housing through rebuilding programs, increased demand for affordable housing, and led to higher prices.  The HUD HOPEVI program of rebuilding public housing but at the same time reducing the total number of units, reducing the size of units making it difficult to accommodate large families, and adding market rate housing to the mix in certain cases reduced the supply of low income/affordable housing, thereby increasing demand and pricing.  

Other low income housing rebuilding programs, such as Sursum Corda and DC's parallel program, New Communities, have similar effects.

This 1999 article from the Washington City Paper, "Dream City," discusses the rebuilding of the Ellen Wilson Dwellings project on Capitol Hill.  The original development had 129 units, the new development 134.  But only 33 units were set aside as affordable, a decrease of 96 units of affordable housing.

Resulting from these programs, low income housing residents have been displaced to Prince George's County, Maryland with especially deleterious effects on that community including a higher rate of murders and crimes, and bankruptcy of the community hospital ("Shouldering the Burden," Suburban Gazette Newspapers, 2003).

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I'm not being totally fair.  Yes, there is gentrification.   There is no question, using the classic definition, there is gentrification in DC.  Although again, it's a function of increased demand, and new housing construction is a function of increased demand.  

In the argot of urban sociology, neighborhoods are being "reproduced" for higher income segments of the market, as more people of higher income move into a neighborhood, attracted by its location within the center city and relative affordability.  

Neighborhood reproduction = gentrification.  

Yard signs posted in a yard on Peabody Street NW in the Brightwood neighborhood.  

Photo: Perry Stein, Washington Post

But the phenomenon is different in low income neighborhoods than it is in higher income neighborhoods.  In the latter neighborhoods, displacement isn't what's happening so much as people are choosing to cash out.

The velocity of neighborhood reproduction is accelerated through the process of the creation of "one over neighborhoods" -- aspiring homeowners prefer a high profile neighborhood, like Capitol Hill or Dupont Circle, but they can't afford it, so they move into the closest comparable nearby neighborhood that they can afford, in the process also changing that neighborhood's demographics and market for retail and other amenities, to make it more similar to the preferred neighborhood.

-- "Shaw (and Mid City East) as a one-over neighborhood: revitalization, displacement, gentrification as a function of critical mass and timing," 2013

For example, choosing H Street NE or Hill East because they can't afford a house on Capitol Hill, buying in Trinidad because they can't afford H Street NE, Columbia Heights or Shaw because they can't afford Dupont Circle, Petworth because they can't afford Columbia Heights, Brightwood because they can't afford Petworth and Manor Park because they can't afford Takoma DC, Takoma Park, Maryland or Brightwood, etc.

(The one over neighborhood concept was coined by the Live Baltimore resident recruitment program.)

In low income neighborhoods and buildings, people are displaced as the housing is rehabilitated and converted to appeal to higher income segments of the housing market.

But again, because of the significant rise in demand for center city living, prices rose significantly, and this created pressure on low income households, irrespective of the construction of new housing.

Affordability in the face of significant rising demand.  Dealing with affordability is a whole other issue and requires a suite of responses. Some the city has employed, many it has not.  But the biggest issue is that DC is comparatively small and mostly built out.  Supply is comparatively static.