1

Hughes

Erynn Hughes

Professor Aries

Peopling of New York City

20 May 2015

Chinatown’s Gentrification: Rising Rents Force Long-Time Residents Out

Slowly but surely, things are starting to change in New York’s Chinatown. Demographically, economically, and structurally, the landscape of Community District 3(or CD 3) is transitioning into a place wholly unalike what it has been for several generations—a haven for Chinese immigrants that serves all their daily needs. It is now developing into a younger, and increasingly high-priced community.“Chinatown is one of the last areas ungentrified,” said Peter Kwong, professor of urban studies at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center. He said that this is slowly changing, as new businesses and entrepreneurs eagerly wait for zoning laws to change so they can begin to develop high-rise residential buildings for professional and affluent families (Pastor). Over the course of this semester, the culmination of assignments has stimulated me to study residential and commercial rents in Chinatown. By finding out how specifically the population is changing demographically, readers can understand why immigrants are leaving the neighborhood. I have come to notice that due to the rising living costs in Chinatown, the white Caucasian population in the age of the “hipster movement” is forcing many Chinese people and other low-income immigrants out because they have the ability to afford the increasing rental payments.

Delancey and Chamber Streets roughly bound the community on the north and south fronts respectively, and it stretches from Broadway to the East River. The best entrance into the heart of Chinatown, Manhattan, is the Grand Street subway stop on the B and D lines. The area is further divided by the different dialects Chinese people speak:

Depending on what street you’re on, Chinatown is Cantonese and Taishanese: Mott Street, the historic center of the neighborhood, is home to these two longstanding populations from Guangdong province. Or it is Fujianese, along East Broadway, the more recently established main drag that emerged with the influx of immigrants from Fujian province in the early 1990s. Mandarin, the official dialect of China, is now the default everywhere at shops in between. (Tsui)

With so many Chinese immigrants living closely together, the neighborhood became self-sustaining out of necessity because the City often paid little attention to their needs.Over time, “Personal services like doctors and accountants, social services agencies, stores selling day-to-day items, and social networks like family associations all formed … [and] has supported generations of new and old immigrant families” (Li 7).

As of 2015, this community is the fourth highest racially diverse neighborhood in the city, with a foreign-born population of 36 percent (NYCDCP 2). But in the most recent census, which identified change between 2000 and 2010, the Asian population of Chinatown decreased by 15.2 percent, or the same as 5,461 people. In fact, all races decreased in number during these same years except for the white non-Hispanic demographic, which increased by 42.2 percent from 5,496 people to 7,817.In addition, the number of family households decreased about 9 percent, while nonfamily households rose by 22 percent between 2000 and 2010 (“Chinatown”). Not only are white people starting to move into the area, but also the so-called “hipster” population has invaded Chinatown and claimed the territory for its own, displacing thousands of immigrants who called this community home for many, many years.

Chinatown is the only low-income neighborhood still left in downtown Manhattan, surrounded by world-class communities like the Financial District, Greenwich Village, and Tribeca.Between 2010 and 2012, a quarter of the people in Chinatown were living below the poverty level (NYCDCP 1). In spite ofNYC Department of City Planning policies that attempt to accelerate gentrification, it has persisted as a shelter for individuals living in near destitution “not only because of the continued need for affordable and culturally appropriate services and goods, but also because of the many people fighting to maintain their existence” (Li 5).In recent years, there has been a growing disparity between standards of living for high and low-wage earners. As the Furman Center’s report titled State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods of 2013 indicates, approximately 30 percent of the residents have household incomes under $20,000, while close to 20 percent earn more than $100,000. Figure 1 (found at the end of this essay) is a visual representation of the distribution of household incomesin Chinatown, taken from the NYU Furman Center report. It continues to be a challenge to provide for the lower-income residents in this gentrifying district (NYCDCP 1-2).

The growing garment industry helped build New York City, and it reached its peak in Chinatown during the 1980s. In the article, “A Makeover for Chinatown’s Garment Industry,” it stated that close to 500 garment factories employed an estimated 20,000 workers, most of whom were Chinese immigrant women. Margaret Chin, a sociology professor at Hunter College, said that her own mother and aunts were garment workers. The author of Sewing Women, a book about Chinatown garment workers, said, “The industry grew probably due to increasing immigration after 1965 [when the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and various other laws opened the U.S. to Asian immigration]. People needed work, and family networks and word of mouth led to the garment industry in Chinatown” (Chao). But as technology improved and these manufacturing jobs started to be outsourced to people in other countries, the garment district began a slow downtrend in Chinatown, affecting the community’s economic status. This decline was further accelerated by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center: According to Chin, “On the morning of 9/11, 250 garment factories employing 14,000 workers existed in Chinatown. By 2004, 100 factories had shut down, and with them went 6,000 jobs” (Chao). Few factories remain today, as “gentrification and rising rents put still more pressure on those that remained… but large-scale garment manufacturing is virtually nonexistent in Chinatown” (Chao). Chin interviewed about 70 workers in the two years following the 9/11 attacks, and they all basically stated that the average household income nearly halved to about $16,000 per year. The rise and fall of the garment industry could be said to be the single feature that both attracted and drove away many Chinese immigrants and their families.

In conjunction with this once-valuable industry, the cost to rent living space in Chinatown has skyrocketed in the past 15 years alone:

As the garment industry has shrunk post 9/11, developers have converted many former factories into loft units that now sell for millions of dollars in the heart of the neighborhood. Furthermore, tenement buildings have similar exteriors as decades ago, but landlords flouting rent regulation laws are increasingly illegally evicting low-income tenants in favor of residents who can afford rents closer to $2,000 and $3,000 per month. (Li 9)

In recent years, New York City’s land values have risen, and with it the “historical and cultural significance has been disregarded in favor of luxury buildings and upscale businesses that alter Chinatown’s essential role as a home and center of community life for new immigrants” (Li 7).Click here to see a map of the specific land use for each and every individual building in Manhattan CD 3. It gives viewers a greater sense of what areas of this district are used for residential, commercial, or other purposes. The Furman Center’s report stated that the median rent of CD 3, comprised of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, increased by 19 percent between 2006 and 2012, from $900 per month to $1,073 per month (NYCDCP 14). Families that have been rooted in Chinatown for decades have been displaced from their homes because they cannot afford their ever-increasing rents. Many luxury condominiums are primarily located between Houston and Delancey Streets, and on streets closer to SoHo. The 2011 report on rent stabilization from the Furman Center also shows that the percentage of rent-regulated units in CD 3 declined from 66 percent of the rental stock to only 42 percent between 2002 and 2011:

That loss of affordable housing has tremendous repercussions because, in CB 3 alone, the median market rent in 2011 was $2,775.53 per month (2013 inflation adjusted), while the regulated rent was less than half that amount, at $1,247.95 per month (2013 inflation adjusted). (NYCDCP 16)

The luxury and high-end development that has followed with the influx of the white population in Chinatown has “threatened both current residents’ and future immigrants’ ability to live, work, shop, and participate in the community and cultural life…” (Li 8, 28).The largest remaining piece of City-owned property in CD 3 is the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, on which local community boards and officials have agreed to build half luxury housing and the other half “affordable” housing. “Yet, even the ‘affordable’ housing called for on this site largely falls out of reach for many Chinatown and the Lower East Side families with low median incomes” (Li 10). Look at the residential uses map labeled Figure 2, taken from the Chinatown Then and Now study report completed in 2013. As can be seen, a large majority of the residential infrastructure is tenement buildings or NYC Housing Authority properties. But a rising number of these structures are luxury-type housing spaces.

Moreover, commercial rental payments have become extremely expensive for small-business owners who try to maintain a foothold in the community.The District Needs Statement for Fiscal Year 2016, written by Manhattan Community Board 3 (CB 3), states that “… local mom and pop shops [are] rapidly replaced by chain stores, banks and destination bars and restaurants… compromising the unique character of our neighborhood” (NYCDCP 4). The growth of chain stores raises the overall rents in the neighborhood.

Rent, utilities and property taxes were identified as the biggest challenges faced by small businesses in surveys conducted by CB 3. “Retail store owners that are no longer able to bear the burden of the taxes are forced to close or relocate outside the district. This continues the cycle of temporary storefront vacancies and closed shutters that ultimately hurts daytime retail businesses” (NYCDCP 4). For example, a business located on Orchard Street had a property tax increase from $1,170 in 2004-5 to $36,373 in 2010-11, which is 31 times higher (NYCDCP 5).

In addition, “the unplanned proliferation of nightlife destinations has put a tremendous strain on CB 3’s infrastructure of policesanitation and transportation, as well as created the most noise complaints of any community board in the city” (NYCDCP 4). The District Needs Statement also stated, “Increasing numbers of hotels are being developed that include destination nightlife businesses that create more nighttime noise. Some offer rooftop and other outdoor areas that also add to the noise impacting residents” (NYCDCP 21). These noise complaints are an additional reason for immigrants to move out of the neighborhood to places that are much quieter and do not welcome reckless behavior at all times of the night. Rising taxes in the small tenement buildings in a prime real estate location in New York City does not make the cost of rent worth it to live there any longer, so residents will live elsewhere and commute to Chinatown because it is cheaper.

In an effort to ensure the community’s economic viability, a Business Improvement District (BID) has been added to Chinatown. Its boundaries are Broome to Worth Street and from Allen to Rutgers Street (NYCDCP 5). Property and business owners usually form BIDs to improve and maintain commercial districts like Chinatown. Their assistance usually supplements existing city services that are too expensive to purchase individually. They can provide daily sanitation services, such as sidewalk sweeping, odor abatement, trash bagging, power washing, and graffiti removal. There were opponents of the BID who feared that the“fees assessed on each property would raise commercial rents and increase displacement and vacancies of commercial properties. BID opponents also fearedthat the BID would facilitate zoning the already-congested Canal Street for even bigger luxury buildings” (Li 10).As stated on the website of the BID in Chinatown, this entity’s purpose is to improve the quality of life for all patrons in the neighborhood, as well as reduce violations and fines. The ultimate benefits of the BID are to increase the number of visitors and customers to the community in order to raise the revenue of local businesses, further stimulating commerce and business activity.For access to more information about Chinatown’s BID, go to

Despite this Business Improvement District being implemented in Chinatown, it does not relieve small business owners of their preexisting costs that were once fixed but are slowly rising, such as monthly rental payments and taxes.Take Janey for example, a woman in her late 20s who owns a Cricket Wireless store on the corner of Hester and Chrystie Streets. After living in Chinatown with her parents her entire childhood, she stated that the increase in rent was a huge contributing factor into why she no longer lives there (she now commutes from Chelsea to her business in Chinatown). While it is still cheap for a majority of shoppers to buy for basic necessities and run errands here, businesses like hers are only doing “okay” because the cost of commercial rent hinders total revenue. Even Janey had noticed the growing income inequality that is prevalent in Chinatown, as well as the abundance of hipsters and businesses that cater to them.

Chinese families that have been established here since the mid-twentieth century are just now starting to be forced out because landlords are illegally evicting and removing low-income tenants, renovating the space, and renting it back out at a much higher price. And it is not at all a struggle to find an individual who will pay these exorbitant costs, given the alarming rate at which the white and younger population are moving into this “hip” neighborhood; and therefore they are willing to pay more money for an apartment in this location (especially if they have comparatively high incomes to immigrants). It was not a matter of if Chinatown would become gentrified, but when. The migration of high-income residents pushes former tenants to seek housing in the other boroughs of New York, or even out-of-state (given there is relatively cheap transportation that is readily available). Communities like Flushing, Queens, and Sunset Park, Brooklyn, are already saturated with Chinese immigrants who once called Chinatown their home.

The Chinatown Then and Now report raised this puzzling question:“At what point does Chinatown cease to be Chinatown?”(Li 42). Based off of my observations and analysis of my detailed research as stated above and in previous assignments, the community is quickly approaching this line—soon to be blurred and just like any of those other gentrified districts in downtown Manhattan.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Works Cited

Chao, Eveline. “A Makeover for Chinatown’s Garment Industry.” Open City. Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 7 Jan. 2014. Web. 13 May 2015.

"Chinatown New York City Fact Sheet." Explore Chinatown. Chinatown Partnership Local Development, 2015. Web. 16 May 2015.

"Chinatown." NYC Census FactFinder.New York City Department of City Planning, n.d. Web. 10 May. 2015.

Li, Bethany Y., et al. Chinatown Then and Now. AALDEF. Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, 2013. Web. 16 May 2015.

Manhattan CD 3 Land Use Map:

New York City Department of City Planning.The City of New York Manhattan Community Board 3.District Needs Statement for Fiscal Year 2016. By Gigi Li and Susan Stetzer. N.p.: n.p., 2015. Community Portal. Web. 13 May 2015.

Pastor, Cristina DC. “As Chinatown’s Economy Changes, Residents Try to Keep Up.” Economics. NextCity.org, 2 May 2012. Web. 12 May 2015.

Tsui, Bonnie. "Chinatown Revisited." New York Times 26 Jan. 2014: 1(L). New York State Newspapers. Web. 17 May 2015.