PLATFORM : Keeping Chinatown a Liveable Place

Chinatown is increasing faster than the general population in L.A. A Chinatown with that increase will need more room for a lot of things.

Housing would be one, social services, commercial areas. It would be a natural that we would want to expand. A lot of us who have been working here, who have lived here all our lives, and who continue to observe Chinatown as it grows, would not like to see Chinatown develop or evolve like the Chinatowns in New York or San Francisco. Those are lovely places, but we just think that the traffic is crazy, that the living conditions and housing availability and other services are very poor. We don’t want it that way.

The railroads basically have been using that particular area as a storage space, and they’re not getting the maximum usage out of it. So they’ve taken the position that it would be better for them to sell it and realize the money.

We have already a natural migration over there, so there’s already a beginning of Chinese businesses in there. So because of all that, and looking at the situation in Chinatown in terms of housing, and social services, child care, recreational services--these are very, very important elements in any community, and we think those elements are necessary to maintain a true community, meaning you have people living, working, shopping, and playing in that space.

We would not like to see our community turn into mainly a commercial strip, with everybody living out in the suburbs. We do not think that would be good. In order to maintain as well as expand, you need to look at the other things, and have the land available to do these things.

We would like to see all those things there, a mixture of housing that ranges from low cost to affordable housing to other types of housing, child care, health services, other types of general social services, maybe even some health facilities, because there aren’t too many in the Chinatown area.

Another thought is a school. There’s so much overcrowding in our area. A lot of our students from Chinatown are dropping out, mainly because of overcrowding.

So that’s part of the reason why we’re very interested in going there. That area is 54 acres, and potentially, if it’s done well it could be a really well-balanced and well-thought-out project to benefit the city of Los Angeles as well as Chinatown.