Chinatown, Affordable Housing, and the Right to the City

By Kevin C. Gillen, Ph.D 

Chinatown is one of Philadelphia’s oldest and most vibrant neighborhoods. Beneath the neighborhood’s tourist-friendly surface is a dynamic ecosystem of immigrant workers, residents, and business-owners that make up Chinatown’s beating heart. Since 1870, Chinatown has served as a vital sanctuary and gateway for new immigrants as they establish roots in the United States. However, Chinatown has been experiencing mounting gentrification and displacement pressures from Center City, Callowhill, and Northern Liberties and developments like the Rail Park and the proposed 76ers arena. Preserving and promoting affordable residential and commercial opportunities is necessary to secure Chinatown’s long-term survival and vitality. Affordability is what allows for essential ethnic communities and networks to form, and what creates the authentic urban experience one can only find in Chinatown.  

A Brief History of Chinatown 

Chinatown’s roots trace back to the late 19th century, when Chinese immigrants settled around the 900 block of Race Street in what was then known as the city’s red light district. Deemed unwelcome elsewhere, Chinese immigrants gradually formed their own neighborhood, starting their own shops, groceries, and restaurants. Chinatown then consisted primarily of “bachelor’s societies,” as the men who immigrated from China were unable to bring their wives or children due to discriminatory immigration laws. With the advent of more liberal immigration policies after WWII, Chinatown transformed into a more family-oriented community, as more businesses, churches, and cultural organizations sprung up in the area.  

Chinatown, in many ways, has persisted against all odds. Several large development projects have threatened to tear apart the neighborhood. However, the neighborhood is undergirded by a network of grassroots advocates who continue to fight to protect their community. Residents and activists organized to protect their beloved Holy Redeemer Church and School from being demolished for the Vine Street Expressway in the 1960s. Since then, they have successfully defeated plans for a federal prison, baseball stadium, and casino. Today, they organize against the proposed 76ers arena for the same reasons as every time before — to prevent the cultural and physical displacement of Chinatown.  

The threat of displacement looms not only in imminent large development projects but also in the changing nature of the real estate market. Correlating with the migration of young professionals into downtowns across the country, the property values in and around Chinatown have risen rapidly, with median rents increasing from $1,396 in 2018 to $1,595 in 2021 (American Census). With the naturally occurring affordability that once characterized Chinatown waning and 57% of immigrants in Chinatown making less than 30% AMI (Econsult, 2017), many residents have moved to the suburbs in Northeast Philadelphia where rents are cheaper and homeownership is more attainable. Chinatowns around the country have gone through similar processes of suburbanization (e.g. in Boston, New York, Houston, Los Angeles) in the face of unaffordable living conditions.  

Affordable Housing Development in Chinatown 

In the 1980s, PCDC founder Cecilia Moy Yep refused to leave her home at 9th and Race Streets, while blocks of houses around her were being destroyed by the government. The City was using eminent domain to demolish buildings and displace Chinatown residents to make way for the Center City commuter rail. Yep, then a 32-year old widow with three children, declared to the mayor that she would leave her house voluntarily only if he promised to build more housing in Chinatown. Yep’s powerful act of resistance resulted in Chinatown receiving three publicly sponsored housing developments for seniors, low-income people, and those who had been displaced. Yep’s persistence characterizes the ethos of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC), which she founded in 1966.  

PCDC’s mission is to protect, preserve, and promote Chinatown as a viable ethnic, business, and residential community. To this end, PCDC engages in neighborhood planning projects and affordable housing development to protect the neighborhood against the forces of inequitable development and a rising real estate market. In order to build housing in Chinatown, PCDC utilizes various public funding streams and acquires City-owned land - some of which had been taken from the neighborhood by the government during the urban renewal era of the late 20th century.  

PCDC’s first housing developments were completed in the early 1980s with the building of 80 townhomes on Spring and Race Streets. The goals of these developments, named Mei Wah Yuen and Wing Wah Yuen, were to preserve the residential character of Chinatown. On Lok House, completed in 1984, is located in the middle of Chinatown’s commercial corridor and continues to provide Section 8 housing for Chinatown’s elderly population. Gim San Plaza, completed in 1989, is a mixed-use development located on the Eastern edge of Chinatown that serves both tenants and small business-owners. Hing Wah Yuen and Sing Wah Yuen, completed in 1997 and 2003 respectively, provide housing for residents of low to moderate income near PCDC’s office. The Francis House of Peace or Ping’an House was developed through a partnership between PCDC and the non-profit Project Home in 2016; the nine-story building provides housing to Chinatown residents and unhoused individuals. Finally, PCDC completed the construction of the North 12th Street townhomes in 2019, which provides affordable rentals in Chinatown North.  

PCDC continues to advocate for the return of land taken by eminent domain back to the Chinatown community. PCDC is currently developing a mixed-use affordable building at the vacant site at 10th and Winter Street, a parcel which had been seized from the neighborhood for the construction of the Vine Street Expressway. PCDC is also working on acquiring the land at 800 Vine Street, which had been appropriated in the 1980s for the construction of the Center City Commuter Tunnel. As Chinatown resident Margaret Chin states, the 800 Vine parcel “should stay and be developed in our community, by our community, and for our community.”  

PCDC believes creating affordable homeownership opportunities is crucial to preserving Chinatown’s livability for immigrants of diverse economic backgrounds. Creating pathways to homeownership for working class residents allows them to stay and raise families in Chinatown, as well as build intergenerational economic capital. To this end, PCDC is currently developing eight affordable homeownership units along North 11th Street and planning to build up to 71 affordable condo units on the Western edge of Chinatown, where the current 6th district police station and parking lot are currently located.  

Chinatown and the Right to the City 

Despite developing 481 units of housing since its founding, PCDC’s developments cannot keep up with the pace of gentrification and displacement that is occurring in Chinatown. With around 6,000 people residing in the neighborhood, the proportion of Asian residents in the neighborhood has declined from 60% in 2000 to less than 50% in 2020 (American Census). Moreover, with a “satellite Chinatown’’ forming in the Northeast suburbs of Philadelphia, some might question whether it is the fate of Philadelphia’s Chinatown to undergo dissolution through suburbanization, a fate so many other Chinatowns in the country have faced. Others might further question whether it is worth investing significant resources in Chinatown given the scale of the issues the neighborhood faces. The following are four reasons why it is important to continue investing in the preservation of Chinatown, even as the challenges the community faces continue to grow. 

First, Chinatown is worth preserving for the historical importance it holds. Philadelphia’s Chinatown is one of the oldest Chinatowns in the US and one of the last remaining Chinatowns in the United States. It is of utmost importance to preserve this part of Philadelphian and American history. Even individual buildings hold special historical relevance: for instance, Holy Redeemer Church and School at 10th and Vine Streets served as the rallying point for the community’s first collective fight against predatory development. Generations-old institutions like Holy Redeemer carry a kind of sacred value for those who have grown up in Chinatown.  

Second, Chinatown must be preserved in honor of the individual lives it shapes and has shaped. One long-term resident who lives in one of PCDC’s housing developments shared that she is grateful for the opportunity to stay in Chinatown because she is able to maintain connections with people she has known her whole life. To this day, she enjoys playing basketball at the Crane Center and at the Chinese Christian Church with both the younger and older generations in the community. Her family always goes back to the same Dim Sum restaurant on Sundays, where they are good friends with the restaurant staff. She further shared that “no one who moves out of Chinatown wants to leave Chinatown.” Thousands of lives are entangled with the Chinatown neighborhood and its ongoing evolution. Stakeholders of Chinatown’s future must act in honor of all those personal lives that Chinatown has grown to be a core part of.  

Third, Chinatown is one of the few minority neighborhoods that has high access to valuable amenities and opportunities. Areas with good infrastructure, schools, and parks as well as close connections to public transit, jobs, and social services are frequently rendered inaccessible to minority groups. Chinatown is a rare exception in providing an immigrant enclave convenient access to the resources and services that one can only find in a thriving downtown area. This has allowed many immigrant families to successfully transition into American society and work their way out of poverty. In fact, decades of research demonstrate how the zip code one resides in strongly determines one’s life outcomes1. Chinatown must be preserved as this gateway of promise and opportunity for working class immigrants looking to build a better life in the United States.  

Finally, Chinatown’s people have not only significantly contributed to Philadelphia’s economy, but they have also played a key part in the social and cultural life of Philadelphia – earning them a fundamental right to remain in the city center. The everyday labor it takes to build and run the hundreds of shops, restaurants and organizations that make up Chinatown should not be diminished. Through the creativity, resourcefulness, and hard work of its members, Chinatown has provided value not only to those who reside in it but also to those in the larger Delaware Valley region. Asian Americans in particular find special significance in Chinatown, which provides a unique and profound way for them to connect to their heritage, culture, and identity. 

Geographer and theorist David Harvey (2019) writes, “Only when it is understood that those who build and sustain urban life have a primary claim to that which they have produced, and that one of their claims is to the unalienated right to make a city more after their own heart’s desire, will we arrive at a politics of the urban that will make sense.” Affordable housing is a key component in securing Chinatown residents’ right to remain in the city. However, as Harvey indicates, housing is just one part of a broader vision of urban justice - one that involves a reformed urban process that is responsive and attentive to the needs and aspirations of all those who actually make up the city.  

Looking Forward 

Affordable housing development must be paired with new government policies to ensure neighborhoods like Chinatown continue to have a place in the urban fabric of Philadelphia. Along with promoting affordable housing development, PCDC advocates for housing policies such as inclusionary zoning (which incentivizes or mandates developers to allot a fraction of new housing to low to middle-income families); tax increment financing (which makes growth in property taxes available for affordable housing development); rental assistance programs; and rent stabilization. PCDC is also exploring the possiblity of forming a community land trust in Chinatown, as a way to protect properties from the fluctuations of the real estate market and secure their long-term affordability.  

PCDC further urges all those involved in the urban-political landscape of Philadelphia to support the preservation of Chinatown through 1) spreading awareness of issues threatening Chinatown and other working class neighborhoods; 2) advocating for effective affordable housing policies; 3) supporting the work of PCDC and other grassroots organizations serving minority communities; and 4) discouraging projects and practices within and outside your workplace that threaten neighborhoods like Chinatown, while encouraging equitable development practices in your industry or field. With enough resolve and collaboration, we can work together to create a Philadelphia that meets the needs and encourages the dreams of all the diverse communities that call the city home.  

Caroline Aung is a Community Development Project Associate at the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC), where she helps manage the organization’s neighborhood planning and development projects. 

CITATIONS 

1. (https://www.phila.gov/media/20190731150103/Neighborhood-Rankings_7_31_19.pdf). 

CAPTIONS, spread one: 

The 900 Block of Race Street in Philadelphia, 1969, top.  

Photo: Temple University Archives 

Philadelphia Chinatown street vendors, shoppers, Friendship Gate, and fashion district in the far background, right. Gim San Plaza an affordable mixed-use development built by PCDC in 1989, above. 

Photo: PCDC  

CAPTIONS, spread two: 

Protestors against the Vine Street Expressway.  

Photo: Philadelphia Inquirer 

Chinese New Year parade, above. 

Photo: Albert Lee