Home is more than simply a place. It is a connection to a community of people, the comforts of familiar sights and sounds, and the sense of belonging. As history has shown us, numerous urban “renewal” efforts in the name of eliminating blight disregarded people’s visions for their homes, resulting in displacement of individuals and disintegration of communities. Today, the trend is to promote transit oriented development (TOD) in the name of addressing climate change. But if development is done inequitably, it represents the latest challenge to low-income communities of color.
Oakland Chinatown’s history is one of survival in the midst of continual acts of displacement. The first Chinese immigrants who formed various Chinatowns in Oakland during the 1850s had been driven from the fields of the Gold Rush by racist, hostile miners. Later, intense racism would cause some of these Chinatowns to move—as with the settlement at San Pablo Avenue and 19th Street—or be eliminated altogether—as when the Chinatown at Telegraph Avenue and 17th Street burned down. Eventually, the Chinese community was consolidated in the area around 8th and Webster Streets.
Continue reading at Race, Poverty & the Environment, a project of Urban Habitat
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