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On the contrary, Chinatown is changing rapidly, and the Chinatown we know today will likely be gone very soon. It will soon transform into a Disneyland caricature of itself aimed at tourists, as North Beach has.

The remaining population is increasingly composed of elderly people. Younger people tend to move to outer neighborhoods in SF, or to Daly City or the other peninsula suburbs, as Chinatown is actually a ghetto despite also being a romanticized tourist attraction. More recent middle class Chinese immigrants avoid Chinatown for the same reason and go directly to the suburbs.

E.g. http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/sf-chinatown-restaura... -- the Imperial Palace restaurant estimates that 75-80% of its customers are elderly. The restaurant is empty most of the time and on the brink of financial failure as the customers' fixed incomes do not allow them to eat out very often. Many other restaurants report a similar situation.

Places like the R&G Lounge have already remodeled, raised prices, and transformed in character from neighborhood restaurants to very expensive high end restaurants for yuppie tourists. Those that do not do this will perish.



Definitely; I agree with you on the demographic trends, but for the moment it's still pretty much the same chinatown as always IMO -- definitely not gentrifying in the way the mission is. Yet.




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