Gentrification in Vancouver Chinatown
The research question I am answering is “how does the gentrification of Chinatown affect Chinese-Canadian youth?”. In order to cover gaps of knowledge I will explain how Chinatown looked in the past compared to the present and what factors caused these changes. This will include different businesses that opened in the area and the loss of business for others due to the first-generation community dying out. I will also write about what gentrification is and give the situation context by comparing it to the gentrification of gastown. The sources that I will be investigating will be news articles, academic journals about gentrification, and interviews with people who live and have lived in Chinatown. The scholarly disciplines I might enter conversations with are human geopolitics, economics, cultural-ethnic studies, kinship, urban anthropology and business. This is because the gentrification of Chinatown is thanks to the increase in property values and the interest in ethnic culture. My motivation for choosing this topic is because I grew up in Vancouver as a second-generation Chinese-Canadian. I also grew up on the eastside of Vancouver and would regularly visit Chinatown. Therefore, seeing the gentrification of Chinatown is not only something I can read about but also something I have experienced first hand.