Volume XII Number 3, Volume XIII Number I• Fall/Winter 2000•Redevelopment & Urban Japantowns

The Mega-Economics of Urban Planning
adapted by Shizue Seigal from the work of David B. Okita

San Francisco: Japantown – The Way We Were
by Judy Hamaguchi

San Francisco: Nihonmachi and Urban Renewal
by Shizue Siegel

Stockton: The Death of Nihonmachi
by Nelson Nagai

Los Angeles: Little Tokyo – Showplace or Community?
by Shizue Seigel and Joyce Nako

Seattle: The International District
by Gary Iwamoto

New Members, Donations, Programs

The mass internment during World War II had a dramatic impact on Japanese Americans, but urban renewal, or redevelopment, amounted to a second eviction for residents of urban Japantowns on the West Coast. It can be argued the second mass internment weakened the fabric of the Nikkei community far more seriously, insidiously and permanently than the first. Understanding redevelopment’s role for physically dispersing urban Japantowns may be key to developing strategies for sustaining and strengthening a sense of community for today’s Nikkei.

Japantowns were just one of the many ethnic communities affected by urban renewal. The Omnibus Housing Act of 1949 provided federal funding to “clean up the slums” in America’s inner cities and reverse the middle-class flight to the suburbs. This massive program affected, and continues to affect, virtually every major city in the U.S., with disproportionate impact on marginalized groups. Since older inner city buildings and storefronts on the margins of downtown were often the only areas where immigrants, minorities, the underemployed and the elderly could settle, urban renewal led to a massive destruction of ethnic neighborhoods.

The struggling postwar Nikkei communities were prime targets. Neighborhood buildings had deteriorated badly during the internment, and returning internees were still reestablishing their lives and businesses well into the 50s. When local and federal officials identified certain neighborhoods as “blighted,” residents who could afford to do so began to move out. Heeding the postwar call to assimilate, countless Nikkei families “moved up” and out to the suburbs. The sprawling geography of outlying areas, however, was not conducive to the wholistic, walking-distance intermixture of family homes and businesses, kenjinkai, churches and cultural classes characteristic of the old Japantowns.

Some Japantowns, such as those in Stockton, Fresno, Sacramento and Oakland, did not survive the redevelopment. Others, like Los Angeles and San Francisco, were radically altered. Only San Jose’s Japantown survived relatively unscathed. In this double issue, we explore the impact of redevelopment on four Nikkei communities on the West Coast: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Stockton.

It is impossible to precisely measure the impact of urban renewal programs in destroying ethnic communities – too many factors were in play. Furthermore, since redevelopment projects are still on-going in many cities, little published research or analysis is available. In this issue, we can only begin to examine how past urban renewal policies impacted our communities. Only by understanding what happened and why, can we assess the present-day dynamics of ongoing redevelopment projects and their potential impact on the future health of our communities.

- Shizue Seigel, Managing Editor