The Power of Chinatown

The Power of Chinatown

Author: Laureen D. Hom

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2024-06-18

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 0520391225

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Urban Chinatowns are dynamic, contested spaces that have persevered amid changes in the American cityscape. These neighborhoods are significant for many, from the residents and workers who rely on them for their livelihoods to the broader Chinese American community and political leaders who recognize their cultural heritage and economic value. In The Power of Chinatown, Laureen D. Hom provides a critical examination of the politics shaping the trajectory of development in Los Angeles Chinatown, one of the oldest urban Chinatowns in the United States. Working from ethnographic fieldwork, Hom chronicles how Chinese Americans continue to gravitate to this space—despite being a geographically dispersed community—and how they have both resisted and encouraged processes of gentrification and displacement. The Power of Chinatown bridges understandings of community, geography, political economy, and race to show the complexities and contradictions of building community power, illuminating how these place-based ethnic politics might give rise to a more expansive vision of Asian American belonging and a just city for all.


The Urban Contract

The Urban Contract

Author: Paolo Perulli

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07-22

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1317037367

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Today, the increasing mobility of capital, people and information has changed the space relations of urban societies. Contractual relations have increased in every field of social life: in the economic field, but also in the political, and in creative and scientific areas. Contracts are not only legal frameworks or economic aggregates of individuals, but socially embedded forms. The concept of urban contract proposed in this book combines the theoretical body of economic-juridical literature on the contract with that of historical-anthropological and socio-spatial literature on the city. Through a diverse range of ten city case studies, The Urban Contract compares European, North-American and Asian Urban Contracts. It concludes with a theoretical proposal for understanding the deep dialectical nature of Contract Cities: their reciprocity and competition, their dual trend towards growth and decay, their cyclical nature as agents of change and disruption of the social forms of urbanity.