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The Specter of Gentrification in a Pan-Asian Immigrant Neighborhood: Community Development and Resistance to Displacement in Portland’s Jade District

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Abstract

Focusing on a low-income neighborhood of Asian immigrant settlement located at the eastern periphery of Portland, Oregon, this article traces the efforts of an organization representing API (Asian and Pacific Islander) populations to implement community-led development and to prevent the displacement of residents vulnerable to real estate pressures. The project is representative of a growing recognition among municipal authorities and the general population of the disparate impact of rising housing costs on minority communities. It was funded by the city’s urban development agency, in order to improve infrastructure and support business activity in the area while mitigating gentrification effects. Based on an ethnographic study of the neighborhood (the Jade District) undertaken in 2018 and 2023, the article addresses the negotiation of the inherent tension between these parallel missions by the organization chosen to manage the program. The development strategies adopted demonstrate a nuanced balancing of interests among community members, as well as an awareness of the broad range of profiles and motivations among the agents of gentrification. Although placemaking activities that promote a distinct identity for the neighborhood were pursued, the risks of contributing to the commodification of ethnicity or of branding the area as exclusively Asian were also acknowledged. The expansion of the area’s supply of affordable housing remained the organization’s priority, however, emphasizing the necessity of systemic solutions offering the capacity to the resist the market forces leading to displacement.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the author upon reasonable request.

Notes

  1. See Slater (2004) for a discussion.

  2. Over 70% of the population was categorized as (non-Hispanic) White in the 2010 and 2020 Censuses. Demographic information available at “U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.) QuickFacts: Portland City, Oregon,” https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/portlandcityoregon.

  3. Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon.

  4. Demographic information available at “Census Profile (n.d.) Census Tract 83.01, Multnomah, OR,” Census Reporter, http://censusreporter.org/profiles/14000US41051008301-census-tract-8301-multnomah-or/.

  5. Demographic information available at “U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.) QuickFacts: Portland City, Oregon,” https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/portlandcityoregon.

  6. African-Americans were formally (though not effectively) forbidden from settlement by an exclusion clause added to the state’s constitution by popular vote in 1857 (and removed only in 1926).

  7. Map available at https://jadedistrict.org/about/.

  8. Whereas over twenty staff members work for the APANO Communities United Fund, which had an operating budget of approximately three million dollars in 2020, the APANO 501(c)(4) organization employs only a political director and a field organizer, and operates with a budget that is roughly twelve times smaller.

  9. See the organization’s website at https://jadedistrict.org/about/.

  10. See the visioning statement at https://jadedistrict.org/the-program.

  11. The magazine is available at https://www.pdxmonthly.com/home-and-real-estate/neighborhood-guide-the-jade-district.

  12. Article available at https://portlandneighborhood.com/powellhurst.

  13. Magazine available at https://www.travelportland.com/neighborhoods/jade-district/.

  14. The invitation to treat ethnic Asian neighborhoods as opportunities to access exotic dining opportunities and food products is not unique to Portland. Indeed, the city follows patterns in the geographic distribution of ethnic restaurants in the USA identified by Kendall Park, who describes the consumers who “must venture outside of their neighborhoods into ethnically diverse areas or even immigrant enclaves” and for whom “[e]ating these more exotic foods becomes an experience, a destination, and an adventure in culinary tourism” (Park 2017: p. 383).

  15. Listing available at https://www.estately.com/listings/info/2105-se-89th-ave.

  16. Listing available at https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/2110-SE-82nd-Ave-Portland-OR/22683819/.

  17. Furthermore, the fact that businesses and services in the area are not invariably marketed towards the “creative class” and do not deliberately comply with its standards of desirability actually gives it the aura of an “authentic” pan-Asian neighborhood, similar to the pan-Latino space in Red Hook, Brooklyn, described by Sharon Zukin (Zukin 2009: pp. 159–192).

  18. Metro is the governing body that represents the tri-county area that composes Portland’s metropolitan area (Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties).

  19. Description of the housing complex available on the SERA Architects blog, https://www.seradesign.com/projects/rose-apano-affordable-mixed-use-dev/.

  20. Coverage of the event by Oregon Metro can be found at https://www.oregonmetro.gov/news/new-affordable-housing-close-transit-serves-portland-s-jade-district-community.

  21. This is particularly true in urban Chinatowns, in which community elites have tended to form “ethnic growth machines” that benefit disproportionately from investments making the neighborhoods attractive to visiting consumers (Hom 2022; Knapp and Vojnovic 2013; Lin 2008).

  22. In the CLT model, parcels of land are owned by non-profit organizations, but buildings on these parcels are owned by community members and cooperatives, whose ownership is bound by a long-term ground lease that protects the interests of the resident community.

  23. For a description of the project, see https://prosperportland.us/portfolio-items/cully-tif-district/.

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Funding

This study was funded by an IDEX grant by the University of Toulouse – Jean Jaurès.

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  1. Centre for Anglophone Studies (CAS), Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, Toulouse, France

    Hilary Sanders

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Sanders, H. The Specter of Gentrification in a Pan-Asian Immigrant Neighborhood: Community Development and Resistance to Displacement in Portland’s Jade District. Soc 60, 694–707 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-023-00899-w

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