Immigrant Growth Machines and Urban Politics: Koreatown and the Chinese San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles

• In Event: 222 - Regular Session. Space and Place

Abstract

This paper investigates the rise of immigrant growth machines that initially emerged when the traditional Los Angeles growth machine was confronting slow-growth movements and declining regional political consensus for growth. We find immigrant place entrepreneurs are more established players now, forging new foci of growth and private/public partnership in Koreatown and the San Gabriel Valley (SGV) suburbs, and more recently in the redevelopment of downtown LA and the ongoing reinvention of the traditional growth machine. We present population and housing data and testimony from field interviews in nuanced comparisons of the immigrant growth machines and the different political opportunity structures they confront. While the Korean growth machine operates as an auxiliary partner in the City of Los Angeles, the Chinese growth machine(s) work with more autonomy in the smaller suburban SGV cities. The Chinese in the SGV have faced more contentions from slow growth interests than in Koreatown where second generation voices have emerged promoting managed growth. Ongoing flows of transnational capital from China and South Korea signal continuing growth and higher-density development in Koreatown and the SGV suburbs. Immigrant leaders are becoming more active brokers of use and exchange values in the political economy of place in LA.

Authors

• Jan C. Lin, Occidental College

• Sookhee Oh, University of Missouri-Kansas City

• Angie Y. Chung, University at Albany