A SUSTAINABLE CHINATOWN AND FUTURE CHINATOWN

    On July 16th, Erika began the day with a lecture about storytelling and creative peacekeeping and how stories can contribute to the perspectives of the Chinatown neighborhood. This can help engage members of the community without relying on the perspective of economic growth and sustainability. It also helps to remember the information through stories that are told time and time again. We want to build relationships with the community in order to enact upon change. After the lecture, we visited the PUC, the Public Utilities Commission in which they talked about how they are utilizing green infastructure and how that helps in making Chinatown more sustainable.

On July 18th, we finally begin working with our groups and brainstorming on how and what we are going to present our projects on. We were given an activity that helped us think about what we were going to do. We had to answer these five questions and I think it's helpful when we have questions that will guide us. In the afternoon, we visited SPUR, Planning and Urban Renewal Association. They went into their background, issues across the Bay Area, and discussed about the four future scenarios of Chinatown. The four scenarios were high and low economic growth and low and high social inclusion. It was very interesting to see the futures visually. They were drastically different from each other. Even though you might not have background in urban planning, it's very thought provoking and it makes you think about what is going to happen in the near future, which is both scary and exciting at the same time. 

​- Michelle Mei