Abstract
Over the past few decades, the devolution of state power has changed from central government control to urban governance in making collective policy decisions. This has involved participation in urban policies by diverse urban actors, including civil society, private corporations and nonprofit organizations.
This field study, conducted in San Francisco, California, USA between 2008 and 2009, investigated the changes in institutions and actors involved in forming a new “governance” of community development, planning and preservation of an ethnic neighborhood. The research presents “Save Japantown” campaigns that recently developed in San Francisco Japantown.
San Francisco Japantown—one of three remaining Japanese ethnic neighborhoods in the Continental US—was created by Japanese immigrants in the early 1900s. The Japanese American community suffered from wartime eviction and postwar redevelopment under the federal slum clearance program in the neighborhood. After the redevelopment, from the late 1960s and onwards, Japantown relied partly on corporate businesses to maintain the Japantown community. At the same time, nonprofit organizations played an important role in the preservation of culture and history of the community.
Since the early 1990s, gentrification and new urban redevelopment in and around the neighborhood have expanded. When a major Japanese property owner of the largest Japantown buildings sold its properties to private, non-Japanese investors in 2006, the community members' fears of losing century-old cultural and ethnic legacies attached to the neighborhood reached a peak.
Members of community organizations began political campaigns to “Save Japantown” and ultimately gained support from local politicians, bureaucrats and the wider San Francisco community. They mobilized legal and regulatory efforts hoping to preserve and develop the community. The study showed that citizens encouraged local government to propose legislation that would amend the city planning code to regulate the change of use for certain Japantown properties to be consistent with “Japanese use” (Japantown Special Use District planning code), and also create a forum based on a public-private collaboration to discuss and draft official planning guidelines for the Japantown neighborhood (Japantown Better Neighborhood Plan project).
It was found that community actions led to the creation of a formal regulatory blueprint for the future neighborhood preservation, revitalization, rebuilding and formation of a public planning program. This is one example of diversified policy institutions and actors coalescing to become more involved in the governance of urban policies in San Francisco. These redevelopment regulations and public planning schemes are viewed as an entitlement given to the community, and the result of empowerment achieved by contesting the advancement of market-oriented redevelopment projects. Future studies, however, should discuss beyond this institutional framework, and examine the effectiveness of “authenticated” public planning and partnership between the neighborhood and local government functions, forming a new community-oriented “governance” structure to preserve the cultural and historical heritage of the neighborhood while revitalizing the community.
