Chinatown is open for business: Neoliberal multicultural representations of Asian American spaces

Historic urban Chinatowns are important spaces contributing to the multicultural identities of cities. However, political and economic elites, both within and outside the community, often manage the ethnic culture of Chinatowns to prioritize economic growth, masking the experiences of race and class exclusion of those who live and work there. Given this tension, we examine how the business improvement districts (BIDs) in Chinatowns across three U.S. cities used social media to represent the neighborhood prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time of heightened anti-Asian racism and economic instability. Our study shows that BIDs are a part of contingent urban neoliberal governance in which they respond to crises by reconstructing images of communities to promote economic consumption. Moreover, they reinforce neoliberal multicultural logics by presenting Chinatown as a multicultural destination, while also asserting notions of belonging as intrinsically related to the community’s economic contributions and resiliency.