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- Title
The Changing 'Face' of the Suburbs: Issues of Ethnicity and Residential Change in Suburban Vancouver.
- Authors
Ray, Brian K.; Halseth, Greg; Johnson, Benjamin
- Abstract
This article examines the ways in which a discourse of race, revolving around issues of phenotypic and cultural difference, is shaping spatial relations and the meaning of place in Richmond, British Columbia. In Richmond, where the Chinese immigrant population has been growing for the last decade, real and metaphoric spaces are integral to a reinvented articulation of old racist concepts. Integral to this discourse is the struggle between social groups at the local level and the contested meanings of place and place imagery. Neighborhood level conflicts become, in effect, clashes for control of physical neighborhood space, and its social meanings and perceived status. The analysis highlights a cleavage between the geographies of Chinese immigrants in Richmond and the social construction of these geographies by long-time local residents and certain segments of the media. It is undeniable that there have been important social and physical changes in Richmond since the 1980s, including a significant growth of the Chinese population and a series of housing and architectural style changes. Nevertheless, at the same time it is very difficult to find evidence for either the transformation of Richmond into a Chinese territory or the creation of a spatially circumscribed residential Chinatowns.
- Subjects
RICHMOND (B.C.); BRITISH Columbia; CANADA; EMIGRATION &; immigration; POPULATION geography; SOCIAL sciences; SOCIOLOGY
- Publication
International Journal of Urban & Regional Research, 1997, Vol 21, Issue 1, p75
- ISSN
0309-1317
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1468-2427.00059