SotA Anthology 2015-16
Graduating BA English and Communication student Karen Ngai wrote this print news feature about urban development in Liverpool
What new Chinatown? More like Liverpool Two!
The new £ 200m Chinatown is set to be Liverpool’ s next big thing, but even with its plans to include residential buildings in the area, the majority of its efforts will be put into developing a retail core. Locals are concerned that Chinatown will lose its cultural vibrance, becoming a replica of the saturated Liverpool One.
Photo credit: North Point Global
Most redevelopment projects in Liverpool go unnoticed until the work is fully complete. There is a high amount of anticipation for the new Chinatown, set to finish in 2017. But with its resemblance to Liverpool One, aesthetically and functionally, people are concerned it will not celebrate Chinese culture like a Chinatown should.
Since the planning process of Chinatown began, it has been designed to be a money-making mechanism rather than to celebrate the arrival of Chinese culture in the 19th century. The project relies heavily on investors and lacked communication with the Chinese community until the final stages.
The plan to redevelop Chinatown was approved in 2015, but the planning began back in 1992. The project took over a decade to be approved due to the lack of funding available. According to the Chairman of the Chinese Business Association, Simon Wong,“ until investors took interest in the project, Liverpool City Council had no extra money, and therefore no interest to help refurbish the area; it just was not their priority.” Since Chinese investors provided £ 200m, Liverpool City Council finally developed an interest.
Their plans did not involve the Chinese community until they were finalised.“ Never were we consulted towards what we wanted to be included in the new Chinatown, to our home,” says a Chinatown representative, who has chosen to remain anonymous. BLOK Architecture and North Point Global are both local companies with no preexisting knowledge of the Chinese culture. The plan, shown above, is said to be inspired by modern Shanghai, but the lack of involvement of the Chinese community speaks volumes. Wing adds,“ Chinatown is not for business profits, it represents much more than a country but our history in Liverpool.”
We cannot lose the spirit of Chinatown
When the first Chinese trade vessel arrived, it marked the first presence of the Chinese community carrying goods such as silk and cotton wool to Liverpool in 1834. Between 1960 and the 1990s, a small number of Chinese immigrants began to establish small businesses to cater for their seamen, who travelled regularly between China and Liverpool. Many of these Chinese seamen would go on to marry working-class British women, resulting in a number of‘ British-born Eurasian Chinese’ being born in Liverpool.
Liverpool established itself as one of the earliest places in Europe to house a Chinese community, and the growth of this population was significant in the way