Little Tokyo featured in the LA Times

Submitted by vkraus on Fri, 09/22/2006 - 11:40.

In the September 3rd L.A. Times, downtown Los Angeles Little Tokyo is surveyed as a rising hotspot. With newly constructed high-end condos, the area is attracting "affluent professionals, artists and seniors" - and raising the rent. Several issues, however, from homelessness to local public school education, can also make it difficult for potential home buyers to weigh the benefits Little Tokyo offers.

Read the entire article and share your comments on the Community Forum Bulletin Board!

The face of Little Tokyo is changing

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Sao Paulo´s Little Tokyo
mhijb's picture
Submitted by mhijb on Sat, 09/30/2006 - 22:31.

Here on São Paulo there exist a similar district, of course it´s not called little Tokyo, its name is Liberdade ( This word means freedom), Japanese imigrants began concentrating on this district on the early 20´s, first they worked at the houses of the region, as housekeepers for example, time passed and the imigrants established Hotels and restaurants, Them people stared to call it the Oriental District. Some Time after the war the District passed by a modernaization made by the city hall, the interesting detail is that this modernization used chinatown as a model, also they asked the japanese communitie to help them.
Nowadays there is some similar movement in terms of the price of apartments and houses and rents, it has raised considereble. Also there are many projects for joint domains. On the other hand the japanese presence on this area has decreased, there are Chinese and Korean living on there, most of the stores are owned either by chinese or korean, there are still japanese traditional restaurants and one hotel but not like 30 years ago. Many people still call it the Oriental district.


Seattle's International District
vkm's picture
Submitted by vkm on Tue, 10/03/2006 - 14:28.
I recently visited Seattle, Washington here in the U.S. The International District is primarily Chinese-American, but still includes some older businesses from when there was more of a Japantown. The Panama Hotel was owned by Japanese immigrants before the war. In their teahouse, they have a map of the historic Japantown. I wish I had thought to take a photograph.
Here in the Los Angeles area, there are quite a few areas with concentrations of Nikkei populations. However, many of them seem to be in transition. There aren't as many new immigrants from Japan, particularly in comparison to those from China and Korea, so there's not as much of a need for "Japantowns".