Many historic Chinatowns have lost their status as ethnic Chinese enclaves due to gentrification and demographic shifts, while others have become major tourist attractions.

As Chinese immigrants started moving eastward, drawn by labor needs for the transcontinental railroad, newer Chinatowns emerged by 1875 in cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

A sculpture of dueling gold dragons spans Broadway and marks the entrance to Chinatown, with a statue honoring Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Kuomintang, adorning the northeastern section.

There are significant Chinese-owned and operated businesses along South Street that continue into the neighboring city of Artesia Little Saigon is a district located in north-central Orange County.

Not long after the Industrial Workers of the World began getting a foothold among the working class in the area, the population were suppressed by town ordinances, violent police actions and ultimately, the demolition of over 120 structures.

[28] In 1987, the city council of San Diego redeveloped the area and officially designated part of the newly renamed Gaslamp Quarter the Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District.

Chinatown receives millions of tourists annually, making the community, along with Alcatraz and Golden Gate Bridge, one of the prime attractions and highlights of the city of San Francisco, as well as the centerpiece of Chinese-American history.

As Chinatown and many Chinese-Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area have historical or current roots in the province of Guangdong, China (particularly Taishan County) and in Hong Kong, these dances are mostly performed in the southern Chinese style.

With its Chinatown as the landmark, the city of San Francisco itself has one of the largest and predominant concentrations of Chinese-American population centers, representing 20% of total population as of the 2000 Census, Though Chinatown remains the cultural and symbolic anchor of the Bay Area Chinese community, increasing numbers of Chinese-Americans do not live there, instead residing in Chinese enclaves in the Richmond and Sunset districts, or elsewhere in the Bay Area.

[31] Another Chinatown was excavated during an urban renewal project to build the Fairmont Hotel and Silicon Valley Financial Center on Market and San Fernando Streets.

The area was then known as "Heinlenville" and contained a variety of merchants, barbers, traditional doctors, and Chinese herbal medicine, and the Ng Shing Gung temple.

Recent investment and planning has dramatically transformed the once decaying and unsafe neighborhood into an upscale Asian-inspired arts and business district, blending the traditional Chinese bazaars and family owned stores.

[51] The Chinatown in Chicago is a traditional urban ethnic enclave, occupying a large portion of the Armour Square region on the city's near south side.

They were followed by Chinese merchants from California and other states, who supplied the laborers, imported tea and other luxury goods to the Port of Orleans, and exported cotton and dried shrimp to China.

High-rise luxury residential towers are built in the neighborhood, which was previously overwhelmingly three-, four-, and five-story small apartment buildings intermixed with retail and light-industrial spaces.

[68] In the 1960s, urban renewal efforts, as well as the opportunity for the Chinese business community to purchase property, led to a relocation centered at Cass Avenue and Peterboro.

[69] However, Detroit's urban decline and escalating street violence, in particular the killing of restaurateur Tommie Lee, led to the new location's demise, with the last remaining Chinese food restaurant in Chinatown finally shutting its doors in the early 2000s.

[73] The history of the Chinese in Montana closely ties with the building of the Northern Pacific Railroad in the 1860s in many cities and towns, including Butte, Big Timber, and other places.

[80][81][82][83] Due to the mining boom in Butte, many Chinese workers moved in and set up businesses that led to the creation of a Chinatown in the late nineteenth century.

There was anti-Chinese sentiment in the 1870s and onwards due to racism on the part of the white settlers, exacerbated by economic depression, and in 1895, the chamber of commerce and labor unions started a boycott of Chinese owned businesses.

Within Manhattan's expanding Chinatown lies a Little Fuzhou on East Broadway and surrounding streets, occupied predominantly by immigrants from the Fujian Province of Mainland China.

In the past few years, however, the Cantonese dialect that has dominated Chinatown for decades is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.

[110] The energy and population of Manhattan's Chinatown are fueled by relentless, massive immigration from Mainland China, both legal and illegal in origin, propagated in large part by New York's high density, extensive mass transit system, and huge economic marketplace.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was home to a "small, but busy" Chinatown, located at the intersection of Grant Street and Boulevard of the Allies, where only two Chinese restaurants remain.

Pittsburgh, with Carnegie Mellon University, has an Asian community and has remnants of the historic Chinatown exist on a strip with several restaurants and a Chinese pagoda-styled arch.

The extension of Empire Street, proposed in 1914 (according to the Providence Sunday Journal) and completed around 1951 doomed the Chinatown, and all of the buildings were demolished, including the former headquarters of local Chinese societies.

There have been attempts by business leaders to reverse the decline of Chinatown in East Downtown,[135] but many new residents have sought to rebrand the area to reflect the current cultural shift.

[136] The new Chinatown began to expand in the 1990s when many Houston-area Asian American entrepreneurs moved their businesses from older neighborhoods in a search for less expensive properties and lower crime rates.

[143] Historically, Salt Lake City, Utah had a Chinatown beginning in the 1860s that was located in a section called "Plum Alley" on Second South Street.

In the 1950s Seattle officials designated Chinatown as part of the International District (ID) due to the diverse Asian population that, by then, included Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and Koreans.