Calgary Chinatown History

Large numbers of Chinese immigrants came to Canada in the 1800s to work on the railroad. Upon completion of the line in 1885, the Canadian government reneged on a promise to provide passage home to China, leaving thousands of workers stranded in a strange country.

The Chinese workers banded together in communities where they shared language, customs, and familiar foods. The first Chinese enclave in Calgary was formed in the 1880s, but it was mostly destroyed by a fire in 1886.

The rebuilt community was displaced again when railroad lines were run through the settlement. The current Chinatown was formed in 1910.

It was threatened again in 1966, when the city planned on building a new freeway through the heart of Chinatown. In 1973, the Calgary Chinatown Development Task Force (CCDTF) was formed to opposed the highway. The CCDTF brought together a strong coalition of community members and leaders, which led to the passing of the Chinatown Design Brief by the city council in 1976, defining and protecting the boundaries of Calgary’s Chinatown.

Chinatown’s growth has continued with developments such as the Dragon Mall and the Chinese Cultural Center.

The city budgeted half a million dollars for the Chinatown centennial celebration in 2010.

During the 1960s a series of transportation and slum clearance programs threatened to destroy Chinatown. But vigorous lobbying by the Sien Lok Society, founded in 1968 by a group of Chinese businessmen and professionals, suggested that business and residential redevelopment should be initiated by Calgary’s Chinese population and should reflect the area’s heritage. These ideas were formalized by the city’s 1976 Design Brief for the area. The streets were given Chinese names, and street furniture and new buildings adopted Chinese motifs, styles, and preferred colors, such as red and gold. The climax of the redevelopment was the creation of a cultural center that was a replica of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, built by craftsmen imported from China. Opened in September 1992, the building contains a Chinese library, recreation hall, meeting rooms, Saturday language school, and restaurant and gift shop, and is actively used by the city’s Chinese community.

Chinatown is no longer home to the majority of Calgary’s Chinese population, whose numbers had grown to more than 50,000 by 1996. Most live in suburbs, especially Edgemont, Huntington Hills, and Marlborough. Chinatown now has 1,400 residents–less than 3 percent of the city total–housed mainly in three high-rise apartments. Ninety percent of these are of Chinese ethnic origin and more than half are senior citizens. However, Chinatown has seen a remarkable increase in commercial activity. It has expanded along Center Street to 4th Avenue and neighboring streets to form a six-block commercial area, with interior malls and a wide variety of and a large number of businesses. Nevertheless, the historic concentration on restaurants and retail food outlets is still present, accounting for a quarter and a fifth of the businesses, respectively.

Planning surveys have shown that almost three-quarters of the shoppers in Calgary’s Chinatown are from outside the area, but two thirds of the total are of Chinese ethnic origin, which shows that the area acts as a commercial core for the dispersed Chinese population, as well as for the city as a whole. However, new concentrations of Chinese businesses have recently developed: one is across the Bow River along Center Street north to 16th Avenue and the others are in suburban locations, especially in Pacific Plaza and International Avenue in the eastern part of Calgary. Yet Chinatown is still the largest concentration of Chinese businesses in the city, and the presence of professional activities and social organizations provides it with a high degree of institutional completeness. Chinatown is no longer a historic ghetto. It acts as a refuge for the Chinese elderly, contains an invented symbolic core for Calgary’s dispersed community, and is a distinctive, yet specialized ethnic business area.

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