Rooting Revitalization in Culture: Seattle’s Chinatown-International District, 1975-2010

Throughout the twentieth century historic preservation has, at times, been a driving force behind urban development. Most narratives of urban preservation emphasize its use as a tourism and gentrification strategy and overlook disadvantaged communities that use it to revitalize neighborhoods and benefit low-income residents. To address this incomplete portrait, this paper chronicles the Seattle Chinatown-International District Preservation Development Authority’s (SCIDpda) thirty-five year effort to use preservation as a basis for revitalizing that city’s Chinatown-International District (ID). It examines why the organization chose this strategy, how it balanced preservation and revitalization, and how its work evolved over time.