Looking to the future of Vancouver’s historic Chinatown

There is a push to have Vancouver’s Chinatown neighbourhood designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

That is the idea behind Chinatown Reimagined, a three-day virtual forum underway in Vancouver.

Denise Fong, who is the Research Director for UBC’s Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese-Canadian Studies says it is about looking forward.

“The project is aimed at bringing in different experts, different community leaders, and also different researchers who are very invested in Chinatown’s future. Bringing them together and be able to have conversations through the community forum,” Fong explained.

Chinatown was granted a National Historic Site designation in 2011, but advocates say they need to do more to ensure the community established over a century ago is protected.

“There’s a lot of different Chinatown groups that are working very hard to support community development, revitalization and also highlighting some of the aspects of intangible heritage conservation,” Fong said.

“There’s many challenges in terms of thinking about how to imagine the future planning of Chinatown and how younger people can also participate in that activation of the space and being able to highlight some of the intangible aspects of Chinatown heritage,” Fong said about the path ahead.

Chinatown Reimagined is developed by the Chinatown Transformation Team of the City of Vancouver in partnership with the University of British Columbia and supported by the Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group (LSG) and its five working groups.

The forum ends Oct. 23.