Nihonmachi plan offers growth, sustains character

The Japantown Task Force is striving to preserve the cultural integrity of the Nihonmachi neighborhood by developing the Better Neighborhood Plan.

The plan – an initiative put forth by the city’s planning department – will help the neighborhood expand commercially, while maintaining its character. For the past year, a group of planners and community leaders collected neighborhood input through focus groups and community meetings.

Bob Hamaguchi, executive director of the Japantown Task Force, said he believes this initiative is vital to developing Nihonmachi in a way that reflects its constituents.

“The Better Neighborhood Plan empowers the community to carefully plan growth in the area so as to maintain and attract more culturally-relevant merchants,” Hamaguchi said. He added it also would keep the concerns of its neighborhoods as a priority by insuring “the future of the community-based organizations.”

Nihonmachi is one of three remaining Japantowns in the United States. People began to move to this area of the city in 1870. Soon afterwards, the distinct character of the neighborhood developed. Today, Nihonmachi, with its vast array of restaurants and shops, is one of the main tourist attractions of San Francisco. But facing commercial expansion, area residents are eager to preserve the neighborhood’s cultural identity.

“The outreach is targeted to all community stakeholders,” Hamaguchi said. “Not only those within the boundaries of the planning area, but also to those who care about the preservation and planning of the future of Japantown.”
Some of the neighbors’ suggestions include supporting culturally relevant businesses, consolidating a Japanese American historical archive and providing more opportunities for affordable housing. Most of the suggestions for the Better Neighborhood Plan concern sustaining small business owners and making sure residents are not displaced.

The next stage of development will be difficult due to the variety of opinions in the community, but Hamaguchi is optimistic.

“The Japanese and Japanese American culture is not about saving buildings,” he said. “It is about what happens in them.”

Historical brief
The Western Addition site of the present Japantown was once an established Victorian-era neighborhood, home to a mix of European immigrants before becoming a Japanese American enclave. After the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco’s Japanese population relocated here in significant numbers. Within four short years of the quake, Nihonmachi housed dozens of businesses and community organizations primarily between Sutter and Geary, and Webster and Octavia streets, with secondary concentrations around the intersections of Pine Street with Fillmore and Gough streets.

By the time of the 1910 Census, the core area was home to more than 50 Japanese-owned commercial establishments, and to most of the 4,700 Japanese residing in the city. As the community grew in subsequent decades, old-time businesses begun in the wake of the 1906 earthquake moved and were joined by new establishments. Japantown residents were supported by social, religious, cultural and political organizations that fostered and protected the close-knit community. Christian churches, Buddhist temples, and Japanese language schools, or gakuen, served as the primary gathering places where Japanese immigrants and their children passed on and preserved traditional cultural practices.

Japantown is no longer the site of a highly concentrated residential population of Nikkei (people of Japanese ancestry). WWII internment, post-war redevelopment and the assimilation of Japanese Americans into the broader social fabric has resulted in a more dispersed presence for Nikkei throughout the United States. The Nikkei population of Japantown decreased by 6.5 percent during the 1970s and ‘80s; by 1990, more than 90 percent of Japanese Americans in San Francisco lived outside of Japantown. While increased residential and employment opportunities for Sansei and Yonsei (third- and fourth-generation Japanese Americans) have attenuated the role of Nihonmachi in the day-to-day lives of Bay Area Nikkei, San Francisco’s Japantown continues to hold immeasurable symbolic and cultural meaning. Nihonmachi is the foundation for a regional community through the cultural, educational and spiritual ties it creates for Japanese Americans. In addition to ethnically specific goods and services, Nikkei throughout the Bay Area visit Japantown for cultural and educational events. The streets of Nihonmachi are the site for annual events such as Bon Odori, Cherry Blossom festival and the Japantown Street fair that bring the regional community together.

Japantown remains a distinct and coherent place despite significant demographic and extensive physical changes during the course of its history. The area has been, and is, defined by its cultural significance more than its architectural identity. However, the built environment does reflect the history of the Nikkei from initial occupancy of existing infrastructure by predominantly Japanese and Japanese Americans, to the eventual construction of purpose-built community institutions and other structures. (Source: Japantown Task Force, Inc. Historical Context Statement) To learn more, visit: www.jtowntaskforce.org.