The article starts by talking about how rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the late 19th and early 20th century eventually lead to the U.S. passing new immigration laws. These laws explicitly restricted Chinese laborers from moving to the U.S. and even made it difficult for legal residents to return after a visit home to China.
However, embedded in these laws was a small loophole:
But, as MIT legal historian Heather Lee tells it, there was an important exception to these laws: Some Chinese business owners in the U.S. could get special merchant visas that allowed them to travel to China, and bring back employees. Only a few types of businesses qualified for this status. In 1915, a federal court added restaurants to that list. Voila! A restaurant boom was born.
The article starts by talking about how rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the late 19th and early 20th century eventually lead to the U.S. passing new immigration laws. These laws explicitly restricted Chinese laborers from moving to the U.S. and even made it difficult for legal residents to return after a visit home to China.
However, embedded in these laws was a small loophole:
But, as MIT legal historian Heather Lee tells it, there was an important exception to these laws: Some Chinese business owners in the U.S. could get special merchant visas that allowed them to travel to China, and bring back employees. Only a few types of businesses qualified for this status. In 1915, a federal court added restaurants to that list. Voila! A restaurant boom was born.
“The number of Chinese restaurants in the U.S. doubles from 1910 to 1920, and doubles again from 1920 to 1930,” says Lee, referring to research done by economist Susan Carter. In New York City alone, Lee found that the number of Chinese eateries quadrupled between 1910 and 1920.
This is fascinating on so many levels.
For one, it’s always interesting when small loopholes have unintended consequences. It is doubtful that anyone could have predicted a Chinese restaurant boom.
Secondly, despite the U.S. being a nation of immigrants, you see here a long history of trying to keep immigrants out. In the early 20th century, the fear was Chinese laborers who worked for low wages. Today, it’s Mexican laborers who work for low wages.
Finally, it’s amazing to look back at the foundation that these early Chinese entrepreneurs no doubt created. Today, Asian Americans are often considered a “model minority.” The Pew Research Center refers to them as “the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States.”
When it comes to Ivy League admissions, they’ve even been called the “New Jews” – referring to the fact that many believe that top tier schools have systematically biased admissions against both Jews and Asians because of their tendency to overachieve relative to “white Americans.”
And to think that this may have all started, at least partly, with a Chinese restaurant boom.
One of the central themes is the idea that globalization has caused a kind of bifurcation in cities – a disconnect between the local and the global. In an effort to compete with other global cities around the world, we have begun to turn our back on local concerns. At the same time, not every city has the market power of, say, New York or London.
So what does this mean for cities? Here’s a quote from the article that I think does a good job explaining the mental model:
Well, just as the name suggests, a night mayor is the chief executive officer of a city’s nighttime activity. And in 2014, Amsterdam became the first city ever to have one.
Why is this important, you might ask?
Well, for most cities the night is a blindspot. It’s viewed as something that needs to be carefully controlled as opposed to something that is celebrated and leveraged. Amsterdam saw this opportunity and, in my opinion, is now at the forefront of rethinking the night.
Here’s an example of the kind of changes that this has meant for the city (via CityLab):
“Until recently, Amsterdam enforced what by continental European standards is a fairly strict curfew: nightclubs had to close by 4 a.m. on weekdays and 5 a.m. on weekends. The city often had problems with noise and disorder at the exact moment when all the clubs closed, filling narrow inner city streets with rowdy people.
To solve this problem, the night mayor suggested not less, but more time for people to go clubbing. He has helped push through the granting of 10 24-hour licenses for nightclubs. Crucially, all of them were located not in the dense city center but in thinly populated districts around Amsterdam’s outer ring road. The result was a marked reduction in street noise.”
Some of you are probably feeling skeptical as you read this. Especially since 4AM and 5AM hardly seem strict when compared to other cities (Toronto’s last call is at 2AM).
But I would not underestimate the importance of what Amsterdam is doing. We are living in an era of the 24-hour global city and it’s about time that governments woke up to that. I’m sorry Toronto, but 2AM is an absolute joke.
The night can be your competitive advantage in attracting human capital. As the CityLab article cited above suggests, a big part of what transformed Berlin into a capital of cool was its nightlife.
I wholeheartedly believe that and I have no doubt that the night will start to become a greater focus in city building.
If you’d like to learn more about the Night Mayor Summit, click here.
“The number of Chinese restaurants in the U.S. doubles from 1910 to 1920, and doubles again from 1920 to 1930,” says Lee, referring to research done by economist Susan Carter. In New York City alone, Lee found that the number of Chinese eateries quadrupled between 1910 and 1920.
This is fascinating on so many levels.
For one, it’s always interesting when small loopholes have unintended consequences. It is doubtful that anyone could have predicted a Chinese restaurant boom.
Secondly, despite the U.S. being a nation of immigrants, you see here a long history of trying to keep immigrants out. In the early 20th century, the fear was Chinese laborers who worked for low wages. Today, it’s Mexican laborers who work for low wages.
Finally, it’s amazing to look back at the foundation that these early Chinese entrepreneurs no doubt created. Today, Asian Americans are often considered a “model minority.” The Pew Research Center refers to them as “the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States.”
When it comes to Ivy League admissions, they’ve even been called the “New Jews” – referring to the fact that many believe that top tier schools have systematically biased admissions against both Jews and Asians because of their tendency to overachieve relative to “white Americans.”
And to think that this may have all started, at least partly, with a Chinese restaurant boom.
One of the central themes is the idea that globalization has caused a kind of bifurcation in cities – a disconnect between the local and the global. In an effort to compete with other global cities around the world, we have begun to turn our back on local concerns. At the same time, not every city has the market power of, say, New York or London.
So what does this mean for cities? Here’s a quote from the article that I think does a good job explaining the mental model:
Well, just as the name suggests, a night mayor is the chief executive officer of a city’s nighttime activity. And in 2014, Amsterdam became the first city ever to have one.
Why is this important, you might ask?
Well, for most cities the night is a blindspot. It’s viewed as something that needs to be carefully controlled as opposed to something that is celebrated and leveraged. Amsterdam saw this opportunity and, in my opinion, is now at the forefront of rethinking the night.
Here’s an example of the kind of changes that this has meant for the city (via CityLab):
“Until recently, Amsterdam enforced what by continental European standards is a fairly strict curfew: nightclubs had to close by 4 a.m. on weekdays and 5 a.m. on weekends. The city often had problems with noise and disorder at the exact moment when all the clubs closed, filling narrow inner city streets with rowdy people.
To solve this problem, the night mayor suggested not less, but more time for people to go clubbing. He has helped push through the granting of 10 24-hour licenses for nightclubs. Crucially, all of them were located not in the dense city center but in thinly populated districts around Amsterdam’s outer ring road. The result was a marked reduction in street noise.”
Some of you are probably feeling skeptical as you read this. Especially since 4AM and 5AM hardly seem strict when compared to other cities (Toronto’s last call is at 2AM).
But I would not underestimate the importance of what Amsterdam is doing. We are living in an era of the 24-hour global city and it’s about time that governments woke up to that. I’m sorry Toronto, but 2AM is an absolute joke.
The night can be your competitive advantage in attracting human capital. As the CityLab article cited above suggests, a big part of what transformed Berlin into a capital of cool was its nightlife.
I wholeheartedly believe that and I have no doubt that the night will start to become a greater focus in city building.
If you’d like to learn more about the Night Mayor Summit, click here.
At the end of the article, Aaron makes a number of recommendations for how to better think about local entrepreneurship and economic growth. The first one is as follows:
“Local civic priorities should favor building a successful and inclusive local economy, including entrepreneurship, over global concerns and real estate development.”
Despite this being seemingly contradictory to do what I do for a living, I think it’s important to note that on a fundamental level, architects and developers simply create space.
It might be a beautiful space. A space that improves well-being, creates value, and enables certain activities. But at the end of the day, there needs to be demand for that space. And a robust local economy is paramount to that equation. So I agree that we shouldn’t forget about local and expect that “if we build it, they will come.”
If you have the time, the full article is worth a read. It’s also part of a broader series on entrepreneurship and cities, so there are a bunch of other related articles on the same page.
At the end of the article, Aaron makes a number of recommendations for how to better think about local entrepreneurship and economic growth. The first one is as follows:
“Local civic priorities should favor building a successful and inclusive local economy, including entrepreneurship, over global concerns and real estate development.”
Despite this being seemingly contradictory to do what I do for a living, I think it’s important to note that on a fundamental level, architects and developers simply create space.
It might be a beautiful space. A space that improves well-being, creates value, and enables certain activities. But at the end of the day, there needs to be demand for that space. And a robust local economy is paramount to that equation. So I agree that we shouldn’t forget about local and expect that “if we build it, they will come.”
If you have the time, the full article is worth a read. It’s also part of a broader series on entrepreneurship and cities, so there are a bunch of other related articles on the same page.
