The Specter of Gentrification in a Pan-Asian Immigrant Neighborhood: Community Development and Resistance to Displacement in Portland’s Jade District

Focusing on a low-income neighborhood of Asian immigrant settlement located at the eastern periphery of Portland, Oregon, this article traces the efforts of an organization representing API (Asian and Pacific Islander) populations to implement community-led development and to prevent the displacement of residents vulnerable to real estate pressures. The project is representative of a growing recognition among municipal authorities and the general population of the disparate impact of rising housing costs on minority communities. It was funded by the city’s urban development agency, in order to improve infrastructure and support business activity in the area while mitigating gentrification effects. Based on an ethnographic study of the neighborhood (the Jade District) undertaken in 2018 and 2023, the article addresses the negotiation of the inherent tension between these parallel missions by the organization chosen to manage the program. The development strategies adopted demonstrate a nuanced balancing of interests among community members, as well as an awareness of the broad range of profiles and motivations among the agents of gentrification. Although placemaking activities that promote a distinct identity for the neighborhood were pursued, the risks of contributing to the commodification of ethnicity or of branding the area as exclusively Asian were also acknowledged. The expansion of the area’s supply of affordable housing remained the organization’s priority, however, emphasizing the necessity of systemic solutions offering the capacity to the resist the market forces leading to displacement.