Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Weaker diffusion to the south led to the middle-class Oakridge
neighbourhood, where an earlier Jewish and Central European popula-
tion, a number of them former post-1945 refugees, were aging and with-
drawing from a district of low-density, 1950s bungalows and ranch-style
houses. It was in Oakridge that Li Ka-shing's family had a holiday home
in the 1970s, and several small enumeration areas in the area showed
30-50 percent ethnic Chinese by 1981. Some were long-established fami-
lies, a few fourth-generation Canadians, but 1300 immigrants were also
enumerated in one Oakridge tract, landing between 1965 and 1978, most
from East Asia. This group represented the early Hong Kong migration,
precipitated by the violent pro-China riots in 1967 that brought an early
wave of mainly middle-class immigrants including David Lam. Westwards
from Oakridge wealthier Chinese were beginning to enter several enu-
meration areas in Kerrisdale and Shaughnessy, with between 5 and 15
percent of the local population.
Special tabulations permit the reconstruction of the overseas Chinese
migration to metropolitan Vancouver at the census tract scale. The Census
enumerates 37,000 households in the Vancouver metropolitan area who
self-identified as ethnic Chinese and landed in Canada between 1986 and
1996, the peak years of Hong Kong arrivals and the major period of busi-
ness immigration. This total amounts to close to half of all immigrants who
entered Vancouver during this period.
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Their residential choices show
highly favoured locations, but settlement overall occurred in over 85 percent
of the metropolitan census tracts, indicating entry across a full range of sub-
markets. On average 5.4 percent of all 1996 households in a census tract
consisted of this group and Figure 5.6 shows census tracts where concen-
trations exceeded this threshold. Some areas were clearly not popular. More
affordable but distant eastern and southern suburbs were avoided. Nor was
there much settlement in the North Shore suburbs of North Vancouver and
West Vancouver, aside from the wealthy mountainside district of the British
Properties.
In contrast Vancouver and the closer suburbs of Richmond, Burnaby and
Coquitlam (primarily the new large-house estates on the Westwood Plateau)
were highly favoured. The marked preference for areas of detached single-
family homes left a demand void in the major multi-family neighbourhoods
of Vancouver's downtown and inner city. In this area of primarily apart-
ment units, with gentrification a key process, there was marked under-
representation of new ethnic Chinese households aside from prime new
condominium sites. The patterning of this population - for example the
abrupt transition in numbers across the municipal boundaries between
Vancouver and Burnaby and Burnaby and New Westminster - suggests
some steering of home purchasers within a well-defined ethnic information
field: 'Burnaby yes, but New Westminster no, but best of all if you can
afford it, Vancouver.'
