ABSTRACT
The inflow of migrants has played an important role in shaping the social and physical landscapes of Australian cities (Jordans, 1997; Saeed & Akbarzadeh, 2001; Burnley, 2001; Jupp, 2007). Yet despite the palpable and widespread spatial effects brought by immigration, little is understood about how urban spaces are made and remade by migrant communities in Australia. This chapter aims to fill the gap by investigating Chinese migrants' roles in the transformation of public spaces in Ashfield, a multicultural suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the past two decades. In this time, Ashfield's streetscape has been through radical changes. While its main commercial streets had a mix of Anglo, Italian, and Greek shopping before the mid-1990s, about 85 percent of the shops are now Chinese small businesses, including restaurants, supermarkets, barbershops, and bookstores. As most of these shops are run by migrants from Shanghai, the area is widely known as “Little Shanghai” (Figure 7.1).
