Хьюстонский Чайнатаун: Старый и Новый районы

the neighborhood also known as Old Chinatown

Chinatown ( or ) is a community in Southwest Houston, Texas, United States. There is another Chinatown called "Old Chinatown" located within the East Downtown Houston district near the George R. Brown Convention Center.

The first businesses of the new Houston Chinatown opened in 1983. In the 1980s increasing numbers of Chinese were living in Southwest Houston and Fort Bend County and those residents were further away from the old Chinatown in what is now East Downtown. Diho Square , home to a Diho Supermarket chain outlet, was built, followed by Dynasty Plaza in 1986 1987, a complex developed by a Singaporean friend of Diho Supermarket operator Tsang Dat Wong; the latter invited the former to build in Houston. Developers at the time bought land, inexpensive due to the recession, in hopes of prosperous development later. From the 1980s until the 2000s, the census tracts housing sections of Chinatown saw decreasing income levels and real estate values. The new Chinatown began to expand in the 1990s when Houston area Asian American entrepreneurs moved their businesses from older neighborhoods, especially the "Old Chinatown" on the eastern end of Downtown Houston (in the process of redevelopment), in a search for more inexpensive properties and lower crime rates. Hong Kong City Mall , owned by an ethnic Vietnamese man named Hai Du Duong, opened in 1999. In 2004 Nancy Sarnoff of the Houston Chronicle described it as a westward shift for Chinatown. In 2005 Christy Chang, a tour operator who operated tours into Chinatown, said, "This area is not just Chinatown anymore. If anything, it's Asia Town" due to the presence of various ethnic groups that began establishing themselves in the community. The Asian American Business Council estimated that between 2004 and 2008 the land values along Bellaire Boulevard in Chinatown increased between 25 and 50 percent. In 2008 the group estimated that in construction would appear within two years, including high end condominiums. Lisa Gray of the Houston Chronicle wrote that the development of the remaining acreage would likely cause rents to increase and that, compared to many other Chinatowns in the United States, the Houston Chinatown is still relatively inexpensive.

The Southwest Management District (formerly Greater Sharpstown Management District) defines it as being roughly bounded by Redding Rd and Gessner Rd to the East, Westpark Dr to the North, Beltway 8 to the West, and Beechnut St to the South. The Greater Sharpstown Management District defines Chinatown within its borders as being a 2.37 square miles (6 km2) area. According to the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau (GHCVB), Chinatown along with Little Saigon (just west of the neighborhood) combine to form a combined Asiatown. The combined border roughly bounded by Fondren Road, Beechnut Street, State Highway 6, and Westpark Drive, and lies between Alief and the city of Bellaire. The naming is disputed as other ethnic groups are within the expanded boundaries. The Bellaire Chinatown is about 12 mile (19 km) southwest of Downtown Houston. The community is between Westchase and the City of Sugar Land. Katharine Shilcutt of the Houston Press said that Chinatown was "straddling Beltway 8 on the southwest side like an entire city unto itself." The Bellaire Chinatown has many "retail condos", shopping centers in which spaces are owned instead of leased. Many East Asian people prefer to own shopping places instead of renting them. In the United States "retail condos" are rare outside areas populated by East Asian Americans. The community has restaurants serving many kinds of cuisines, including Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese, District J was created to allow Hispanics to more easily elect representatives who cater to them. The new Chinatown is served by two Houston Police Department patrol divisions, the Midwest Patrol Division and the Westside Patrol Division, of the Houston Police Department. The Midwest division operates the Ranchester Storefront ( "Chinatown Police Office") in the Diho Square complex. Fire stations located within Chinatown's boundaries include Station 10 Bellaire ( "Fire Brigade #10") and Station 76 Alief Community, both a part of Fire District 83. Station 10, previously located in what is now East Downtown, moved to its current location in 1985. Station 76 was built in 1985.

Nearly a dozen banks, including overseas Chinese banks and mainstream banks, are located along a less than 1 mile (2 km) stretch of Bellaire Boulevard, near Beltway 8. The clientele of these banks include area residents and Asian American entrepreneurs. Robert Lee, an executive vice president of MetroBank, said, "They call it the Wall Street of Chinatown." In the three decades before 2007, Wells Fargo had one of the few bank branches in the area. Businesspeople began to open Asian American ethnic grocery stores and seafood markets. In the 1980s, Wells Fargo added signs in Chinese and hired tellers who spoke Cantonese, Korean, and nine other languages. During the same decade, local businesspeople opened MetroBank and Texas First National Bank during a banking crisis that hurt the state's mainstream banks. George Lee, the president of MetroCorp Bancshares, said, "All the banks were in trouble, and the ones that were not in trouble didn't understand the needs of the Asian community." American First National Bank maintains a 12 story, $30 million headquarters building in Chinatown. Halliburton previously operated the Houston Office (a. k. a. Oak Park Campus) on 67 acres of land in Chinatown and in the Westchase district. The complex included the Latin America division of Easywell, a division of Halliburton. The building first opened as a Brown and Root facility in 1979. In 2009 the Westchase campus had 1,700 employees; Halliburton plans to increase employment at Oak Park to 3,000. At the Bellaire site Halliburton plans to build a 16 story tower, a two story "life center," an additional parking garage, expanded child care facilities, auditoriums, and bridges to connect the many buildings. The plans for the Oak Park office had been delayed by one year, and Halliburton expected completion in 2013. However Halliburton closed it in 2015, and in 2020 a planned demolition was revealed.

Zoned elementary schools (K 4) located within the GHCVB definition of Chinatown include A. J. Bush, Chambers, Chancellor, Collins, Hearne, Liestman, Mahanay, Martin, and Youens. In addition Sneed Elementary School, outside Chinatown, serves a portion of Chinatown. Bilingual students zoned to Chancellor attend Youens, and bilingual students zoned to Mahanay attend Hearne. Owens Middle School is a zoned intermediate school in Chinatown. Budewig, Miller, and Youngblood, outside Chinatown, serve portions of Chinatown. Middle schools in Chinatown include Alief Middle, Killough, and O'Donnell. A portion is served by Albright Middle, outside Chinatown. Regardless of location within the district, all Alief ISD residents may be randomly assigned to either Alief Elsik High School, Alief Hastings High School, and Alief Taylor High School; all of them are in Chinatown. Other portions are served by Emerson and Piney Point elementary schools. Most of the HISD portion is zoned to Sugar Grove Middle School and Sharpstown High School. A portion of Chinatown is zoned to Revere Middle School and Wisdom High School (formerly Lee High School). Prior to 2011, Sharpstown Middle School served most of the HISD portion of Chinatown. The portion of the HISD portion of New Chinatown south of Bellaire Boulevard was zoned to Sharpstown High School, while the portion north of Bellaire Boulevard was zoned to Lee High School (With Lamar High School and Westside High School as options). For a period after 2011 the Sharpstown zone was assigned to Sharpstown International School for grades 6 through 12.

Strake Jesuit College Preparatory and Saint Agnes Academy are in Chinatown.

Many Chinese holidays are celebrated in the Chinatown area with official events. The CCC has several levels of English classes offered daily. As of 2006, at CCC about 80% of the students have university degrees, and the other 20% are their family members. There is a mural representing the pan Asian cultures made by Thomas Tran, called the Asiatown Community Mural. The organization Houston in Action gave a grant to the Vietnamese Culture and Science Association (VCSA), which hired Tran. Over 200 people created the mural without payment, and the mural opened in 2022.