Businesses bring people into a central area, and more people means more traffic and safety issues, whether it concerns pedestrians or drivers. As you can see in the above picture of the intersection at Victoria Drive and East 41st Avenue, it is a very busy intersection. It never used to be like this, as I have observed and as I have been told. Sure this intersection was still central to the neighbourhood, but there never used to be a non-stop flow of people during all hours of daylight. You can also see in the background of this picture the line-up of cars stopped at the red light, on a mid-week afternoon. Parking is also a disaster around this area. It is extremely difficult to find a parking spot on Victoria Drive close to all the stores, even though many cars come and go, simply to pick up whatever they need and leave. At least the city has not established pay parking here yet.
At the intersection of Victoria Drive and East 43rd Avenue, right in front of King's Supermarket, there is a blinking green traffic light. One of the elderly Chinese men that I spoke with told me that this traffic light was put up by the city several years ago, probably after someone noticed the increase of pedestrians in the area and expressed their concern to the city.
Yet another person that I spoke with while roaming the streets was an young Italian in his early twenties. He had lived in the neighbourhood all his life and went to public school in the area for several years also. His opinion on the Asian business boom, however, is that there was none! He said that this area has been the same for ages, and points out Consumer's Food Market as one of the stores that had been there for ages. He did mention a few exceptions such as Greenwoods Livings Enterprises and Fine Cookware & $1 Stuff as new Asian stores that just didn't really fit in with what has always been there. These two stores were obviously new, as one can tell by their exterior appearance.
Because this business boom involved Asian businesses, other businesses whose services were not aimed specifically at the Asian population in the area had to now accomodate to the Asian market because that is where the business would be. The same elderly man that told me about the traffic light at East 43rd Avenue told me about the Chinese people that now worked at the Bank of Montreal. He no longer had trouble expalning to the tellers what he wanted to do with his money.
The picture below shows one of the many produce markets on East Pender Street in Chinatown. Today, one can see numerous markets just like this one on Victoria Drive. Some say that one of the major effects of this business boom is that it has turned Victoria Drive into a mini-Chinatown. In the next section, I will discuss how it really compares to Vancouver Chinatown.
