Searching for Home Place Identity for Chinese Immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area and Its Implications on Environmental Design

Abstract

Given the increase of international immigration, searching for a meaningful home place identity by immigrants has become an important research issue in environmental design. By employing research methods including interviews, fuzzy set theory and the analytical hierarchy process, this study explores how the perceived home place identity and environmental design are related to Chinese immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area. Starting from a theoretical discussion of the concept of home place identity, this study attempts to develop an analytical method to explore the meaning of home place identity for overseas Chinese immigrants, as well as its implications for environmental design. This is followed by an empirical study of selected Chinese immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area. The results of the empirical study show that perceived home place identity among these Chinese immigrants is socially constructed to reflect the daily needs, existing values and social attachments of these people. After examining the proposed evaluation framework, this study identifies several key environmental design elements associated with home place identity of Chinese immigrants, including access to social networks, access to Chinese food and restaurants, social activities on the street, the design and uses of public spaces in the community, and mixed use condition of land use in the community. This study also finds that accessibility to daily services and social networks are more important than creating symbolic traditional Chinese architecture styles and decorations in building home place identity for Chinese immigrants. Based on the empirical findings, this study suggests some key considerations in environmental design as a means to create a meaningful home place identity for Chinese immigrants in a diverse Western society.