Canada's revitalizing Gastown, Railtown and Chinatown
Read the whole Los Angeles Times story at: Hip meets heritage in VancouverTucked alongside the city's forest of gleaming glass towers are three historic neighborhoods that had been overlooked until recently. These neighborhoods, the city's oldest, had fallen into disrepair and were home to those struggling to survive in one of Canada's poorest postal codes.
Gastown is Vancouver's birthplace; Railtown boomed as the warehouse district for the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway, which was completed in 1885; and Chinatown was the hub for many of the 15,000 Asian immigrants who helped construct that nation-building line.
Skateboards and modern art pop up amid the traditional in gentrifying Chinatown
Trendy shops, gastropubs and high-tech firms have re-illuminated Gastown
Railtown on track to becoming a funky 'hood full of craft beers and stellar food
"Railtown is becoming a hip 'hood, and it's changing fast. On a decidedly ungentrified block of Powell Street, a young couple recently opened the funky, vintage Mackenzie Room restaurant, while just down the road is the new, industrial-chic, pan-Latin small-plate Cuchillo."