Every time I see this development, I'm going to think about how racist it is.
I know you're being facetious, but it's very clear if you look at the development that has occurred around the boundaries of Chinatown, developers have very clearly tried to isolate the neighbourhood over the last several decades. Look at Harry Hays, Sun Life Plaza, The Bow Tower and, yes, Parkside condos. They all orient their retail and nicest design features away from Chinatown. On the Chinatown side is where they stick the parking garages, fire exists, etc. Contrast that with how development has been oriented around Stephen Avenue.
The fact is, Chinatowns across North America have long been regarded as a dirty, ethnic slums and developers and governments have long done things to try to isolate them or even wipe them right off the map. The fact that Centre Street and 2nd Ave isn't a massive expressway interchange is a result of Chinatown fighting back against the government's plan to level the whole neighbourhood.
So, you can treat racism like a joke, but this is the history that people in Chinatown remember. This is why they're so critical of new development, because they don't trust big developers or the government. And they have good reasons not to.
Wouldn't it also be racist to specifically market the complex to only Chinese or Asian people? Is the goal to keep Chinatown's population only Chinese? Are other ethnicities encouraged or discouraged from living there? Using Chinatown as a direct marketing strategy is inadvertently biased towards attracting an Asian demographic.
In my opinion I'm not seeing any racism from the developer. Perhaps they want to market to the entire population and their neutral marketing reflects that. Purposely marketing towards a specific demographic is more "racist" in my opinion.
I'm not accusing the developers of being racists. I'm saying that the very conspicuous absence of any mention of Chinatown in marketing materials (like, not even a single photo of lanterns or lion statues) and the orientation of all the pedestrian-friendly retail on the Eau Claire side, and parking garages and fire doors on the Chinatown side, was a conscious decision. It is a conscious decision that was very likely based on the assumption that Chinatown carries a social stigma and that "Eau Claire" residences will sell for more than "Chinatown" residences. Again, I'm not accusing the developers of being racist. The socail stigma - real or perceived - is what is racist. Perhaps if the developers had embraced the location in Chinatown and tried to better integrate the buildings on the Chinatown side, they would have built a better development and maybe the retail would be doing a lot better.
And, for the record, I never said anything about "marketing toward a specific demographic". Acknowledging the building is in Chinatown is not the same as trying to sell units only to Chinese people.
