Irvine will never become Monterey Park. Here are the reasons:
1. Other cities around Irvine are still way too pricey unlike Monterey Park with its cheap neighbors like El Monte, Rosemead, El Sereno, and Alhambra. At the sametime San Marino and Arcadia Chinese are taking businesses to a higher notch. Ding Tai Fung dumpling house for instance has built its own building with tasteful interior and architecture. It obviously robbed its customers and underpaid its Hispanic dumpling assembly line workers. Immigrants with limited budget will not be able to live in and around Irvine. It is the poor immigrants who are the backbone for the Monterey Park culture. The poor population are the cuisine chefs, dim sum chefs, waiters, mom and pop shop owners, salon hair dresser with 10am-11pm shop hours, josh and incense store owners, red bean mini pancake merchants outside every supermarket, fake Louis Vuitton smugglers/retailers, Asian massage parlors Mamasan that guarantee happy endings, and etc. The fabric of Monterey Park is composed of rich and poor that provides the endless cycles of services and happy consumers. Due to the low overhead price is very competitive.
2. Zoning in Irvine is too strict compared to Monterey Park. Cheap and ugly retail strip malls with bargain rents and office spaces allowed the Chinese communities to flourish. The Irvine Company who own all but 3 shopping centers will not compromise its standard in rent and financial portfolios. The Chinese businesses are all in the non Irvine Company retail centers. The 3rd one is Diamond Plaza. Signage control limits the chaotic graphic and freedom of Chinese business signs and advertising. The chaotic color, signage, neon signs, and advertising bills are the unique characteristic for all Chinatown across America as well as Hong Kong, Macao and Shanghai on a much larger scale. The mismatched and bad taste architectural craps are what made these Chinatowns distinctive.
3. Public transportation is big for immigrants and the vital work force that help to sustain Monterey park economic. OC is the worst in Public transit in the nation.
4. Irvine ordinance forbids late hours and seedy businesses. Night clubs and bars are reasons for the nightlife. The strip clubs in city of Industry is the pulse for the nightlife in Rowland Heights. The bars and City of Commerce Casinos are the beat for Monterey Park. After their night out and gambling they need to eat at the Noodle Planets around 1:00 am or get a haircut at 11:00 pm.
5. Asians come from cities that never sleep and placing them in Irvine is like sending cockroaches to dormancy.
[quote author="Bubblegum" date=1211344958]I hate to say this, but Irvine is looking like Monterey Park circa 1985. I guess it'll be really true when we see the Mar family building shopping centers here and a Noodle Planet/World.</blockquote>
