ethnic diversity down under

Ethnic Diversity Down Under

Ethnic Precincts in Sydney

Jock Collins Professor of Economics School of Finance and Economics Faculty of Business University ofTechnology Sydney (UTS) Australia

AbstractThispaper explores the emergence of ethnic precincts in Sydney Australias largest most culturally-diverse cityIt explores the key role of ethnic entrepreneurs and government authorities in shaping the emergence anddevelopment of these precincts The paper also explores the place marketing of ethnic precincts and the waythat they can link into national and international tourism as cultural diversity becomes commodified The paper

finally explores the contradictions inherent in contemporary ethnicprecincts in Sydney

Keywords Ethnic precincts Place marketing Ethnic Economy Tourism Contradictions

IntroductionAustralia is one of the most urbanised countries inthe world with 85 per cent of its people living inplaces with more than 1000 inhabitants (Burney2001) At the same time Australia has received inrelative terms one of the largest intakes ofimmigrants of any western nation with some 23 percent of its population first-generation immigrants(OECD 2001) Immigrants in turn have reinforcedthe trend to the urbanisation and suburbanisation ofAustralian society they are more likely to live inlarge cities than other Australians with a level ofurbanisation of over 90 per cent (Castles et al1998) Sydney Australias largest city with apopulation of just under four million (3948014) atthe 2001 Census one-fifth of the nations populationof 20 million is also Australias largest immigrantcity generally receiving over 40 per cent ofAustralias annual immigrant intake Today Sydneyis home to people from over 180 nations with 58per cent of the population in 2001 first- or second-generation immigrants Sydney is unmistakably acosmopolitan city And it has been the case since theearliest days Indeed Sydneys white history whichdates from first settlement in Sydney Cove in 1788is the history of immigration (Spearitt 2000 Collins1991)

This paper explores the ways that (changing)spatial patterns of immigrant settlement the ethniceconomy (Light and Gold 2000 4) and ethnicentrepreneurship (Collins et al 1995 Collins 2003)have shaped the economic physical and sociallandscape of Sydney from downtown through theinner-city suburban ring to the middle and outersuburbs It looks at the ways that these minorityimmigrant communities and their entrepreneurs haveshaped the built environment in Sydneys suburbsIn particular it looks at the links between the(changing) settlement patterns of immigrants and the

(changing) spatial patterns of economicentrepreneurship by examining clusters of ethnicentrepreneurs in a number of key ethnic precincts inSydney

This paper is organised in the following waySection 2 provides a brief overview of the changingsettlement patterns of immigrants in Sydney Section3 emphasises the importance of the role ofimmigrant entrepreneurs in shaping Sydneys ethniceconomy and investigates spatial dimensions ofethnic entrepreneurship in Sydney Section 4 thenlooks at the nature of Sydneys ethnic precincts suchas Chinatown Little Italy and Cabramattainvestigating the role of clusters of immigrantentrepreneurs - particularly those in the restaurantand food business - in shaping the contemporarycosmopolitan feel of these Sydneyneighbourhoods Section 5 draws the mainconclusions from the paper

Cosmopolitan SydneyAt the 2001 National Census there were nearly 25million Sydney-siders born in Australia and over180000 UK-born The other birthplace groups inSydney with a population in excess of 20000 asTable 1 shows were China New Zealand VietnamLebanon Italy Hong Kong India Greece KoreaFiji and South Africa In addition Sydney hasanother 13 birthplace groups with a populationbetween 10000 and 20000 and over 100 birthplacegroups with a population of less than 10000 The2001 Census also revealed other dimensions ofcosmopolitan Sydney Sydneys South-east Asian-born population comprises 56 per cent of thepopulation and 156 per cent of the overseas bornover 180000 Sydney-siders speak a Chineselanguage at home and 130287 people speak Arabicat home (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2002 202224)

International Journal aDiversity in Organisations Communities and Nations Volume 4 bull wwwDiversity-JournalcomCopyright copy Common Ground middotISSN 1447-9532 (Print) 1SSN 1447-9583 (Online)Paper presented at the Fourth International Conference on Diversity in Organisations Communities and Nations held at the University ofCalifornia Los Angeles 6-9 July 2004 bull wwwDiversity-Conferencecom

International Journal of Diversity in Organisations Communities and Nations Volume 4

Table 1Sydneys Population bv Birthplace 2001)

Birthplace NumberAustralia 2454424

United Kingdom 183991

China 82029

New Zealand 81963

VietNam 61423

Lebanon 52008

Italv 48900

Hong Kong 36039

India 34503

Greece 33688

Korea 26928

Fiji 25368

South Africa 25190

Source http wwwabsgovauhttpwwwabsgovauwebsitedbsD331 0114NSF4a25635300 1af3ed4b2562bbOO 121564780ca69788870e99ca256b23000 1faf9

Analysis of the (changing) spatial patterns ofimmigrant settlement in Sydney gives a clue to thespatial location ofthe ethnic economy in Sydney andto the changing landscape of Sydneys builtenvironment Most immigrant minorities - that isthose from a non-English-speaking background orNESB - live in Sydneys south-western suburbsMoreover all of the Local Government Areas(LGAs) with a relatively high proportion of first-and second-generation NESB immigrants arelocated in Sydneys south-western suburbs Inaddition even the LGAs with the highestconcentration of immigrants are themselves verydiverse and multicultural with no one immigrantbirthplace group dominating the population of anySydney LGA

The ethnic composition of Sydneys immigrantintake has changed over time British and Irish -and more recently New Zealand-born immigrants-were always preferred but there were never enoughof them to fill immigration targets As aconsequence in the past half a century theAustralian immigration net also brought in EasternEuropean refugees in the late 1940s NorthernEuropeans in the first half of the 1950s SouthernEuropeans in the 1950s and 1960s and since themid-1970s Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants(Collins 1991 Burnley 2001) Sydneys populationwas comprised of literally hundreds of ethnicgroups (Collins and Castillo 1998) This did not leadto an emergence of ethnic ghettoes in SydneyRather a process of ethnic succession thenoccurred in the poorer areas of the city where newimmigrants gathered with newly-arrived ethnicgroups replacing those ethnic groups who had beenable after time to build up enough resources to

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move out to more preferable locations andneighbourhoods (Burnley 1986)

Ethnic Entrepreneurship and the EthnicEconomy in SydneyEthnic or immigrant entrepreneurship is central tobut not limited by the ethnic economy in all westerncountries of immigrant settlement (Light 1972Waldinger et al 1990 Rath ed 2000 Kloostermanand Rath eds 2003) The link between immigrantminorities and entrepreneurship has been strong inAustralia for over 100 years (Collins et al 1995)Ethnic business has a long history in Australia Fromthe earliest days of the 19th Century immigrants ofnon-English-speaking background moved intoentrepreneurship This is particularly true ofimmigrants from China (Choi 1975 Wang 1988Yuan 1988) Greece (Price 1963) Italy (Pascoe19881990 Collins 1992) and Lebanon (McKay andBatrouney 1988) Jewish immigrants also haverelatively high rates of entrepreneurship (Rutland1988 Rubenstein 1988 Glezer 1988) By 1947immediately before the mass Australian post-warimmigration program more than half of theimmigrants born in Greece Poland and Italy andmore than a third of those born in Germany Maltaand the former Yugoslavia were self-employed oremployers compared to only a fifth of theAustralian-born (Collins 1991 89-90)

Today many immigrant men and women are over-represented as entrepreneurs in small business(Collins 2003 Lever Tracey et al 1991 Roffey etal 1996 Low 2004) Koreans have the highest rateof entrepreneurship while Taiwanese GreeksItalians Lebanese German Dutch and Jewish

immigrants have higher rates of entrepreneurshipthan the Australian-born on average But not allimmigrant groups demonstrate relatively high ratesof entrepreneurship Other groups of immigrants -those born in China Singapore Malaysia EgyptPoland Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia - havesimilar rates of entrepreneurship to the Australianaverage Moreover immigrants from Japan IndiaSri Lanka Vietnam Indonesia and Turkey havelower than average rates of entrepreneurshipImmigrant groups from English-speaking westerncountries such as those born in the UnitedKingdom New Zealand Canada and the US alsohave rates of entrepreneurship very similar to theAustralian-born Ethnicity over-rides gender in thisrespect males and females from the same countryhave similar rates of entrepreneurship Clearly therelationship between immigration ethnicity andentrepreneurship is complex This section exploresthis relationship particularly in relation to its spatialdimension in cities

One explanation for the high rates of immigrantentrepreneurship in western cities is linked to spatialpatterns of immigrant settlement The literature onethnic or immigrant entrepreneurship in cities hasidentified two main arguments about the relationshipbetween space place and entrepreneurship Oneargument links the emergence of ethnicentrepreneurs to areas in the city of high ethnicconcentration ethnic enclaves that provideopportunities for ethnic business to serve the needsof compatriots the ethno-specific market Miami isthe classic example in the literature of how a largesize immigrant community (Cuban) provided a goodbase for numerous businesses to flourish (Wilsonand Martin 1982) Spatial demographicconcentration of immigrants enhances theopportunities for the development of ethnicentrepreneurship through the provision of networksa consumer base and the supply of workers andfinances This facilitates mobilisation of ethnicresources indicated as cultural endowmentsacculturation lags reactive solidarities sojourningorientation and all other aspects of ethnicityinfluencing behaviour (Light and Rosenstein 199524 Waldinger et aI 1990 36 Collins et aI 199531) But in places with a large density and numberof ethnic entrepreneurs they do acquire a major rolein the local economy and could contributesignificantly to revival of the local economy (Portesand Bach 1985 OECD 2001 97 Waldinger et aI1990 113)

The problem with the ethnic enclave model in theSydney case is that patterns of immigrant settlementare very different from Miami Jupp McRobbie andYork (1991) have argued that areas of ethnicconcentration in Australia could not be regarded asghettoes since there were no areas of a dominantsingle minority group nor were there areas ofmarked social disadvantage or absence of


employment opportunities and social servicesBurnley (2001) has analysed patterns of ethnicsegregation in Sydney using Census data He foundthat although there are strong residentialconcentrations of certain groups (VietnameseLebanese Chinese and Greeks) very few groupscould be regarded as segregated from the rest of thepopulation

The other argument links the success of ethnicentrepreneurs to their ability to transcend theenclave to reach out to the mainstream market Inthis view immigrant entrepreneurs could beregarded as middlemen minorities (Bonacich andModell 1980) whose main economic base is not theco-ethnic market but the broader marketopportunities outside the enclave Waldinger (198621) argued that for most ethnic businesses successrequires transcending the bounds of the ethnicenclave Waldinger et aI (1990) argue that ifimmigrant businesses do not expand beyond theethnic niche their potential for growth is sharplycircumscribed This is partly because over timeincreased competition for a limited niche marketleads to a proliferation of smaller business units anda high failure rate The ethnic niche is seen as aninitial point of entry for many ethnic smallbusinesses However for longer run businesssuccess the ethnic product must become popular toa larger non-ethnic market or diversification ofbusiness interests must occur Trevor Jones and hiscolleagues (Jones et al 2000) in the UK havereferred to this as breaking out

These two trends appear to be alternatives withthe international research offering examples of boththe closed and open market strategies amongdifferent groups of ethnic entrepreneurs Howeverthe experience of Chinese Italian and Greekentrepreneurs in Sydney suggests that entrepreneursfrom the same ethnic group can adopt both theethnic market and mainstream market Moreoverthe large diversity of Australias post-warimmigration intake has given cities like Sydney notan ethnic enclave with one ethnic group dominatingthe population but rather multi-ethnic ormulticultural local areas

Chinese Italian and Greek entrepreneurs were insome ways the vanguard of encroaching immigrantdiversity in Australian suburbs and regional andrural areas The Greek milk bar (precursors to thecafe) Italian fruit and vegetable shop (greengrocers)and Chinese restaurant were in most Australiancountry towns and city suburbs By 1981 Italiansran one-third of the fruit and vegetable shops inAustralia while Greeks owned one-third of the cafesand take-away food shops (Collins 1989 Castles etal 1991) Some Greek and Italian entrepreneurslocated in the ethnic niche of Leichhardts LittleItaly and (for Greeks in the 1950s to 1980s)Marrickville (Collins and Castillo 1998 21-24)while many others the majority established in

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suburbs and towns with little or no Italian or Greekimmigrants

Similarly we can trace the breaking out fromChinatown of Chinese restaurants in Sydney in post-war decades by mapping the spread of Chineserestaurants on the Sydney Yellow Pages - thebusiness phone listings - for the years 1969-701976-77 1980 1984 1990 1995 and 200 I Thetotals of Chinese restaurants for Sydney for eachyear group are respectively 171 112 470 550607 612 and 558 The number of Chineserestaurants in Sydney jumped dramatically betweenthe period 1976 and 1980 the White Australiapolicy was formally abolished in 1972 and largenumbers of ethnic Chinese did not begin to arrive inSydney until after 1976 The number of Chineserestaurants rose until the 1990s when it plateauedout before declining slightly This can be explainedby two factors Firstly the Chinese immigrationintake was largely comprised of professionals andhighly skilled workers in the 1990s Many of thesemoved to North Shore Sydney locations and foundgood wage-labour jobs in the corporate sector of thecity Secondly there was a change in culinary tasteIn the 1980s there was a boom in Vietnamese foodwhile in the 1990s Thai food was the number onechoice in Asian cuisine Many Chinese restaurantssimply changed their names to reflect this change inconsumer taste For example Bankstown had fourChinese restaurants in 1969 and nine in 1990 butonly seven in 2001 More generic Asian foodrestaurants and take-away shops were listed in the1990s

The other interesting feature of this data is thespatial location of these Chinese restaurants inSydney In the 1950s and I960s most of theserestaurants were located in the city or inner-cityprecinct But in the past three decades they havespread out to all of Sydneys municipal areas In1971 there were Chinese restaurants in just over 100Sydney suburbs Given the success of the WhiteAustralia policy this reflects Chinese immigrationlinked to the tum ofthe century By 2001 only 34 ofSydneys 256 suburbs did not have a Chineserestaurant Some suburbs that had no Chineserestaurants in 1976 had a large number by 2001These suburbs include Auburn (five in 2001)Cabramatta (eight in 2001) Castle Hill (six)Eastwood (five) and St Marys (seven) Othersuburbs that had at least one Chinese restaurant in1971 had a large number by 2001 Included here arethe Northern suburbs of Chatswood (two in 1971 10in 2001) and Crows Nest (two and 10) Kensingtonwhere the University of New South Wales issituated increased its number of Chinese restaurantsfrom one in 1971 to six in 200 I Parramatta inSydneys west had three Chinese restaurants in1971 and 12by 2001

In other words the geography of Chineserestaurants in Sydney is shaped by a number of

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factors They include the changing size andcharacter of Chinese immigration including theirclass background and human capital Changingsettlement patterns of ethnic Chinese in Sydney alsoshapes this as does settlement patterns in Sydney ingeneral Critical here is the spread of the Sydneypopulation to the western fringes of the city and agrowth of population in the Western suburbs wherenew market niches have been generated Moreoverthe opportunity for Chinese immigrants to enterprimary labour market jobs in Sydney plays a rolereducing the attractiveness to high-paid Chineseprofessionals of starting up a restaurant Ficklechanges in consumer food taste also play a roleChinese food was perhaps the first ethnic food thatmost Anglo-Celtic Sydney-siders tasted These daysthe hotter chilli based Thai restaurants are morepopular as Sydney-siders become more adventurousin their international travel and their foodpreferences

The other important argument in the ethnicentrepreneurship literature relates to how (changing)patterns of immigrant settlement in cities lead tochanging opportunities for ethnic entrepreneursOpportunities are created for new immigrants toenter into business ownership as the ethniccomposition of an area in Sydney changes Aldrichand Reiss (1976) refer to this process as ecologicalsuccession (whereby immigrant groups move intoareas as the non-immigrants move out to newerbetter domains) The experience of Koreanshopkeepers in black neighbourhoods in large citiessuch as Chicago and Los Angeles in the UnitedStates are also examples (Yoon 1995 Ong Park andTong 1994) This process is very evident inAustralian capital cities such as Sydney andMelbourne As the Australian-born working classmoved from the traditional inner-city suburbs tomiddle-ring and outer suburbs newly-arrived ethnicgroups moved in In Sydney inner-city areas havebeen transformed from slums into gentrifiedcosmopolitan and popular suburbs (Burnley 1986)Opportunities in new businesses and abandoned oldbusinesses - such as the comer shops - emerged forthe immigrants (Castles et al 1991) The comergrocery shop was an institution in the suburbs ofAustralian cities until the mid-1960s whensupermarkets and regional shopping complexesbegan to dominate As the comer shops wereabandoned Greeks Italians and Lebanese movedinto this vacated niche in retailing Other new nichesoccur in the non-ethnic market that can be quicklyresponded to by immigrant businesses In SydneyVietnamese immigrants moved into hot breadshops to fill the gap in the market created by thelong-held tradition whereby the large breadcompanies provided no fresh bread on SundaysSimilarly Italians in Australia moved into liquorshops as legislation removed the domination of beerand alcohol sales by hotels in the 1970s (Collins

1992) As families began to spend more income onmeals outside the home ethnic restaurants becamepart of the mainstream market tastes The growth ofoutdoor dining in Sydneys restaurants and cafes - afeature of the city only in the past few decades - isalso a reminder of the important role that regulationplays in shaping ethnic entrepreneurship(Kloosterman and Rath 2001) since changing Statelegislation was required for this to happen

It is clear then that ethnic entrepreneurs play asignificant role in the small business sector of theSydney economy in general and the food sector inparticular underlying the cultural significance ofeating ethnic food (Warde 1997 Warde and Martens2000) This section has explored some of the spatialaspects of the ethnic economy of Sydney andinvestigated how Chinese Italian and Greekentrepreneurs exploited entrepreneurial niches in themainstream rather than ethnic market But at thesame time they also clustered with co-ethnicentrepreneurs in downtown and suburban areas thathave become ethnic precincts examined in the nextsection

Ethnic Precincts in SydneyEthnic precincts are one of the most significantvisual and neighbourhood manifestations of theimpact of the ethnic economy and ethnic diversityon Sydneys landscape There are many ethnicprecincts in Sydney today Like so many westerncities with a minority immigrant history (Zhou 1992Lin 1998 Fong 1994 Anderson 1991) Sydney has aprominent and long-established Chinatown in thedowntown area though most of Sydneys ethnicprecincts are located in south-western SydneySydneys ethnic precincts include Little Italy(Leichhardt) Little Korea (Campsie) Petersham(Portuguese) and Marrickville (once Greek nowVietnamese) in Sydneys inner-south-westernsuburban ring In the middle-south-western suburbanring ethnic precincts include Auburn (Arabicquarter) Lakemba and Punchbowl (MiddleEastern) and Bankstown (Asian and MiddleEastern) Cabramatta in the Fairfield municipalityis further out still and has become an Asiatown(Collins and Castillo 1998) One exception is theNorth Shore Chinese precinct of Chatswood thecentre of professional and well-educated middle-class Chinese immigrants In addition the BondiBeach area in the Eastern suburbs has a prominentJewish history and presence Some of these areaslike many other suburbs across the breadth ofSydney are multicultural places at least in terms ofrestaurants Some take the title precincts othersquarters while others get no nomenclature at all Forthe sake of brevity only the ethnic precincts ofChinatown Little Italy and Cabramatta will beexplored in any detail


ChinatownThe history of Chinese settlement in Sydney datesback over 150 years A brief history of Australianimmigration reveals that racist responses to Chineseimmigrants constrained the opportunity structuresfor Chinese immigrants in Sydney at the end of the19th Century (Markus 1994 Collins 2002 Collinsand Henry 1994) The 1901 White Australia policyinstitutionalised and legalised anti-Chinese attitudesand practices Those who stayed found it hard to getjobs as wage-labourers (Choi 1975) Many movedinto entrepreneurship particularly the marketgardens food and furniture niche markets Thismove - a classical case of blocked mobility theory(Collins 2002) - was critical not only to the survivalof the families of Chinese entrepreneurs themselvesbut also to the economic survival of those Chinesewho remained

Responding to community prejudice and drawingon the attraction of co-ethnic provision of goodsservices language and company the concentratedsettlement patterns of Chinese immigrants andentrepreneurs reflected the blocked residential andlabour market mobility the Chinese faced Sydneysearly Chinese settlement was in the 1860s aroundGeorge Street close to the wharves (Anderson1990) Later the Haymarket area became the focusof a mainly male Chinese group Chinese enterpriseshave always been central to Chinatowns the worldover Major Chinese businesses were grocery storesmarket gardening furniture and cabinet making andimportexport In the 1890s Sydneys Chinatownmoved to the Gipps Ward west of the centralbusiness district By 190 I there were 799 Chineseshopkeepers and grocers in New South Wales(NSW) Half of these were in the Sydney area manyas greengrocers one-third of the Chinese in NSWworked in market gardens (Choi 1975 29) Marketgardens became the base for later expansion intoindependent employment in fruit and vegetabledistribution in grocer shops and cafes as generaldealers hawkers and importers (Choi 1975 33)Other Chinese moved into the laundry business oropened small furniture shops Chinese furniturefactory ownership reached a peak in 1912 whenChinese owned 168 factories (31 of the totalnumber) and employed 818 workers (28 of thefurniture trades work force) (Yuan 1988 305)

In the 1940s Chinatown moved to Campbell andDixon Streets in the city where it is still locatedtoday (Collins and Castillo 1998 278-89 Fitzgerald1997) Immediately after the Second World WarChinese immigrants continued their earlier presencein the vegetable and fruit retailing businessHowever as new immigrants particularly Italiansalso moved into this area of business (Collins et al1995) the Chinese responded with flexibility Manyturned their business activities to running cafes andrestaurants all over the metropolitan and rural areasacross the nation By the mid-1980s Chinese cafes

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or restaurants were a feature of the Australiansuburban and country town landscape According toChin (1988) there were 700 cafes operated byChinese in NSW with 300 in Sydney at that timemost of them employing Chinese labour TodayChinatown is a very vibrant and lively precinct Theauthenticity of Chinatown is seen in the fact thatmany of Sydneys permanent and temporaryChinese immigrant population use Chinatownregularly not only to shop and eat but also to accessmedical dental and legal services

The development of Sydneys Chinatown has beenshaped by local government authorities an exampleof the way that regimes of regulation shape ethnicentrepreneurial outcomes in different countries indifferent ways (Kloosterman and Rath 2001) Theredevelopment of Dixon Street began in 1972 byintroducing portico lanterns and trash bins withtraditional Chinese symbols in order to make thearea more Chinese (Anderson 1990 150)According to Anderson this redevelopment ofSydneys Chinatown was driven by the fact thatSydney planners were envious of San Franciscodevelopments and thought their Chinatown shabbyby comparison In the 1980s changes includeddeveloping Dixon Street as a pedestrianthoroughfare the erection of Chinese dragons at thePaddys Market end and the planting of Chinesetrees along the streetscape It was linked to the newDarling Harbour development via the ChineseGardens (Fitzgerald 1997) Hong Kong Chinesecapital financed much ofthis development

However according to Anderson (1990 150)Sydneys Chinatown has been revitalised in waysthat reflect white Australias image of Chinese-nessMaking the area more Chinese seemed to makethe area appear more consistent with thearchitectural motifs and symbols of ancient ChinaThis is an argument made about Chinatowns in otherplaces such as New York according to Lin (1998173) who put it thus In the process of retrofittingChinatown for popular consumption these outsidersdeliberately manipulated reality to suit the imaginaryexpectations of Western observers A related pointis the way in which during this process ofdeveloping Chinatown the Chinese were seen asan homogenous Other rather than a communitylike any other divided along regional class andcommercial lines There are more than one hundredethnic Chinese community organisations in SydneyDifferent plans to redevelop Sydneys Chinatownhave led to internal struggles within the Chinesecommunity over the right to gain representation onthe relevant development and planning committees(Anderson 1990)

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Little Italy (Leichhardt inner-westernsuburbs)Italian immigration history in Sydney has beenstrongly linked to entrepreneurship and to the inner-western suburb of Leichhardt (Price 1963 Pascoe19~8 1990 Collins 1992) - Sydneys Little ItalyLeichhardt has been the original home of SydneysItalian immigrant community since the end of the19th Century In 1885 fishmonger AngeloPomabello and the Bongiorno Brothers were amongthe first Italians to settle in Leichhardt They openeda fruit shop on Parramatta Road But it was not untilthe 1920s that a Little Italy began taking shape in theLeichhardt community The move of Italians toLeichhardt was linked to religion with Capuchinpriests posted there Italian immigrants would go tothem looking for help to deal with thatimpenetrable official letter to get a job or just tofind amiddot place to live Slowly they began stayingaround replenished by the chain migration ofbrothers cousins wives children and parents in thefollowing decades

Before the First World War Italians clustered inthe Leichhardt streets between Balmain Road and~il1 StreetBy 1933 around 400 Italians were livingIII Leichhardt the major Italian enclave in SydneyBy 1947 over half of Italian-born men in theAustralian labour force had been entrepreneurs thatis either employers or self-employed (Collins 1991Collins et al 1995) The growth of the Italia~community expanded dramatically in the followingyears and was reinforced with a massive wave ofimmigrants moving into the area in the late 1950sand early 1960s For the post-war Italianimmigrants Leichhardt offered cheap housingproximity to employers of unskilled labour Italianshops and other businesses Religion and commercewere at the centre of this flourishing communityThe Saint Fiacre Church and parish still run by theItalian-speaking Capuchin Fathers became the hubof Italian life in the area As early as 1962 therewere already four Italian cafes in Leichhardt andsoon they were joined by other businesses such asfruit vendors real estate agents grocers restaurantshairdressers bookmakers butchers pharmaciesshops bakeries jewellers music shops and night-clubs Between 1954 and 1961 the number ofItalians living in Leichhardt increased from 1493 to4566

This residential concentration began to be reflectedin the business composition ofthe area By 1958 thepresence of Italian entrepreneurs in Leichhardt wasbecoming further entrenched Italian entrepreneursestablished businesses including travel agenciesimported wine shops womens fashion shops radiostores and a second phase of comparison goodsstores following earlier more basic conveniencestores - delicatessen fruiterer pastry shops andseafood stores (Burnley 2001 161) By 1976 there

were 175 Italian businesses in Leichhardt includingfruiterers greengrocers cafes restaurants pastryshops furniture shops real estate agents and mixedbusinesses They served Italians and other localcustomers (Burnley 1988 628) In recent decadesLeichhardt has undergone significant changes ManyItalian families have moved to other middle-ringsuburbs such as Drummoyne Ashfield HaberfieldConcord and Burwood or to outer-ring suburbs inthe Fairfield area By 2001 there were only 2000people out of a Leichhardt population of 60000 whowere born in Italy and two-thirds of those living inthe municipality were born in Australia many toimmigrant parents Indeed more New Zealand-bornlive in Leichhardt today than do Italian-born

But despite the population loss Little Italy is morevibrant and more Italian than ever there are somethings that never change Leichhardt especiallyalong Norton Street with its outdoor cafesrestaurants and delicatessens reminiscent of Romanstreet scenes has maintained its definite Italian feelThe young guys stroll or drive the street Olderpeople are also on their passagianata taking a gelatowith them The rise or fall of the Azzuri is celebratedwith noise and emotion along Norton Street TodayItalian-born entrepreneurs have if anythingexpanded in Leichhardt as new cafes and restaurantsspring up along the strip It is these entrepreneursnot the Italian population of Leichhardt who definethe contemporary Italian feel of Leichhardts streetsalthough the fact that a large number of Italiancustomers along Norton Street - many coming fromother suburbs - are Italian does give it an air ofauthenticity Burnley (2001 171) lists 325 Italian-owned businesses in Leichhardt and neighbouringFive Dock One hundred and ninety were involvedin general retail (including 33 restaurants 18 cafes13 butchers and 11 pasticceria) 58 were lightindustrials (including terrazzo tiles and pasta foodmanufacture) and 72 were professionals (doctorsaccountants dentists optometrists solicitors andpara-medicals) This highlights the importance ofethnic entrepreneurs in the professional and servicearea adding to the culinary reasons that Italianswould visit Leichhardt though for non-Italians thefood the coffee and the ambiance of Little Italy aremost critical

The Leichhardt Municipal Council has supportedthe development of Little Italy along Norton StreetIt has undertaken street beautification programs andsponsor the annual Norton Street Festival Held inMarch or April each year Norton Street is closedand lavishly decorated in the Italian colours ofgreen red and white In place of cars food andmarket stalls art exhibitions and otherentertainments attracted over 100000 people in1997 highlighting the popularity of this event(Collins and Castillo 1998 169) A recentdevelopment the Italian Forum near the ParramattaRoad end of Norton Street and financed by Italian


immigrant millionaire Franco Belgiorno-Nettisreproduces an Italian village piassa atmosphere withfive-storey apartment blocks overlooking an internalsquare that is ringed by two levels of restaurantswith tables and chairs sprawling outwards to themiddle of the square

Asian Town (Cabramatta outer-westernsuburbs)Cabramatta is a suburban Asia town in SydneysWestern suburbs or an ethnoburb to use Lis (1998504) term to discuss suburbs of multi-ethnicimmigrant settlement in the USA In the 1980sCabramatta had been dubbed Vietnamatta by themedia highlighting the strong Vietnamese presencein the suburb (Collins 1991 66-69) Along JohnStreet which runs along the western side ofCabramatta Railway Station a vibrant ethnicprecinct has emerged with over 820 ethnicbusinesses and institutions Ian Burnley (2001 252)gives a vivid description of the range of ethnicbusinesses featuring a wide range of goods andservices including professional services inCabramatta in 1988

bakeries butcheries (at least 20) cake shopschildrens clothiers confectioneries arts and craftsdress materials and fabrics bridal wear shops adultclothing retailers and manufactures electrical goodssuppliers fish markets (6) general food stores take-away foods (1 0 shops) fruit shops (12) many grocerieshair and beauty salons (10) herbalists ( 5) jewellerslaundries newspaper proprietors newspaper publishersdelicatessens and food importers and manufacturersThere were 30 medical practitioners 15 dentists severalphysiotherapists over 20 accountants several landagents and more recently the growth of travel agenciesas it became possible for Vietnamese and Chinese torevisit South-east Asia

The owners of these businesses were Vietnamese-particularly ethnic Chinese Vietnamese - otherChinese Laotians Cambodians and residual ItaliansCroatians and Serbs

As in the case of Chinatown there has been anattempt by local and state policy makers toredevelop the Cabramatta shopping precinct toattract more customers and visitors from outside thearea In the early 1980s the Cabramatta Chamber ofCommerce - which at that time had no Vietnameseentrepreneurs on it - received a grant of $20000from the Fairfield City Council to develop a plazaarea along John Street In the late 1980s anothercampaign The Start-Up for Cabramatta Campaignwas initiated with a brief to change unfavourableimages to promote the acceptance of the Indo-Chinese community and foster multiculturalactivities such as the Fan Festival the Dragon BoatRace an International Cabaret and good eating(Burnley 2001 248) The unfavourable imageincluded Cabramattas growing reputation as an

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unsafe area - in 1988-89 there were 15 murders in authorities see this as a way of promoting the regionthe area - and as one of Sydneys heroin centres and creating new jobs(Burnley 2001 248)

The NSW State Government responded byincreasing policing in the area including a doublingof the number of police in Cabramatta Police Stationand the introduction of a 16-person foot-patrol ofpolice along John Street and the railway stationareas But they also responded to local governmentauthorities initiatives to develop the areas touristpotential The state government also amendedSection 89B of the Factories Shops and IndustriesAct 1962 to allow areas in Sydney to be classified asholiday resorts and thus able to open for trading onSundays and public holidays The Premier ofNSWNick Greiner opening the new Pailau ChineseGateway in Cabramattas Freedom Plaza inFebruary 1991 stated that Cabramatta with itsdistinctive Asian culture had become a populardestination for visitors from outside the area(quoted in Burnley 2001 250) There were ninebronze and stone sculptures in Freedom Plazaincluding two guarding lion sculptures that weresponsored by Mr Greiner and then Australian PrimeMinister Bob Hawke

Increasingly the tourism experience is linked to thecultural economy (Selwyn ed 1996 Urry 2002) andto images of and experience of place (Suvantola2002) Place marketing can be linked to cultural orethnic diversity to promote ethnic or multi-ethnicprecincts The Fairfield City Council has continuedin its endeavours to promote the tourist potential ofCabramatta by further developing and promoting theOriental or Asian nature of the shopping precinctA glossy brochure targeting visitors to the city andinviting tourists to visit Cabramatta has beenlaunched The 2002 brochure claims thatCabramatta is a day trip to Asia Here an hourfrom the centre of Sydney is an explosion of Asiancolour - a bustling marketplace offering all theingredients for a banquet for the senses Localexpert guides accompany visitors on a walk throughCabramatta helping build an appreciation for thevarious types of Asian products sold there Morerecently the Fairfield City Council launched a CD-guided driving tour of the ethnic sites and features ofCabramatta The results are impressive if we are tobelieve the Council More than 350000 visitorsfrom Australia and overseas visit Cabramatta everyyear spending more than 83 million Euros in localshops and services Representatives from the localgovernment even claim that for every 17international visitors one extra job is createdmaking tourism a major employer GivenCabramattas problems with crime andunemployment (Collins 2000) the local and state

I See httpwwwrebacomaumediacabra20tourismhtm

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Reflecting on Sydneys Ethnic PrecinctsThe history of Sydneys ethnic precincts reveals theimportant role of ethnic entrepreneurs in theiremergence and growth and in turn the importantrole that ethnic precincts play in the ethnic economyof Sydney In particular ethnic precincts have alarge concentration of co-ethnic restaurants -highlighting the important role of ethnic food andeating in creating an ethnic space for tourists andlocals in the city (Warde 1997 Warde and Martens2000) - as well as a services sector that caterspredominantly to the co-ethnic community Theseethnic precincts are not linked to ethnic ghettoesThe older ethnic precincts of Chinatown and LittleItaly represent historical rather than contemporaryimmigrant settlement patterns while newer ethnicprecincts such as Cabramatta reflect themulticultural nature of contemporary immigrantsettlement in Sydney Another feature that emergesis the important role of the institutionalembeddedness (Kloosterman and Rath 2001) ofSydneys ethnic precincts it takes considerable andsustained conscious promotion at a local orprovincial government level for a specific ethnicprecinct to emerge out of Sydneys multitude ofculturally diverse neighbourhoods

Ethnic entrepreneurs and the ethnic economy arethus a defining aspect of Sydney as a cosmopolitanglobal city This paper has attempted to addresssome aspect of this particularly as they relate toplace Ethnic entrepreneurs in either precinctclusters or those who break out play an importanteconomic function in creating jobs and providinggoods and services And they also play a symbolicrole particularly those in restaurants and the foodindustry giving ethnic precincts and most ofSydneys suburbs a cosmopolitan smell and tasteHowever ethnic economies or ethnic precincts areoften contradictory spaces Chinatowns have alwaysbeen associated with vice and crime Cabramattafights its split personality as heroin capital and Asiacapital of Sydney while a moral panic about ethniccrime in Sydney over the past five years particularlyLebanese and Middle Eastern crime and Asiancrime (Collins et al 2000) has sent contradictorymessages about the attractiveness of Sydneys ethnicplaces and spaces Contradictions also emerge fromlocal authorities imposing one ethnic character to avery multicultural neighbourhood and from thepromotion of imagery in ethnic precincts that drawson homogenous and static stereotypes of verydiverse ethnic communities


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and Sydney enclave Australian Geographical Studies 28 (1990) 137-54Anderson Kay J Vancouvers Chinatown Racial Discourse in Canada 1875-1980 Montreal McGill-Queens

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community in a changing society Sydney Allen and Unwin 1992Castles S J Collins K Gibson D Tait and C Alcorso The Global Milkbar and the Local Sweatshop Ethnic

Small Business and the Economic Restructuring of Sydney Wollongong Centre for Multicultural StudiesUniversity ofWollongong and Canberra Office of Multicultural Affairs 1991

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Castles S M Kalantzis B Cope and M Morrissey Mistaken Identity - Multiculturalism and the Demise ofNationalism in Australia Sydney Pluto Press 1988

Chin KH Chinese in Modern Australia In The Australian People An Encyclopaedia of the Nation ItsPeople and Their Origins ed James Jupp Sydney Angus and Robertson 1988 pp 317-23

Choi cY Chinese Migration and Settlement in Australia Sydney University of Sydney Press 1975Coleman James S Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital American Journal of Sociology 94

(1988) S95-S121Collins Jock Immigrants in New South Wales A Profile of Recent Settlement and Labour Market Patterns

Kuring-gai CAE Centre for Labour Studies Working Paper 1104September 1989--- Migrant Hands in a Distant Land Australias Post-war Immigration Sydney and London Pluto Press

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and community in a changing society eds Stephen Castles Caroline Alcorso Gaetano Rando and EllieVasta Sydney Allen and Unwin 1992 pp 73-84

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--- Chinese Entrepreneurs The Chinese Diaspora in Australia International Journal of EntrepreneurialBehaviour amp Research 8 (No 1122002) 113-31

--- Australia Cosmopolitan Capitalists Down Under In Immigrant Entrepreneurs Venturing Abroad inthe Age of Glob ali sat ion eds Robert Kloosterman and Jan Rath Oxford NY York University Press NewYork and Berg Publishing Oxford 2003 pp 61-78

--- The Cosmopolitan Games Cultural Diversity and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games MelbourneCommon Ground Publishing (forthcoming)

Collins Jock and Antonio Castillo Antonio Cosmopolitan Sydney Exploring the world in one city SydneyPluto Press 1998

Collins Jock K Gibson C Alcorso D Tait and S Castles A Shop Full of Dreams Ethnic Small Business inAustralia Sydney and London Pluto Press 1995

Collins Jock and F Henry Racism Ethnicity and Immigration in Canada and Australia In Immigration andRefugee Policy Australia and Canada Compared Vol II eds Howard Adelman Allan Borowski MeyerBurstein and Lois Foster Melbourne Melbourne University Press 1994 pp 515-48

Collins Jock L Mondello 1 Brehenney and T Childs Cosmopolitan Melbourne Exploring the world in onecity Sydney Big Box Publishing 2001

Collins Jock Greg Noble Scott Poynting and Paul Tabar Kebabs Kids Cops and Crime Youth Ethnicity andCrime Sydney Pluto Press 2000

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Collins Jock Greg Noble Scott Poynting and Paul Tabar Gangs Crime and Community Safety Perceptionsand Experiences in Multicultural Sydney Sydney UTS Centre for Transforming Cultures 2002

Davidson Jim ed The Sydney-Melbourne Book Sydney Allen and UnwinEthnic Affairs Commission ofNSW The People of New South Wales Statisticsfrom the 1996 Census Sydney

Ethnic Affairs Commission ofNSW 1998Fitzgerald S Red Tape Gold Scissors Sydney State Library ofNSW Press 1997Fong TP (1994) The First Suburban Chinatown The Remaking of Monterey Park California Philadelphia

Temple University Press 1994Glezer L Business and Commerce In The Australian People An Encyclopaedia of the Nation Its People and

Their Origins ed James Jupp Sydney Angus and Robertson 1988 pp 860-64Halter M Shopping for Identity The Marketing of Ethnicity New York Schocken Books 2000Jones T G Barrett and D McEvoy Market Potential as a Decisive Influence on the Performance of Ethnic

Minority Business In Immigrant Businesses The Economic Political and Social Environment ed JRath BasingstokelNew York MacmillanStMartins Press 2000

Jupp J From White Australia to Woomera The Story of Australian Immigration Melbourne CambridgeUniversity Press 2002

Jupp J A McRobbie and B York Metropolitan ghettoes and ethnic concentration Working Papers onMulticulturalism No I (2 Vols) Wollongong Office of Multicultural Affairs and the University ofWollongong 1991

Kloosterman R and 1 Rath Immigrant entrepreneurs in advanced economies Mixed embeddedness furtherexplored Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Special issue on Immigrant Entrepreneurship eds RKloosterman and 1 Rath 27 (2) (April 2001) 189-202

Kloosterman R and 1 Rath 1 edsimmigrant Entrepreneurs Venturing Abroad in the Age of GlobalisationNY York University Press New York and Berg Publishing Oxford 2003

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Encyclopaedia of the Nation Its People and Their Origins ed James Jupp Sydney Angus and Robertson1988 pp 666-71

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Los Angeles and Global Restructuring eds Paul Ong Edna Bonacich and Lucie Cheng PhiladelphiaTemple University Press 1994 pp 264-94

Pascoe Robert Buongiomo Australia Our italian Heritage Melbourne Greenhouse Publications and theVaccari Italian Historical Trust 1988

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Business A Review of Research Canberra Department of Industry Science and Tourism AustralianGovernment Publishing Service

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Urry John The Tourist Gaze London Sage Publications 2002Waldinger R Through the Eyes of the Needle Immigrants and Enterprises in New Yorks Garment Trade New

York New York University Press 1986Waldinger R H Aldrich R Ward and Associates Ethnic Entrepreneurs -Immigrant Business in Industrial

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Nation Its People and Their Origins ed James Jupp Sydney Angus and Robertson 1988 pp 298-304Warde Alan Consumption Food and Taste London Sage Publications 1997Warde Alan and Martens Lydia Eating Out Social Differentiation Consumption and Pleasure Cambridge

Cambridge University Press 2000Wilson K and WA Martin Ethnic Enclaves A comparison of the Cuban and Black Economies in Miami

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Press 1992

About the AuthorJock Collins has a broad interest in social economics and public policy His main area of research is aninterdisciplinary study of immigration and cultural diversity in the economy and society His recent research hasbeen on Australian immigration ethnic crime immigrant entrepreneurship ethnic precincts and tourism and thesocial use of ethnic heritage and built environment He has published extensively in the field with eight booksand numerous articles in national and international journals and chapters in books Jock Collins is a boardmember of two of the leading international migration journals and is part of a number of international researchnetworks in the field

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Table 1Sydneys Population bv Birthplace 2001)

Birthplace NumberAustralia 2454424

United Kingdom 183991

China 82029

New Zealand 81963

VietNam 61423

Lebanon 52008

Italv 48900

Hong Kong 36039

India 34503

Greece 33688

Korea 26928

Fiji 25368

South Africa 25190

Source http wwwabsgovauhttpwwwabsgovauwebsitedbsD331 0114NSF4a25635300 1af3ed4b2562bbOO 121564780ca69788870e99ca256b23000 1faf9

Analysis of the (changing) spatial patterns ofimmigrant settlement in Sydney gives a clue to thespatial location ofthe ethnic economy in Sydney andto the changing landscape of Sydneys builtenvironment Most immigrant minorities - that isthose from a non-English-speaking background orNESB - live in Sydneys south-western suburbsMoreover all of the Local Government Areas(LGAs) with a relatively high proportion of first-and second-generation NESB immigrants arelocated in Sydneys south-western suburbs Inaddition even the LGAs with the highestconcentration of immigrants are themselves verydiverse and multicultural with no one immigrantbirthplace group dominating the population of anySydney LGA

The ethnic composition of Sydneys immigrantintake has changed over time British and Irish -and more recently New Zealand-born immigrants-were always preferred but there were never enoughof them to fill immigration targets As aconsequence in the past half a century theAustralian immigration net also brought in EasternEuropean refugees in the late 1940s NorthernEuropeans in the first half of the 1950s SouthernEuropeans in the 1950s and 1960s and since themid-1970s Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants(Collins 1991 Burnley 2001) Sydneys populationwas comprised of literally hundreds of ethnicgroups (Collins and Castillo 1998) This did not leadto an emergence of ethnic ghettoes in SydneyRather a process of ethnic succession thenoccurred in the poorer areas of the city where newimmigrants gathered with newly-arrived ethnicgroups replacing those ethnic groups who had beenable after time to build up enough resources to

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move out to more preferable locations andneighbourhoods (Burnley 1986)

Ethnic Entrepreneurship and the EthnicEconomy in SydneyEthnic or immigrant entrepreneurship is central tobut not limited by the ethnic economy in all westerncountries of immigrant settlement (Light 1972Waldinger et al 1990 Rath ed 2000 Kloostermanand Rath eds 2003) The link between immigrantminorities and entrepreneurship has been strong inAustralia for over 100 years (Collins et al 1995)Ethnic business has a long history in Australia Fromthe earliest days of the 19th Century immigrants ofnon-English-speaking background moved intoentrepreneurship This is particularly true ofimmigrants from China (Choi 1975 Wang 1988Yuan 1988) Greece (Price 1963) Italy (Pascoe19881990 Collins 1992) and Lebanon (McKay andBatrouney 1988) Jewish immigrants also haverelatively high rates of entrepreneurship (Rutland1988 Rubenstein 1988 Glezer 1988) By 1947immediately before the mass Australian post-warimmigration program more than half of theimmigrants born in Greece Poland and Italy andmore than a third of those born in Germany Maltaand the former Yugoslavia were self-employed oremployers compared to only a fifth of theAustralian-born (Collins 1991 89-90)

Today many immigrant men and women are over-represented as entrepreneurs in small business(Collins 2003 Lever Tracey et al 1991 Roffey etal 1996 Low 2004) Koreans have the highest rateof entrepreneurship while Taiwanese GreeksItalians Lebanese German Dutch and Jewish









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ethnic diversity down under

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