Progressive post-racial Sydney spawns ... new Shanghai

Business booms as old Ashfield becomes new Shanghai

"While its main commercial streets had a mix of Anglo, Italian and Greek shopping before the mid-1990s, about 85 per cent of the shops are now Chinese small businesses ..." ...

A stroll down the main commercial strip of Ashfield reveals the dominance of Shanghai culture and commerce...

... the concentration of Shanghai cuisine restaurants had lured even more Shanghai migrants to the area. ''That is the key thing that reminds you of Shanghai. People in Shanghai have heard about Ashfield.''

... Mr Jin has another theory about why the transformation of Ashfield has been so complete. ''Chinese people love a Chinatown,'' he said. ''They like to be in an environment that is familiar.''

Relax people, the Chinese are not racist. It's just that scared immigrants like to congregate in a familiar community before spreading out and assimilating into the wider population.

At least that's what the experts tell us.

But I can't help wondering exactly how many Asians we need in Sydney before such ethnic enclaves disappear and the post-racial nirvana arrives?

Asian migration a tour de force

AUSTRALIA is now home to more than 2 million people born in Asia - and they are on the brink of overtaking the European-born population for the first time in our history.

New figures from the Bureau of Statistics estimate the number of Asian-born residents in Australia has virtually doubled in the past decade from 1.03 million in mid-2000 to 2.01 million in mid-2010.

Hmm, so we have 2 million overseas-born Asians, plus local-born Asians, and they're stilled so scared they need to congregate in enclaves?

File under: celebrating a homogeneous colonisation and ethnic cleansing, whilst masquerading as a progressive post-racial nirvana. Go figure.