Little Kyoto
Little Kyoto is a designated community east of Downtown Greenfield.
History
Little Kyoto originally grew as a small wealthy suburban neighbourhood east of the busy and growing Greenfield. Along with Alamosa the orchard filled hills were redeveloped into a neighbourhood with large mansions and parks in the late 1800s. The neighbourhood was called Davis Heights after the man who designed the neighbourhood. The wealthy residents of the heights kept development and larger apartment buildings out of the neighbourhood but as Greenfield grew up and up and the railway to the south of Davis Height became busier and busier, the wealthy and famous people started moving out and moved up into the Del Rey Neighbourhood to the north of the city. This made way for many larger apartment buildings to be built in the neighbourhood. The demographic quickly changed from wealthy famous people to less wealthy people stuffed in large buildings.
In the 1920s the South Hill and north of market industrial Neighbourhoods started filling up quickly and the city needed more space for industrial areas so they changed zoning codes to allow warehouses and offices to be built inside Davis Heights.
In the 1960s and 1970s most of the neighbourhood was razed for parking lots and office buildings along with most of downtown and the surrounding neighbourhoods. in SPECIFIC YEAR the Davis heights neighbourhood was completely cut off from downtown when they built the large I-15 freeway connecting the north to downtown. This left the neighbourhood in disrepair and it became a very dangerous neighbourhood to be in as homeless people ran the streets.
In 1983 the city enacted a bill to clean up downtown and its surrounding neighbourhoods. They threw out most of the homeless people (unfortunately into other neighbourhoods) and a plan was made to replace most of the neighbourhood with highrise social housing and they started construction, however this plan never fully came into effect and only one building was built.
Throughout the 80s and 90s the neighbourhood saw a growing japanese population and a lot of local japanese-owned businesses started opening up.
In 1994 the neighbourhood was swayed by the large 1994 Greenfield earthquake. Luckily only minor damage was done.
In 1998 Plans were made to open a japanese-american history museum and community center in the neighbourhoods to further change the neighbourhoods character. Eventually after the opening of both buildings the neighbourhood was renamed to Little Kyoto by local requests.
In the early 2010s a housing crisis struck the city and a lot of new apartment buildings started popping up in the area, raising the housing prices in the area and kicking out local japanese residents. The Gentrification wasn't only happening in Little Kyoto but also happened in Ramona, Sonora, Glenview and every other neighbourhood surrounding downtown.
Protests to stop this have actively been happening in Glenview and Ramona but it hasn't been as big or active in Little Kyoto.
in 2019 the height limit was changed in parts of Little Kyoto. Instantly plans were made to build high end condo buildings on the western part of the neighbourhood. Two were built in Little Kyoto and another in Eagle Park, as more are currently under construction and planned.
Major buildings and attractions
- Japanese-American History Museum
- Little Kyoto Community Center.