Arville corner — "Chinatown by decree"

Stop on this corner, because this is where the made-to-order idea reaches its strangest point. Most Chinatowns earned their name over generations. This one was given its name — by a governor, in a fight.

Here's how it went. By the mid-nineties this corridor was thriving, and people wanted it recognized. In 1996 the county named it a cultural center. Then it got political. The writer Bonnie Tsui tells the story in her book about American Chinatowns, where she calls Las Vegas the newest of them all: Senator Harry Reid had a “Chinatown” sign put up on Interstate 15, out on the freeway — and the governor of Nevada at the time, Bob Miller, ordered it taken back down. It took until October 1999, and a different governor, Kenny Guinn, to officially designate this stretch “Chinatown.” Not grown. Not settled. Designated, by signature.

And Tsui asks the fair, hard question about a place like this: if a developer builds it and a governor names it, is it really a Chinatown — or just a label on a strip mall? It's the sharpest thing you can say about this street, and it deserves an honest hearing.

But then look around you and give the answer. That one plaza became three miles of them. The neighborhood around you, Spring Valley, is now more than one in five residents Asian. The bookshop, the herbalist, the kung-fu school, the late-night cooks, the Vietnamese market, the pho that came back — none of that was in the developer's drawing. The name was made to order. The community wasn't. It moved in and made the label true.