Imagine AsiaTown

Imagine AsiaTown is a process to shape a collective strategic vision for our neighborhood’s future that is centered on the unique gifts each person brings to help turn that vision into reality. From September to November, we invited you – community members who live, work, shop, and visit AsiaTown – to imagine and contribute to this future.

Thank you!

Thank you to the many community members who contributed stories and visions to this process. You contributed over 100 stories through surveys, peer interviews, online community conversations, love letters to AsiaTown, and social media to help us shape a collective vision for AsiaTown. The engagement period has officially ended, but you can continue to contribute your stories, dreams, ideas for AsiaTown, and ways that you would like to help make it happen!

Why Imagine AsiaTown?

In 2020, AsiaTown is navigating:

• COVID19-related job loss, magnified by anti-Asian racism
• Losses of people, places, businesses, culture, choice
• Ongoing safety concerns
• New developments and residents, creating both optimism for growth and investment and concern about gentrification displacing residents and culture
• Support from the AsiaTown team from MidTown Cleveland, Inc. to serve residents and businesses
• Residents and businesses caring for each other through neighborhood initiatives like Sweet Hearts and Feed AsiaTown, along with growing support networks

With all of these dynamics, we need a vision for the community and economic development of AsiaTown that serves the people in the community. The neighborhood is not just buildings, but it is the people who make up the community. A strategic vision that imagines AsiaTown’s future will be a call to action for all of us to shape the AsiaTown we want to experience.

What AsiaTown will you and our community choose to create together?

This time offers an important opportunity for us to have a say in what happens in/to our neighborhood. It offers a chance to hear what our neighbors, families, friends think about the future of AsiaTown and discuss the things that matter to us.

A vibrant future is not built on focusing on what’s wrong, blaming others or waiting for them to do something.  Power lies in envisioning the future we want to create together and connecting with each other to make it happen.

How can I get involved?

We’re so glad you asked! Choose one or many ways to contribute your ideas over the next month. Each engagement will enter you to win a $100 gift card!

• What’s Your Story? Interview exchanges with family, friends, and neighbors.
  • Interview guide: Online or printable
  • Send back interview notes to enter to win a $100 gift card!
• Vision through Arts #ImagineAsiaTown
  • In any medium, create your own celebration of AsiaTown – both now and in the future. See below for more details.
  • Stop by the Mid-Autumn Celebration on Saturday, Sept. 26 at E. 33rd and Payne Avenue to pick up an art kit to create your own Love Letter to AsiaTown.
  • Submit your artwork to enter to win a $100 gift card!
• Community Conversation Online group conversation on Wednesday, Oct. 14 or Saturday, Oct. 17. RSVP for either session.
  • All residents who participate will receive a $10 gift card!
• MidTown Neighborhood Vision
  • Complete this survey to be entered to win a $100 gift card!
  • Add your feedback to this Collaborative Map

Vision through Arts

Imagine AsiaTown …

• In 2030: a place you would be proud to call home, a place where you would love to invite others to join you to live, work, and play
• In 100 years: a place you want your grandchildren or other future generations to experience

What does the neighborhood look and feel like? What are people doing, alone or together? Who are your neighbors, and how do they interact? How and where are neighbors working? How does the community respond when someone needs help?

Share ideas with your AsiaTown community through drawing, photography, video, painting, sculpture, dance, music, poetry, storytelling, recipes, or any other form of expression your vision inspires.  Create a vision alone or with a group of friends or neighbors.

Vision requires the forest AND the trees.  Your ideas can range from the whole neighborhood and its global connections to a single interaction between an elder and group of teenagers.  

Submit your ideas to our virtual art space by October 5:

• Post on social media with the #ImagineAsiaTown hashtag and tag @asiatowncleveland!
• Submit artwork here
• Drop in our AsiaTown Vision box: Asia Plaza, 2999 Payne Avenue, next to the ATM
• There’s no limit on great ideas. Submit as many as you like!
• Check back here to see the great ideas from your community.

Agreement.  By submitting your art with #ImagineAsiaTown, you agree that MidTown Cleveland may display your work (with credit to you, the artist) on their website and other online and in-person formats to support the Imagine AsiaTown project.

Imagine AsiaTown Partners

MidTown Cleveland, Inc.
WOC Group LLC
Space-Between.Us
Asian Services in Action
City of Cleveland Community Relations Department
AsiaTown Advisory Committee