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Tag: Little Tokyo

March 6, 2025
olnick
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Season 5, Episode 7

Posted in Episodes, and Season 5

Sharing Hidden History, from Place to Policy

In this “Where Are They Now?” episode, we catch up with Elysha Paluszek (MHC ‘10), senior associate, architectural historian, and preservation planner at Architectural Resources Group. She’s been highlighting hidden history since her master’s thesis, The Los Angeles African American Heritage Area: A Proposal for Development. At ARG, she’s worked on award-winning studies revealing how policy and practice shaped the built environment in West Hollywood and Los Angeles. Elysha chats with co-host Cindy Olnick about these projects and more, including her career path, the field’s evolution, and what she’d change with a magic wand.

Read moreSeason 5, Episode 7

March 9, 2023
sandmeie
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Season 3, Episode 9

Posted in Episodes, and Season 3

Legacy Businesses in Immigrant Neighborhoods

Small businesses provide much more than goods and services. Over time, they become neighborhood anchors and a key source of culture and community—especially for new Americans.

Heritage conservationists are increasingly turning to legacy business programs as economic development strategies to combat rising rents, gentrification, and the erosion of community character, particularly in ethnic and immigrant neighborhoods. In this episode, producer Willa Seidenberg talks with recent USC graduate Xiaoling Fang about her thesis, Legacy Business Program Implementation in American Urban Immigrant Neighborhoods. 

Xiaoling explored some of the longstanding small businesses in L.A.’s Chinatown and Little Tokyo neighborhoods, and how legacy business programs, like the ones recently adopted in Los Angeles, can be used as a tool to help culturally significant and beloved businesses survive.

Listen below, and click here for the transcript.

Read moreSeason 3, Episode 9

University of Southern California