San Francisco Chinatown grew organically around Portsmouth Plaza, the city's first public square and civic center. With the wealthy residential neighborhood of Nob Hill to the south and the financial district to the north and east, Chinatown was centrally located on valuable real estate, a fact that contributed to many efforts to relocate the community or eradicate it all together. However, the community remained at its original site, continuing to expand its borders in all directions.

"Old" Chinatown, the enclave before 1906, was the subject of extensive political debate for city politicians and officials who oftentimes deemed the area an eyesore and a health hazard. True, its wooden buildings and tenement houses were far from aesthetically pleasing — as photographs and artwork from the period attest — but they were ironically a reflection of the rapid growth San Francisco underwent during and shortly after the Gold Rush of 1849-1850. Structures were built at an astonishing rate, the buildings of Chinatown among them. And as was the case with explosive urban development, many ethnic denizens were left with the out-of-date residential and business areas more privileged residents left behind.

After the fire that followed the 1906 Earthquake reduced Chinatown to smoldering ashes, there was a movement by the Reconstruction Committee to move the Chinese to the outer reaches of the Richmond district, far away from its prime location at the heart of the city. In a concerted effort to save their community from being uprooted, Chinese leaders convinced municipal leaders and the neighborhoods white landlords that the "New" Chinatown should be rebuilt in a distinctive Oriental style that would attract more tourism and business, thereby boosting San Francisco's economy as whole. The results were the familiar curved eaves, colorful street lanterns, recessed balconies, and gilded facades that we today instantly associate with Chinatown. Most importantly, the enclave was rebuilt at its original locale.