I was recently in a neighborhood in west Los Angeles that I used to pass through quite frequently but haven’t interacted with for a few years. I noticed that it had a new City-recognized official name- new to me, anyway, I have since found out that it was named in January of 2015.
The main street that goes through the neighborhood is Sawtelle Boulevard and the now official neighborhood name is Sawtelle Japantown.
Now, Los Angeles has long had a neighborhood called Little Tokyo. Little Tokyo is on the east edge of Downtown Los Angeles. Sawtelle Japantown is about 15 miles away on the far west side of the city.
So, two different neighborhoods in Los Angeles both name for the Japanese population(s). Official Question of the OP:
Are there any other cities that have more than one neighborhood named for the same ethnic group / immigrant community?
NOTE: I recognize that the naming of neighborhoods may not be as officially recognized as it is in Los Angeles where there is some official process (that I am not actually fully educated on). The City of Los Angeles can be petitioned by residents for an official neighborhood name. When the city approves a neighborhood name is is made official with a city issued neighborhood sign posted at the main entryways into the neighborhood.
All examples that address the OP are welcome into the discussion even if they are casual names used informally by locals.
If you know whether your examples are officially city recognized names or just names used casually by locals, please let us know which it is.
New York has two Chinatowns and two Little Italys. One in Manhattan and one in Flushing and the Bronx respectively. I don’t think New York names neighborhoods officially but just through common usage.
Chicago has a group of official “community areas,” but none of them (which were drawn up by the U of Chicago back in the early 20th century, IIRC) have any ethnicities as part of their name. Also, many people don’t use community area names unless they also happen to be overlap with the name of the neighborhood (for example, almost nobody knows what the heck “New City” is, but they’d be familiar with “Back of the Yards,” a neighborhood part of New City. To add to the confusion, there is a very recent development called “New City” up on the North Side in Lincoln Park.) There is both a “Little Italy” (part of community area Near West Side) and “Heart of Italy” (part of Lower West Side). Chinatown (part of Armour Square) exists with New Chinatown (part of Uptown), although “New Chinatown” is a bit of a misnomer (it’s mostly Vietnamese with some Thai in the area) and not used all that much these days. It’s also known, more appropriately, as “Little Saigon.” I do remember hearing it referred to as “New Chinatown” in the 90s, though.
The original ‘Little Italy’ was in East Harlem, before the one downtown. It came to be known as Italian Harlem and isn’t very Italian anymore. For that matter downtown Little Italy is tiny now, per the joke on The Soprano’s where the mobster finds himself in Chinatown while briefly walking and talking on the phone in Little Italy. True, the Arthur Ave area in the Bronx is also sometimes called Little Italy in the Bronx.
On ‘Chinatowns’ there are by some counts 7: the original Chinatown in Manhattan which was grown tremendously; Flushing, Elmhurst and Corona in Queens; Sunset Park, Ave U and Bensonhurst in Brooklyn. The degree to which they are called ‘Chinatown’ varies. You might combine the Queens ones as all near enough to Flushing, but Sunset Park is a big ethnic neighborhood.
Little Italy is a well-known neighborhood in Cleveland. However, there is also a Big Italy – or, more accurately, was before most of the houses fell victim to the building of a freeway.
Portland OR has an official old Chinatown on the N. side of downtown and a much more active growing new Chinatown out east around SE 82nd and Division.
Both names are deprecated among some people. (Whoa. Big Lewbowski flashback.)
Panama City, Panama, has two Chinatowns, an older and “official” one in the San Felipe district (said to be older than the one in New York City), close to the Old City (Casco Viejo), and a newer and less formal one in the commercial El Dorado neighborhood.