Evolution of Chinese Settlement Geographies in Sydney,Australia

In 1996, there were 250,000 people of Chinese ancestry in metropolitan Sydney. Eighty percent of the first generations among Chinese who arrived in Australia after 1973 were migrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia and 20% from China. Some of the migration from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia is skilled migration, a portion of which comprises business professionals in producer services associated with Sydney's emergent global city role. There is no strong level of residential concentration except for those of refugee origin. The sponsored family reunion relatives of the skilled migrants are present indirectly because of the globalization process, although others from the former Indochina are of refugee migration origin. There are thus economic inequalities among different origin groups of Chinese in Sydney. Complex Chinese presences have evolved in Sydney at the neighborhood level partly related to social class, and there are visible impacts in a rejuvenated Chinatown and in several suburban shopping and commercial centers. These presences overlap in terms of community origins, social class, language, and religion but there are discrete impacts in the context of diversity.