Project in San Jose's Japantown preserving cultural history while providing housing

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- A project is managing to find solutions to two issues in the South Bay-- preserving cultural history while providing more housing. It's all happening in San Jose's Japantown neighborhood.

The site has great meaning to the community. Old maps show how a portion of it was leased to immigrants to become a Chinatown, then a Japanese American settlement.

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The development will address the housing shortage and give an economic boost to businesses in Japantown. That will help to preserve the culture and history of the Japanese pioneers who first arrived in the late 1880's.

Japantown was established in 1900. It's one of only three surviving in the U.S. The others being in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

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