In the late 19th century, The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed to restrict the Chinese community from expanding. So as new immigrants arrived from China each year, the density of San Francisco Chinatown increased without any possible ways of expanding outwards. Such restriction was designed to discourage the Chinese from immigrating to the United States. By 1882, there were 15,000 people living in an area consisting of only 12 city blocks.
Since the Chinese were prevented from expanding outwards, and their day to day economic activities depended on the surface area of public contact, they devised a clever way to increase their livelihood - creating private alleyways within the existing city blocks. These alleyways increased the surface area of public contact so substantially that Chinatown became a self-sufficient entity with housing, businesses, and recreational activities all compacted into one area.
The alleyways were privately owned and were not shown on the official city maps until quite recently. And because one could access the basement of any buildings from the alleyways, they quickly turned into an intricate network system connecting both the ground and the underground together.
The layout of San Francisco Chinatown was ideal for the brewing of radical ideas and innovative (subversive) activities. Since immigration was an indirect result of Western Imperialism, it was not surprising that San Francisco Chinatown should be a hotbed for Dr. Sun Yat-sen's underground revolutionaries. These revolutionaries would eventually succeed in overthrowing the Qing Dynasty; ending over 2000 years of Chinese feudalism in 1911. San Francisco Chinatown has since became one of the highest density neighborhood in the United State, yet it's building heights remain only at 3 to 4 stories high.
See alleyway maps at: http://www.boonlong.com/ChinatownSF.html>
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