Springhill Suites are part of Marriott International, the largest hotel chain in the world, and “chain” is a naughty word in neighborhoods where unique cultural character predominates. Seattle’s Chinatown-International District, after all, is where another departed light, Bob Santos, famously helped block the construction of a McDonald’s fast-food restaurant in 2000.

Our late “Uncle Bob” can rest in slightly less tortured peace. The development, at Eighth and South Lane, no longer will include hotel units, according to Han Kim of Hotel Concepts, the hotel-management group attached to the project. “The neighborhood doesn’t want it,” he said by phone the other day.

Much of the neighborhood doesn’t want other development but may be powerless to stop the trend. One project, the 17-story Koda Condominium Flats, broke ground in February. Others are in the works, bolstered by upzoning and a city bursting at the seams. Just up the hill, Vulcan already is transforming the Yesler Terrace housing project into a mixed-income community.

It’s enough for Chinatown-International District activists to invoke the G-word – gentrification – and its ugly kissing cousin, displacement. In these concerns, Seattle at least is not alone. Starting on Saturday, the Coast to Coast Chinatown Solidarity Network is staging a week of protests against displacement and gentrification. The Network is calling for a moratorium on luxury development in Chinatowns across North America.

Displacement is a genuine concern in Network cities, which, in addition to Seattle, include Boston, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Toronto. White populations in Chinatowns grew faster, for example, than the overall white populations in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, according to a study by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. The study also found that, though Asian Americans remain the largest ethnic groups in those Chinatowns, they no longer represented a clear majority.

Seattle has undergone a similar demographic transformation, with Asian Americans representing 43.5 percent of Chinatown-International District. The historically Asian neighborhood also outstrips the rest of the city in renter households (81.6% vs. 53% citywide), nonwhites (71.7% vs. 33%) and population below poverty level (29.7% vs. 14%).

All of this suggests a striking vulnerability to luxury development, gentrification and displacement. Plus, as in most major cities, Seattle’s Chinatown is at the edge of the downtown core. It also abuts two other desirable areas, the waterfront and stadium district. A 2016 city study found nearly every parcel in the Chinatown-International District, including Little Saigon to the east, to be redevelopable. Another city study the same year found the neighborhood to trail only Rainier Beach and Othello in risk for displacement.

Any loss of affordable housing in the Chinatown-International District won’t impact only Asian Americans. Black or African Americans make up 19.4 percent of the district, for example, higher than the percentage of Black folks in the historically Black, but now overwhelmingly gentrified, Central Area.