No matter which way you slice the boundaries of Chinatown, the neighborhood has grown dramatically in recent years. Its population has more than doubled in size and grown more affluent, reflected in the built environment by luxury condos and high-end apartments cropping up on the neighborhood’s northern and southern outskirts, from Goldtex to the Ludlow. The racial demographics are also changing.

Taking just the census tract encompassing the historical core of Chinatown (a tract that reaches from Vine to Race, Broad to 7th Street), the white population has doubled as a percentage of the community between 2000 and 2010, a change that has prompted some watchers to wonder if Philadelphia’s Chinatown will go the way of so many other cities: Turn into a Potemkin Village with a dwindling Asian base.

While gentrification has already forced some longtime residents to leave, there’s a more basic — though, arguably, no less existential — concern that others are struggling with. Chinatown lacks a rec center at a time when demand for one mounts each day. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of families with children under 18 living within the core census tract increased by 53 percent.

One of those families is that of Mandy Lin, a Chinese immigrant who moved to Chinatown in 2011 but has been in the U.S. for more than two decades. “It’s been a two-year search for recreational and sports activities that my daughter can participate in,” she says, speaking in Mandarin through an interpreter to PlanPhilly.

Like a lot of teenagers with an eye towards college applications, Mandy’s 15-year-old daughter, who attends Central High School, has been trying to absorb as many extra curricular activities as possible. But the options in the family’s immediate area have proven limited. “Because we live in Chinatown, we pay [more] compared to a lot of my friends who live in the Northeast or South Philly. We also have to pay for monthly parking,” Mandy says.

There’s not a single rec center, playground, or pool run by Parks and Rec nearby, let alone one with ample programing for children like Mandy’s son, who has a disability. Traveling on SEPTA, Mandy takes her son to the Christian Street YMCA a couple miles away in Southwest Center City.

One reason why Mayor Jim Kenney has put together Rebuild, a $500-million investment in public parks, rec centers, playgrounds, and libraries, is the reality that needs for improved recreational facilities exist citywide. But the map of 406 potential sites for Rebuild investment only includes one within Chinatown: Franklin Square, on the neighborhood’s northeast corner, a park best known in recent years for its money-making tourist attractions than its wholesome neighborhood vibes.

With Rebuild coming down the pike and with experiences like Mandy’s in mind, community resident and advocate Anna Perng had a question for PlanPhilly, which she submitted via the audience-driven story generator Hearken: “If ‘every neighborhood matters,’ why is Chinatown never on the map?”

From there, PlanPhilly put a version of the question to the Rebuild team: For neighborhoods like Chinatown that don’t have a park or rec center in the first place, what can Rebuild do for them? PlanPhilly received this response from Nicole Westerman, executive director of Rebuild: