Starting in the 1930s, most Italian immigrants settled in what is today the Strathcona district; however, by the 1940s and 1950s most Italian immigrants to Vancouver settled in the northern Commercial Drive area, and were widely credited with revitalizing the neighbourhood. Most Italian Canadian businesses and cultural facilities located along Commercial Drive and, since Italians were in the majority in the adjacent residential areas, Little Italy became a true ethnic Italian enclave. By the 1960s, many Italian businesses also sprang up in the Hastings and Nanaimo area, but the cultural core remained on Commercial Drive. Ethnic Italians were very influential in this area from the 1940s until the mid 1970s.

By the mid 1970s, a combination of cultural assimilation, non-Italian immigration, movement to the suburbs, and a schism within the Italian community[perlu rujukan] led to the decline of Italian influence and concentration in Little Italy. Today, the area is again a vibrant cultural and business centre in eastern Vancouver, but after a succession of other immigrant and cultural groups, the Italian influence has greatly diminished.