{"id":27136,"date":"2021-10-13T03:03:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T03:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=27136"},"modified":"2021-10-15T01:10:20","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T01:10:20","slug":"how-food-became-the-perfect-beachhead-for-gentrification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-food-became-the-perfect-beachhead-for-gentrification\/","title":{"rendered":"How food became the perfect beachhead for gentrification"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pascale Joassart-Marcelli<\/a>, San Diego State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everybody, it seems, welcomes the arrival of new restaurants, caf\u00e9s, food trucks and farmers markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What could be the downside of fresh veggies, homemade empanadas and a pop-up restaurant specializing in banh mis?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when they appear in unexpected places \u2013 think inner-city areas populated by immigrants \u2013 they\u2019re often the first salvo in a broader effort to rebrand and remake the community. As a result, these neighborhoods can quickly become unaffordable and unrecognizable to longtime residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stoking an appetite for gentrification<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I live in San Diego, where I teach courses on urban and food geographies and conduct research on the relationship between food and ethnicity in urban contexts<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, I started to notice a pattern playing out in the city\u2019s low-income neighborhoods that have traditionally lacked food options<\/a>. More ethnic restaurants, street vendors, community gardens and farmers markets were cropping up. These, in turn, spurred growing numbers of white, affluent and college-educated people to venture into areas they had long avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This observation inspired me to write a book, titled \u201cThe $16 Taco<\/a>,\u201d about how food \u2013 including what\u2019s seen as \u201cethnic,\u201d \u201cauthentic\u201d or \u201calternative\u201d \u2013 often serves as a spearhead for gentrification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take City Heights<\/a>, a large multi-ethnic San Diego neighborhood where successive waves of refugees from places as far away as Vietnam and Somalia have resettled. In 2016, a dusty vacant lot on the busiest boulevard was converted into an outdoor international marketplace called Fair@44<\/a>. There, food vendors gather in semi-permanent stalls to sell pupusas, lechon<\/em> (roasted pig), single-sourced cold-brewed coffee, cupcakes and tamarind raspado<\/em> (crushed ice) to neighborhood residents, along with tourists and visitors from other parts of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A public-private partnership called the City Heights Community Development Corporation, together with several nonprofits, launched the initiative<\/a> to increase \u201caccess to healthy and culturally-appropriate food\u201d and serve as \u201ca business incubator for local micro-entrepreneurs,\u201d including immigrants and refugees who live in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On paper, this all sounds great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But just a few blocks outside the gates, informal street vendors \u2013 who have long sold goods such as fruit, tamales and ice cream<\/a> to residents who can\u2019t easily access supermarkets \u2013 now face heightened harassment. They\u2019ve become causalities in a citywide crackdown on sidewalk vending<\/a> spurred by complaints from business owners and residents in more affluent areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t just happening in San Diego. The same tensions have been playing out in rapidly gentrifying areas like Los Angeles\u2019 Boyle Heights neighborhood<\/a>, Chicago\u2019s Pilsen neighborhood<\/a>, New York\u2019s Queens borough<\/a> and East Austin, Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all of these places, because \u201cethnic,\u201d \u201cauthentic\u201d and \u201cexotic\u201d foods are seen as cultural assets, they\u2019ve become magnets for development<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Woman
A Somali immigrant shops at a farmers market in San Diego\u2019s City Heights neighborhood. Sandy Huffaker\/Corbis via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why food?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cities and neighborhoods have long sought to attract educated and affluent residents \u2013 people whom sociologist Richard Florida dubbed \u201cthe creative class<\/a>.\u201d The thinking goes that these newcomers will spend their dollars and presumably contribute to economic growth and job creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food, it seems, has become the perfect lure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s uncontroversial and has broad appeal. It taps into the American Dream and appeals to the multicultural values of many educated, wealthy foodies<\/a>. Small food businesses, with their relatively low cost of entry, have been a cornerstone of ethnic entrepreneurship<\/a> in American cities. And initiatives like farmers markets and street fairs don\u2019t require much in the way of public investment<\/a>; instead, they rely on entrepreneurs and community-based organizations to do the heavy lifting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In City Heights, the Community Development Corporation hosted its first annual City Heights Street Food Festival<\/a> in 2019 to \u201cget people together around table and food stalls to celebrate another year of community building.\u201d Other recent events have included African Restaurant Week, Dia de Los Muertos, New Year Lunar Festival, Soul Food Fest and Brazilian Carnival, all of which rely on food and drink to attract visitors and support local businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, initiatives such as the New Roots Community Farm and the City Heights Farmers\u2019 Market have been launched by nonprofits with philanthropic support in the name of \u201cfood justice,\u201d with the goal of reducing racial disparities in access to healthy food and empowering residents<\/a> \u2013 projects that are particularly appealing to highly educated people who value diversity and democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upending an existing foodscape<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In media coverage of changing foodscapes in low-income neighborhoods like City Heights, you\u2019ll rarely find any complaints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Diego Magazine\u2019s neighborhood guide<\/a> for City Heights, for example, emphasizes its \u201cclaim to authentic international eats, along with live music venues, craft beer, coffee, and outdoor fun.\u201d It recommends several ethnic restaurants and warns readers not to be fooled by appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean objections don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many longtime residents and small-business owners \u2013 mostly people of color and immigrants \u2013 have, for decades, lived, worked and struggled to feed their families in these neighborhoods. To do so, they\u2019ve run convenience stores, opened ethnic restaurants, sold food in parks and alleys and created spaces to grow their own food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Man
A Vietnamese man tends to his crops at a community garden in San Diego\u2019s City Heights neighborhood. Sandy Huffaker\/Corbis via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All represent strategies to meet community needs in a place mostly ignored by mainstream retailers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what happens when new competitors come to town?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting at a disadvantage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As I document in my book<\/a>, these ethnic food businesses, because of a lack of financial and technical support, often struggle to compete with new enterprises that feature fresh fa\u00e7ades, celebrity chefs, flashy marketing, bogus claims of authenticity<\/a> and disproportionate media attention. Furthermore, following the arrival of more-affluent residents, existing ones find it increasingly difficult to stay<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My analysis<\/a> of real estate ads for properties listed in City Heights and other gentrifying San Diego neighborhoods found that access to restaurants, caf\u00e9s, farmers markets and outdoor dining is a common selling point. The listings I studied from 2019 often enticed potential buyers with lines like \u201cshop at the local farmers\u2019 market,\u201d \u201cjoin food truck festivals\u201d and \u201cparticipate in community food drives!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Diego Magazine\u2019s home buyer guide for the same year<\/a> identified City Heights as an \u201cup-and-coming neighborhood,\u201d attributing its appeal to its diverse population and eclectic \u201cculinary landscape,\u201d including several restaurants and Fair@44.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I see that City Heights\u2019 home prices rose 58%<\/a> over the past three years, I\u2019m not surprised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[You\u2019re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation\u2019s authors and editors.<\/em> You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going up against the urban food machine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Longtime residents find themselves forced to compete against what I call the \u201curban food machine,\u201d a play on sociologist Harvey Molotch\u2019s \u201curban growth machine<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a term he coined more than 50 years ago to explain how cities were being shaped by a loose coalition of powerful elites who sought to profit off urban growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I argue that investors and developers use food as a tool for achieving the same ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When their work is done, what\u2019s left is a rather insipid and tasteless neighborhood, where foodscapes become more of a marketable mishmash of cultures than an ethnic enclave that\u2019s evolved organically to meet the needs of residents. The distinctions of time and place start to blur: An \u201cethnic food district\u201d in San Diego looks no different than one in Chicago or Austin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the routines and rhythms of everyday life have changed so much that longtime residents no longer feel like they belong<\/a>. Their stories and culture reduced to a selling point, they\u2019re forced to either recede to the shadows or leave altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to see how that\u2019s a form of inclusion or empowerment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pascale Joassart-Marcelli<\/a>, Professor of Geography and Director, Urban Studies and Food Studies Programs, San Diego State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pascale Joassart-Marcelli, San Diego State University Everybody, it seems, welcomes the arrival of new restaurants, caf\u00e9s, food trucks and farmers markets. What could be the downside of fresh veggies, homemade empanadas and a pop-up restaurant specializing in banh mis? But when they appear in unexpected places \u2013 think inner-city areas populated by immigrants \u2013 they\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":27137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[450,453,582,4785,2732,10653,6711,455],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27136"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27139,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27136\/revisions\/27139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}