Foodies

Remaking Cities

by amy hanser and zachary hyde

Brett Burmeister, operator of a go-to website on Portland, Oregon’s

food cart scene, explained that for cities seeking to “revitalize neigh-
borhoods” and “bring community together,” food carts are ideal.
They “draw you in and keep you there,” he suggested. “Once you
get your food, it’s like, ‘Well, why don’t I sit here and enjoy it?’”

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 Crowds gather to enjoy local food and live entertainment each Friday in Charlotte.

Burmeister captured the wide range of virtues that are regularly regulations in order to open city spaces to food carts and trucks.
attributed to new street food scenes in many North American Indeed, food trucks tell us a larger story about how food cultures
cities. Gourmet street food, and the food carts and trucks that are shaping cities across North America, and how “good” food
serve it, have come to be linked with discussions of urban “liv- is increasingly seen as key to creating livable cities.
ability” and “diversity.” In Portland, for example, experts believe The explosion of food TV and the proliferation of celebrity
that food carts contribute to neighborhood livability and vitality chefs has popularized formerly obscure foods and cooking tech-
by enlivening dull urban spaces. niques, bringing gourmet foods to the masses. Growing support
When we think about food and its ties to specific places, for ethical eating and alternative agriculture has spurred markets
we often call to mind the rural landscapes of farm and pasture for organic and locally-grown foods as wholesome alternatives
or the notion of “terroir”—a sense of place tied to foods. Food to conventionally-grown and processed food. Foodie culture
trends, like the emphasis on eating “local” or the “100 mile has tapped into the potential to create cosmopolitan identities
diet,” are grounded in the desire to reconnect with the actual through engagement with the diverse array of ethnic cuisines on
places where food is grown. Today, such values have made their offer in the city. And in poorer areas of cities, food “adventur-
ways to cities like Portland. ers” comb up-and-coming “exciting” neighborhoods for new
While that city is widely recognized as having one of the eating experiences.
largest and most vibrant street food
scenes in North America—according to
one estimate some 550 carts operate
Food trucks tell a larger story about how
from parking lots and other sidewalk- food cultures are shaping cities across North
side locations throughout the city—the
“food cart” phenomenon is taking off America, and how “good” food is increasingly
across North America. In Canada, it
includes Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary
seen as key to creating livable cities.
and Montreal; in the United States, it
stretches from Seattle to Boston, from Austin to Philadelphia. It But as “good food” has come to be seen as an essential
has spawned TV shows, guidebooks and “how to” food truck component of “good cities,” we should consider the kinds of
guides for budding entrepreneurs. foods that are recognized as good, and what types of urban
Street food has gained stature not only among food dwellers are most drawn to them.
aficionados but also among urbanists and even city bureau-
crats—that’s why cities that once banned or strictly limited the food movements
vending of street food have begun to revise urban food vending Today, many North Americans see the food they eat in
relation to ethical and aesthetic values—thanks, in part, to the
Photos by Kevin J. Beaty impact of social movements that focus on food. Consumer

Contexts, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 44-49. ISSN 1536-5042, electronic ISSN 1537-6052. © 2014 American SUMMER 2014 contexts 45
Sociological Association. http://contexts.sagepub.com. DOI 10.1177/1536504214545760
 The owner of Sticks and Cones prepares a sundae for one of many customers at Food Truck Fridays.
safety advocates, environmentalists, and political radicals all
contributed to a deep questioning of industrial and corporatized
food production in the 1960s and 1970s. Warren Belasco, for
example, showed how counter-cultural movements re-ordered
the cultural values applied to food by elevating natural, hand-
crafted whole foods. Today, social justice concerns are reflected
in food security and food justice movements that, at the city
level, embrace everything from healthy schools lunches and
community gardens to municipal food policy initiatives.
Food has have become an important avenue through which
key social values are expressed and furthered, and is associ-
ated with beauty, authenticity, cultural diversity, environmental
consciousness, a connection with nature and with community,
a commitment to social justice, or the honest, hard work associ-
ated with small-scale farmers and craft producers.
Since 2011, we have been studying the relationship
between ideas about food and city spaces, conducting interviews
in Portland and Vancouver, and talking to vendors, city officials,
food critics and other stakeholders about each city’s food cart
scene. We also analyzed how Vancouver restaurant reviewers
understand the relationship between food and gentrification.
What we found is that food can open up some city spaces
to new forms of food retailing—as with the increasingly popu-
lar food cart. In Vancouver, one social planner had this to say
about the city’s food cart scene: “It’s activating the street, it’s
creating pedestrian areas, it’s supporting small businesses, micro-
entrepreneurs, there’s local food that can come into it…I think
it’s…it’s a reinvigoration of what is ‘street.’”
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In our interviews with urban planners, journalists, city offi-
cials, business association leaders and cart operators themselves,
these themes cropped up again and again: Street food, they
said, makes urban spaces better—like a “backyard barbecue,”
according to one informant—and cities should facilitate, or at
least not impede, their presence.
But such innovations also breed conflicts. Food practices
and tastes mark boundaries between elite and non-elite life-
styles—sometimes very physical boundaries. Sociologist Sharon
Zukin, looking at the neighborhood of Red Hook, in Brooklyn, for
example, describes how food blogs drew a new, urban middle-
class to working-class ethnic food carts, spawning demographic
changes that accelerated gentrification in that part of the city.
classed tastes?
In 2010, when the city of Vancouver, Canada, announced
plans to expand street food offerings beyond hot dogs, eager
vendors submitted an astonishing 800 entries for 17 spaces.
Excitement ran high as local media predicted a “street food
renaissance” and a newspaper editorial claimed that changing
food-vending regulations would add to the vibrancy of the city.
“People want to see a wide range of food on our streets,” the
city’s mayor said, “and they want the offerings to reflect the
cuisine of our culturally diverse city.” Humble street food, it
seemed, was poised to make Vancouver a better place.
Would any kind of street food “activate” the street and
promote urban diversity? In Vancouver, new gourmet food carts
were seen as a marked improvement on already-existing hot dog
push carts, perceived to be selling unhealthy and boring fare. food” criteria, embracing everything from nutrition to local
Most of those hot dog vendors were excluded from the city’s sourcing to sustainability to employing disadvantaged workers
new street vendor organization because of the “low” quality to, of course, “taste,” was incorporated into the application
food and lack of locally-sourced and homemade products. process, culminating in a tasting competition among 25 finalists
In Los Angeles, high-end food trucks serve a wealthier competing for 12 street-side spots. As one successful applicant
clientele than traditional taco trucks, which have often been explained to me, “It was almost like a reality TV program!” As a
maligned as unclean “roach coaches.” In
Portland, cheap and “generic” ethnic food
carts generate little enthusiasm whereas
Certain foods are associated with beauty,
hip or exotic carts have become so sym- authenticity, cultural diversity, and
bolic of that city’s creative energy and DIY
spirit that food carts are regularly featured environmental consciousness.
in Oregon Tourism Commission adver-
tisements. The aesthetic and ethical characteristics associated result, “good” street food gained access to spaces on city streets
with North America’s new street food scene have come to be and sidewalks otherwise given over to rationalized “flows” of
especially valued, associating “good food” with the consumer pedestrians and vehicles.
tastes of relatively affluent urbanites seeking out “diverse” and
“ethnic” culinary experiences. gentrifying neighborhoods
In many cities, the new presence of food carts and trucks While coveting traditional highbrow items such as fine wines
has been spurred by urban consumers who invest in “good” and artisan cheeses, foodies are also gravitating to low-brow
food—often interpreted as gourmet, local, sustainable and foods, such as hamburgers and barbeque. This “downscaling”
hand-crafted. Vancouver serves as a clear example of the ways of gourmet foods and food practices is described in the book
in which the value attributed to street food concretely changed Foodies by sociologists Josée Johnston and Shyon Bauman. Spe-
regulatory practices: The city government actively reorganized its cialized realms of food consumption, reflecting connoisseurship
existing street vending program to allow food carts and trucks and elite tastes, as well as concerns about “good food” (ethical
and to identify suitable spaces from which they could operate. concerns about how it is produced and aesthetic concerns about
Selection of carts was shaped by ideas about food. In the how to appreciate it) are now more widely accessible. Yet pat-
city’s third round of competition for licenses, a wide set of “good terns of inequality persist.

Charlotte, South Carolina is one of many cities to embrace the food truck craze, sponsoring Food Truck Fridays.

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 If gourmet street food is transforming urban street life
in a growing number of North American cities, the appeal of
“good food” is also playing a key role in the transformation of
gentrifying urban neighborhoods. For example, the relatively elite
practice of “food adventuring” is making marginalized urban
neighborhoods exciting and attractive places to venture into, and
inexpensive places for restaurant entrepreneurs to get started.
The taste for certain types of food and
adventurous dining experiences rationalizes
and promotes gentrification.
As marginal, even “dangerous” parts of the city lend gourmet
food an allure and authenticity it otherwise might not have,
food becomes part of—and often deeply symbolic of—larger
processes of gentrification.
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighborhood, which is
often described as Canada’s “poorest postal code,” is a prime
example. In the lead up to the 2010 Olympic Games in the city,
the Downtown Eastside garnered the attention of a new set of
observers: entertainment critics and restaurant reviewers. The
area, which had for decades been one for tourists to avoid,
swiftly become the city’s premiere dining location. Accompa-
nying a spate of condo development and gentrification, the
Downtown Eastside became home to the likes of Chambar
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(often voted as the city’s top restaurant) and Bao-Bei (which
played host to the finale of popular food network show “Top
Chef”). These restaurants appealed to the foodie desire for
less stuffy, “casual” gourmet, and in the years following the
2008 recession, the low-rent neighborhood became an attrac-
tive option for young, first-time restaurateurs. As one chef
described his own restaurant start-up to local press: “We’re
trying to keep the bullshit to a minimum.
It’s an ambitious venture in a deliberately
low-key environment: its location is at the
wrong end of a seedy street.”
Here we see the no-nonsense down-
scaling of gourmet cuisine enhanced by
urban marginality. The Downtown Eastside
was associated with excitement and allure. A 2010 restaurant
review in Urban Diner describes a new gourmet restaurant in
ways evocative of an Indiana Jones-like foray into dangerous
territory: “It was this fight or flight response mechanism which
found us venturing deep into the underbelly of Gastown on a
dark Friday night against all our better instincts, along a trash
bin strewn, junk and junky-scattered Blood Alley and through
the doors of the newly opened Judas Goat Taberna.”
Another review of a casual fine dining restaurant at the
edge of the same neighborhood described “the posh dive
[Boneta]” which “gave a boost to the Downtown Eastside’s slow
climb out of poverty” and pierced deep into the community’s
darkest underbelly, shining a harsh spotlight on all the bloodied
guts and broken souls strewn across the sidewalk.”
It continued: “With deranged addicts howling outside
and the odd streaker running past the window, the restaurant
sometimes teetered precariously along the thin wire between
social realism and sideshow spectacle.” Potential customers are
rewarded with offerings such as “luscious and plump prawns
potted amongst citrusy pistachio butter” or “savoy cabbage sur-
rounding meaty pieces of warm lamb-cheek, served as a slice of
terrine and finished with an earthy white truffle oil.”
food adventurers
The emergence of new “lifestyle” amenities in tandem with
neighborhood revitalization is not new. Scholars of gentrifica-
tion, such as Sharon Zukin, have noted the ways “alternative
consumption practices” play a role in reorganizing city space
and spurring redevelopment of less affluent neighborhoods
to suit the tastes of more affluent urban consumers. The gritty
setting of the restaurant becomes part of the food’s appeal for
adventurous but nevertheless discerning diners.
In their study of foodies, Johnston and Baumann describe
how “food adventuring”—the consumption of “ethnic,” “unfa-
miliar,” or “downright strange” food in exciting and new locales,
often overseas—is one way for educated diners to distinguish
themselves as cosmopolitan consumers. Those who fetishize
urban grit and poverty need look no further than their own
backyard for the next gustatory foray.
For food adventurers, low-income or gentrifying neighbor-
hoods such as Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Parkdale, Toronto or San
Francisco’s Mission District add to the appeal of restaurants,
encouraging the influx of new high-end businesses. At the same
time, the appeal of gourmet cuisine continues to attract up-and-
coming chefs and restaurateurs to low-income neighborhoods.
In Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside gourmet cuisine has
become more accessible to those seeking both casual and
authentic dining experiences. At the same time, the taste for
certain types of food and adventurous dining experiences ratio-
nalizes and promotes gentrification in subtle ways.
whose streets? whose food?
The relationship between food and the city is reciprocal:
food can lend vitality to city streets (as in the case of food carts
and sidewalks), and city streets can lend vitality to food (as in
“food adventuring” in rough but gentrifying neighborhoods).
Much as rural settings infuse the foods they produce with the
markers of place, urban settings also shape, and are shaped by,
the production and consumption of food.
But the sidewalk-activating food cart, and the revitalizing
capacity of high-end restaurants in poor neighborhoods are
contested innovations. In Vancouver, the influx of high-end
restaurants into the city’s poorest neighborhood has produced
local controversy, and ongoing protests, complete with picket
signs, have erupted outside two different Downtown Eastside
restaurants. “It’s a form of exclusion,” one protester told a local
reporter last summer. “People can’t afford to eat here. Everything
around it gets over-priced.”
Similarly, Vancouver’s food carts have also been criticized for
serving overpriced food that caters to high-end tastes. In Port-
land, some critics of the explosion in gourmet food carts have
voiced concerns that a low-barrier form of entrepreneurship is
increasingly competitive and out-of-reach. As one former eco-
nomic planner in Portland warned: “One of the least expensive
ways of becoming an entrepreneur” is “slowly being taken away
from those who cannot access the traditional work force”—new
immigrants with limited English language skills.
In cities across North America, operators of small restaurants
and restaurant associations have challenged those who would
reintroduce street food to urban sidewalks, citing unfair competi-
tion, given the perceived often-lower overhead of maintaining a
food cart or truck—a claim that is not always true.
In other words, food shapes urban spaces and also who
uses them. Local, organic, hand-crafted and gourmet food
tends to be associated with goodness and moral virtue, even
though the taste for such foods tends to be associated with the
cultural tastes and socioeconomic positions of relatively affluent
urbanites. Ideas about “good food” not only influence how we
think about eating, but also have concrete effects on city spaces.
Clearly, then, “good food” can make cities more livable
and cosmopolitan. But as we’re enjoying these tasty new urban
food scenes, we must consider whom they’re serving, and who
may be excluded from the table.
recommended resources
Donofrio, Gregory Alexander. “Feeding the City,” Gastronomic
(2007), 7(4):30-41. A historian’s perspective on how cultural
ideas, like those about “clean streets,” shaped city planning prac-
tices related to urban food markets in the early twentieth century.
Johnston, Josée and Shyon Baumann. Foodies (Routledge,
2010). This book describes the evolution of food connoisseurship
towards a seemingly “democratic” embrace of ethnic and non-
gourmet foods while still maintaining the boundary between elite
and non-elite food practices.
Wang, Oliver. “To Live and Dine in Kogi L.A.,” Contexts (2009),
8(4): 69-71. This short piece describes the lively new food truck
scene in Los Angeles and notes the contrast with traditional taco
truck businesses.
Zukin, Sharon. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban
Places (Oxford University Press, 2010). This book explores how
the dynamics of consumption, and in particular the cultural tastes
of relatively affluent urban residents, has elevated the importance
of perceived “authenticity” in shaping how urban space is used.
Chapter 5 explores the case of immigrant street vendors in the
Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook.
Amy Hanser is in the sociology department at the University of British Columbia,
where her current research focuses on street vending, consumption, and urban space.
Zachary Hyde is in the sociology program at the University of British Columbia,
where he studies the relationship between class and culture in a variety of urban
contexts.
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