A Recipe for Gentrification

Food, Power, and Resistance in the City

Alison Hope Alkon, Yuki Kato, Joshua Sbicca

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781479811373
• eBook ISBN:
  9781479878239
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Urban Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Honorable Mention, 2021 Edited Collection Book Award, given by the Association for the Study of Food and Society

How gentrification uproots the urban food landscape, and what activists are doing to resist it

From hipster coffee shops to upscale restaurants, a bustling local food scene is perhaps the most commonly recognized harbinger of gentrification. A Recipe for Gentrification explores this widespread phenomenon, showing the ways in which food and gentrification are deeply—and, at times, controversially—intertwined.

Contributors provide an inside look at gentrification in different cities, from major hubs like New York and Los Angeles to smaller cities like Cleveland and Durham. They examine a wide range of food enterprises—including grocery stores, restaurants, community gardens, and farmers' markets—to provide up-to-date perspectives on why gentrification takes place, and how communities use food to push back against displacement.

Ultimately, they unpack the consequences for vulnerable people and neighborhoods. A Recipe for Gentrification highlights how the everyday practices of growing, purchasing and eating food reflect the rapid—and contentious—changes taking place in American cities in the twenty-first century.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: Development, Displacement, and Dining
• Part I: Dining Downtown: Food Retail and Urban Development
• Part II: Ripe for Growth: Alternative Food Systems
• Part III: Uneven Alliances: Contesting Gentrification from Within and Without
• Part IV: Growing Resistance: Community-Based Strategies
• A Conflicted Conclusion: Seeing and Contesting Gentrification through Food
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Index