A RECIPE FOR GENTRIFICATION
A Recipe for Gentrification
Food, Power, and Resistance in the City
Edited by Alison Hope Alkon, Yuki Kato, and Joshua Sbicca
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
© 2020 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Alkon, Alison Hope, editor. | Kato, Yuki, editor. | Sbicca, Joshua, 1982– editor.
Title: A recipe for gentrification : food, power, and resistance in the city / edited by Alison Hope Alkon, Yuki Kato, and Joshua Sbicca.
Description: New York : New York University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019033831 | ISBN 9781479834433 (cloth) | ISBN 9781479811373 (paperback) | ISBN 9781479809042 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479878239 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Gentrification—United States. | Food—Political aspects. | Food consumption—United States. | Minorities—Nutrition—United States. | Discrimination—United States.
Classification: LCC HT175 .R427 2020 | DDC 307.76—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033831
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
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Introduction
Development, Displacement, and Dining
ALISON HOPE ALKON, YUKI KATO, AND JOSHUA SBICCA
The sign was intended to be ironic, a joke even, but the community was not laughing. On one side, it read “ink! Coffee. Happily gentrifying the neighborhood since 2014.” The other proclaimed “Nothing says gentrification like being able to order a cortado.”
The neighborhood is Denver’s Five Points, long home, not always by choice, to nearly all of the city’s Black residents. In a history common to many Black communities across the United States, residents were prevented from living in other parts of the city through segregation, redlining, and racial covenants. The neighborhood became a vibrant cultural center, colloquially known as the “Harlem of the West,” where more than fifty jazz clubs hosted many of the early twentieth century’s most well-known performers (Dowlen n.d.). But Five Points is no longer a predominantly Black neighborhood, as gentrification has brought an influx of younger, whiter, and wealthier residents. Indeed, realtors and developers no longer refer to the area as Five Points at all, but as the River North Arts District or RiNo. These new residents patronize the area’s many new galleries, restaurants, breweries, and cafes like ink! Coffee.
The sign became a flash point for political organizing. Community members understood, sometimes viscerally, that gentrification doesn’t just mean cleaning up the neighborhood. It also means, in the words of community organizer Lisa Calderon, “pushing us out of our community.” Although most activists did not engage in property damage, someone spray painted “white coffee” across the building, unsubtly gesturing at the racialized nature of food’s place in urban “revitalization.” The coffee shop’s window was broken, and an unnamed skateboarder stole the offensive sign. These incidents, along with the ongoing protest, forced the business to close for several days. They did reopen, and maintain their storefront to this day, but the controversy cost them a valuable contract with University of Colorado Denver. Perhaps more important, it sparked broader organizing against gentrification, including one lifelong resident and activist’s successful campaign to replace the current city council member in 2019.
“New Orleans is not cosmopolitan. There’s no kale here.” With these words, reported in the New York Times in 2014, Dutch actress Tara Elders set off the social media controversy that became known as “kalegate” (Goodman 2014). The quote appeared in an article that followed some of the city’s new bohemian residents as they engaged with the city’s varied cultural scenes. A barrage of think pieces, tweets, and hashtags followed. Times-Picayune reporter Jarvis DeBerry opened his scathing response with a description of the iconic restaurant Dooky Chase’s Gumbo Z’herbs, traditionally served on Holy Thursday and consisting of no less than nine greens, kale included. He called for New Orleanians to email or tweet photos of the many places kale was available within the city, and hundreds responded. Johanna Gilligan, the director of Grow Dat Youth Farm, observed that “people are buying kale at [their farmers’] market with a new sense of pride.” The annual Big Easy Theater Awards were hosted by “Citizen Kale,” a local actor in a homemade kale suit. Local restaurants and farmers’ markets offered kalegate specials, and Eater, an online food magazine with a site for most major cities, constructed an interactive map showcasing restaurants where the green was available. In the words of Grist writer Heather Hansman (2014), “You can insult New Orleans … but if you talk bad about its greens, the locals get up in arms.”
Kalegate angered so many New Orleanians because it represented a pervasive sense that the power to define and represent the city lies not with its long-term residents, but with the newcomers. These newcomers, like many before them, romanticize a view of the city that celebrates a sense of magic and mysticism while eliding the legacies of colonialism, slavery and struggle, and of deluge and drowning, that continue to shape residents’ everyday lives (Cannon 2014). The exceptionalist narrative casts New Orleanians as wild spirits, too busy costuming and drinking to address social ills, leaving the city to sink, perhaps literally, into a sort of languid decline. Countering this romanticized view, local writers used kalegate to offer a glimpse into New Orleans’ complex histories and cultures, including struggles for civil rights, workers’ rights, and food justice, and to proclaim their own sense of place in a city they are struggling to define.
The table runs an entire West Oakland city block, and seats 500. This diverse group of diners has been brought together by the People’s Kitchen Collective (PKC), a trio of activist-artist-storyteller-chefs who create “accessible, healthy and loving food spaces … not only to fill our stomachs, but also nourish our souls, feed our minds, and fuel a movement” (People’s Kitchen Collective n.d.). The meal was the final installment of a four-part series: From the FARM to the KITCHEN to the TABLE to the STREETS! A critique of the farm-to-table movement which, according to PKC, too often ignores the contributions of people of color, these meals centered on the recipes and stories of diverse communities. STREETS was a public meal and protest piece designed to celebrate shared resilience in the face of rapid gentrification and displacement. According to the Collective:
This is a reclaiming of the commons, of the streets that are rapidly being disconnected from their history through gentrification. Here, we will eat publicly at the intersection of food, art, and justice. We also meet at the intersection of Yuri Kochiyama and Malcolm X’s birthdays, and at 28th St. and Magnolia St., the site of [Black Panther] Lil Bobby Hutton’s murder by the Police 50 years ago … We deliberately create and take up space, while focusing on building health and connection. In the face of a gentrifying Oakland, this is how we feed a revolution.
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