Farmers' markets a racially biased cause of 'environmental gentrification,' professors say

http://www.governing.com/gov-data/san-diego-gentrification-maps-demographic-data.html
http://fep.sdsu.edu
http://journals.openedition.org/metropoles/4970

The (San Diego) region is home to over three million people and a major tourist destination, with tourism generating a significant amount of tax revenue and receiving much attention from city and county governments. As a result, the needs of local residents, especially those at the bottom of the hour-glass income distribution characteristic of service-oriented economies, have been arguably neglected. The city government’s focus on economic development through public-private partnerships in downtown hotels, convention centers and public facilities, has left most neighborhoods on their own, leading to an intense competition for resources and a fragmented, volatile and uneven urban landscape. In that context, defensive localism from largely white and affluent upscale urban and gated suburban communities co-exists with progressive efforts, especially in places where immigrants, refugees and people of color have settled. This tension is particularly acute in the city’s gentrifying neighborhoods and their surrounding communities. Increasingly, food has become part of these multiple agendas: attracting tourists, marking status, feeding families, promoting health, providing jobs, preserving nature, etc. Farmers’ markets have become one of the most visible elements of local food politics, growing from 5 in 1988 to 57 today. Although decidedly portrayed as “alternative”, little is known about the actors, motives and agendas underlying the recent growth of farmers’ markets in urban San Diego and other large cities.

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The seemingly narrowing focus of the local food movement on ethical consumption puts into question its revolutionary claims to be inclusive, democratic and just, with particular concerns regarding race and class relations. For instance, scholars have shown that color-blindness and universalism in alternative food practices posits white and middle-class values about “eating-right” as the norm and reproduce white privilege. Farmers’ markets, in this perspective, are conceptualized as white spaces, not just because of the assemblage of white bodies but also because of the whiteness embodied in the practices they enable. Such spaces reinforce the material and emotional barriers that people of color face in accessing “better” foods. Building upon this idea of white or privileged spaces, some researchers have linked alternative and local food initiatives to gentrification and place branding. Farmers’ markets, community gardens, street fairs, restaurants and gourmet food trucks have (inadvertently or purposely) become parts of a rather elitist cultural economy which devalues and/or appropriates the food practices and bodies of low-income and minority residents and thereby contributes to their displacement both culturally and materially. These studies all point to the potential of localized food systems to (re)produce spatialized differences along the lines of race and class. A similar process of appropriation seem to be underway with other countercultural forms, such as rap, yoga, surfing, ethnic cuisine, recycling, and ecotourism, which have been commodified as distinctive, cosmopolitan, pure, and/or responsible, and turned into profit-making initiatives that ultimately excludes most of those originally involved.

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By the 1980s, urban redevelopment efforts began to gain momentum in San Diego and the neighborhood was designated as a planning district within the downtown redevelopment area. The Italian community began to capitalize in this renewed interest in the neighborhood, which was rebranded as Little Italy as a result of advocacy from the local business community. The newly created Little Italy Association (LIA) – a nonprofit neighborhood association comprised of business owners, property owners, and neighborhood residents – became a central actor in the gentrification of the neighborhood, working in partnership with the semi-independent Centre City Development Corporation. Over the next two decades, new businesses, such as Italian themed restaurants, cafes and stores, opened throughout the neighborhood, and the LIA began channeling redevelopment funds to infuse the local landscape with “Italian” features that would be inviting to local resident and tourists alike.

During the past decade, the residential population began to grow again, with wealthier and younger residents moving into newly built apartments and renovated lofts. Today, as shown in Table 1, residents of the census tract where the farmers’ market is located are primarily white, upper-middle class professionals without children. Many are young renters living alone or with one other person, and walking to work in one of the downtown neighborhoods. Although a few working class families remain in the neighborhood, the majority fit the stereotype of the urban creative class typically associated with urban gentrification – a very different population than two decades ago.

The Little Italy farmers’ market – or Mercato – was created in 2008 to serve this population as well as the large number of tourists and suburban residents who visit downtown for entertainment. As its name indicates, the Mercato builds on the Italian theme, which has served the neighborhood well in defining itself as a “hip and historic urban neighborhood” – a registered trademark. The market is sponsored by the LIA and managed by SD Weekly Markets, an expanding private company that hosts four other farmers’ markets in the region and has adopted a business model based on partnerships with local chefs, farmers, artisans and neighborhood developers under the motto of “foodies, meet farmers”. Real estate agents have capitalized on the market and supported it through their representation on the board of the LIA. Indeed, the farmers’ market – a symbol of the trendy and upscale urban character of the neighborhood – is mentioned in most real estate advertisements.

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The Little Italy Mercato, by reinforcing the image of a hip and historic urban neighborhood, has become instrumental in the gentrification of Little Italy, which continues to displace low-income people both culturally and materially. The local here is a project undertaken by urban developers and civic entrepreneurs in ways that align closely with recent accounts of neoliberal urban governance. City government agencies and the neighborhood business community, led by the Little Italy Association, have capitalized on the currency of local food to attract tourists and residents with significant purchasing dollars to Little Italy. The success of the market in meeting its economic goals owe to the resources afforded by the public private partnership put in place. In 2012, the City of San Diego Redevelopment Agency was dissolved by a new state law and replaced by Civic San Diego, a city-owned nonprofit agency with the mission of being “an entrepreneurial partner [to revitalize] targeted urban neighborhoods,” which also include City Heights and Southeastern San Diego (Civic San Diego 2103). This shift of responsibility to the nonprofit sector and the emphasis on public private partnerships raise concern regarding both the ability of low-income neighborhoods to engage in similar efforts and the shape and direction such efforts are likely to take.

There's a whole flock of indignant white men going on about this. They claim that racism is overblown, but refuse to even read into this further.
https://www.rallypoint.com/shared-links/farmers-markets-a-racially-biased-cause-of-environmental-gentrification-professors-say--2

Here is what you need to know about the actors, motives and agendas underlying the recent growth of farmers’ markets in urban San Diego and other large cities. They want to make money so they can buy things. They saw a need. They developed and idea of how to satisfy that need, then they actually did something with their idea.

As far as inclusiveness in the supposed white spaces, I bet there isn't one vendor who is turning people away because of their race or ethnicity. I bet they don't inquire the ethnicity/culture of the recipes for which someone buys a tomato. But it sounds an awful lot like the source you cite doesn't want white people to make or purchase rap music, practice yoga, surf, enjoy ethnic cuisine/restaurants, recycle or travel to different places and learn about other cultures and ethnicities. So, when did liberals adopt the ethos of the KKK and the John Birch society?