Ingredients for displacement: an exploration of the role of street food advocates in San Francisco’s changing environment

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on a case study of street food vending in San Francisco, California, to explore how the actions of street food advocates – who first helped vendors gain rights and legitimacy – also advanced their displacement. The ways in which street food vending has been losing space, both culturally and materially, are analyzed in three directions: (1) claiming rights and creating places; (2) falling prey to urban boosters; (3) shifting cultural capital and geographies. The study calls for an updated understanding of how street food vending operates in fast-changing environments and addresses how oppositional and alternative food initiatives may serve as part of a wider neoliberal strategy. In San Francisco, the ways in which advocates and operators spatialize street food have provided an unusual frontier space for exclusion and displacement. The paper thus contributes to emergent research on local food initiatives and their survivability practices in gentrifying North American cities.

KEYWORDS:

• Street food vending
• San Francisco
• displacement
• exclusion
• food gentrification

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Street food vending is loosely defined as selling food out of any portable vehicle, including trucks, carts, trailers, coolers, paddlers, and stands. City requirements and certifications vary depending on the type of portable vehicle, food items being sold, means of preparation, and operation techniques.

2 The city of Los Angeles was long known as the only city among the 15 largest cities in North America to outlaw sidewalk vending. Criminalized by the city, street vendors could have been charged with a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 6 months in jail, a $1,000 fine, the confiscation of their property, and potential deportation (see Bhimji, 2010; Munoz, 2016; and Rosales, 2013).

3 In the United States, the overall food truck industry has only grown in strength over the past ten years and has become one of the best-performing segments in the broader food service sector (IBISWorld, 2020).

4 Before 2010, location permitting was controlled by the police department, making vendors vulnerable to legal intimidation and harassment. After the board of supervisors adopted the new ordinance in 2010, this responsibility was transferred to public works. The Department of Public Health and the San Francisco Fire Department continue to enforce public safety regulations. Today, the San Francisco Department of Public Works functions as the city’s central point of information for questions related to food vending.

5 La Cocina’s Municipal Marketplace is a 7,000-square-foot temporary food hall. Before, La Cocina ran the Mission Community Market for eight years. Founded as an open-air marketplace made up of immigrant farmers, small local businesses, and community programs for marginalized communities, the market suffered from the neighborhood’s gentrification and redevelopment. Since the spring of 2018, Foodwise has taken over the leadership of the market.