Publication
A Recipe for Gentrification: Food, Power, and Resistance in the City
Edited by Alison Hope Alkon, Yuki Kato and Joshua Sbicca
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.
The book received an honorable mention by the Association for the Study of Food and Society Edited Book Award in 2021 .
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Selective Journal Articles
Boules, Caroline R. and Yuki Kato. 2023. “Just Transition or Just Transitioning? Potentials and Limitations of Urban Growers’ Adaptations to the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Sustainability. 15(12):9340. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15129340
Kato, Yuki, and Caroline Boules. 2022. "Pandemic gardening: Variant adaptations to COVID-19 disruptions by community gardens, school gardens, and urban farms." Journal of Urban Affairs. DOI: 10.1080/07352166.2022.2110887
Kato, Yuki. 2020. “Gardening in Times of Urban Transition.” City&Community. DOI: 10.1111/cico.12476
Kato, Yuki, Scarlett Andrews Martin and Cate Irvin. 2018. “Availability and Accessibility of Vacant Lots for Urban Cultivation in Post-Katrina New Orleans.” Urban Affairs Review. 54(2):332-362.
McKinney, Laura and Yuki Kato. 2017. “Community Context of Food Justice: Reflections on a Free Local Produce Program in a New Orleans food Desert.” AIMS Agriculture and Food. 2(2): 183-200. doi: 10.3934/agrfood.2017.2.183
Harvey, Daina Cheyenne, Yuki Kato, and Catarina Passidomo. 2016. “Re-Building Others’ Communities: A Critical Analysis of Race and Nativism in Nonprofits in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.” Local Environment. 21(8): 1029-1046. DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2015.1064100
Kato, Yuki. 2014. “Gardeners, Locavores, Hipsters, and Residents: An Alternative Local Food Market’s Potential for “Community” Building.” Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development. 5(1):145-159.
Kato, Yuki, Catarina Passidomo, and Daina Harvey. 2014. “Political Gardening in a Post-disaster City: Lessons from New Orleans.” Urban Studies. 51(9): 1833–1849.
Opinions/Other Publications
Yuki Kato and Jeanne Firth. 2024. “City Park should embrace, not destroy, Grow Dat Youth Farm.” April 3. Verite News.
Alkon, Alison, Sarah Bowen, Yuki Kato, Kara Young. 2020. “Unequally Vulnerable: A Food Justice Approach to Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Cases.” Agriculture and Human Values. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-020-10110-z
Young, Kara, Sarah Bowen, Yuki Kato, Justin Schupp, Anne Saville, Alison Alkon, Nino Bariola, and Ferzana Havewala. 2020. “the effect of covid-19 on the food system.” The Contexts. Special Issue on covid-19. URL: https://contexts.org/blog/inequality-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic/