Eating Pretty in the Entertainment City: Urban Consumption and Gentrification in New York City Through the Lens of Instagram

Abstract

This paper analyzes the relationship between urban consumption, gentrification, and the gentrification aesthetic in New York City through Instagram. I created a new dataset using neighborhood-level indicators of gentrification (through creating an index of neighborhood income, education level, and housing price), a comprehensive directory of restaurant establishments acquired from the NYC Dept. of Health, and an extract of every identifiable geotagged Instagram posted at one of those restaurants from 2011-2016. Through linear regression, I analyzed restaurants that were geotagged by neighborhood and by cuisine type to find patterns in what people post on Instagram, and my results are consistent with current literature on omnivorous consumption. I also qualitatively coded a sample of Instagram pictures to study the way that users present pictures geotagged to restaurants in affluent, gentrifying, and ungentrified areas. Through this, I found differences in the way that users present food in neighborhoods at different stages of gentrification. Finally, I performed linear and negative binomial regressions and found significant correlation between whether or not a restaurant has ever been geotagged and gentrification as measured by change from 2011-2016. There was also significant correlation between geotagged restaurants and neighborhood affluence. The results of this study confirm theories of urban consumption and signify that Instagram is an emerging useful method for studying the byproducts of neoliberal gentrification.