I think one of the most important things Professor Zukin mentions in her book is the role of the media and the internet in the creation and vitality of certain areas. I think most internet tools end up being very hard to understand in terms of their impact on cities. Yelp can help keep stores in more remote areas busy with customers. It can also open people up to new experiences in taste and culture. However, Yelp is often the scout of a larger gentrifying force. If a bunch of 20 somethings that just moved to a city read about something on Yelp and make a journey to an area to try it, it sets off a chain reaction. (I’ve done this to get Nepalese food in Jackson Heights, but you know , I’m leaving myself out of this) Maybe those millenials fall in love with the “quaint” and “diverse” (using quotes because I would say immigrants and working class don’t look for diversity in their neighborhoods, or at least not what it has come to mean to the gentrifying class) area and want to take a look at the real estate.
I was in Tacos El Bronco in Sunset Park last week. It’s a famous place mostly because of it’s food truck and it’s cheap prices. (The first time I went there was at 3 am walking through Brooklyn and it was a much different experience.) It is a really great place for tacos and basically any other kind of Mexican food. I was visiting after I attended a community board meeting focused on gentrification and homelessness. I saw in the store a mix. There was a lot of Spanish families and couples out to eat, there was some Asian teenagers and some Middle Eastern teenagers. There was also a surprising large number of white hipsterish looking people sitting all around and coming in to pick up. I thought about the future of this place. I know that Sunset Park is on the verge of some huge changes and I wonder how long it will take for Tacos El Bronco to either adapt, (become fetishized and overpriced) close or move. The people who move into the neighborhood will begin telling their friends about this “great little spot” near their “great new place” and it will become a phenomenon. In a few years they’ll be making more money but maybe they’ll have alienated their original base in the community and it will feel like a less vital enterprise. A restaurant that is of the ethnicity of one of the groups of the neighborhood it inhabits is much more important than a purely commercial venture meant to take advantage of economic trends and brands. A Chipotle has no use beyond its seemingly endless supply of burritos, there’s a place for Chipotle, but not a domineering place. New York’s ethnic neighborhoods are being taken over by people who have turned authenticity into something that can be bought. Tacos El Bronco needs to be protected and that means Sunset Park needs to be protected.
