Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco, two geography professors at SDSU, criticized the "whiteness of farmers' markets" in a chapter for Just Green Enough, a new anthology published by Routledge in December.
The anthology, which features contributions from a variety of professors, aims to highlight the harms of "environmental gentrification," a process in which "environmental improvements lead to...the displacement of long-term residents."
Farmers' markets are one such environmental improvement that can lead to gentrification, Bosco and Joassart-Marcelli argue, saying farmers' markets are "exclusionary" since locals may not be able to "afford the food and/or feel excluded from these new spaces."
This social exclusion is reinforced by the "whiteness of farmers' markets" and the "white habitus" that they can reinforce, the professors elaborate, describing farmers' markets as "white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized."
This is a paradoxical outcome, since farmers' markets are often established in the interest of fighting so-called "food deserts" in lower-income and minority communities. Since grocery stores in low-income communities often lack fresh quality produce, the professors say that in some cases, farmers' markets may be only source of quality and affordable produce for locals.
Citing research they conducted in San Diego, however, Bosco and Joassart-Marcelli claim that 44 percent of the city's farmers' markets are located in census tracts with a high rate of gentrification, leading them to conclude that farmers' markets "attract households from higher socio-economic backgrounds, raising property values and displacing low-income residents and people of color."
"The most insidious part of this gentrification process is that alternative food initiatives work against the community activists and residents who first mobilized to fight environmental injustices and provide these amenities but have significantly less political and economic clout than developers and real estate professionals
The professors stop short of offering specific remedies, but do conclude that "curbing gentrification is a vexing task" that requires the involvement of both community members and local governments.
"Strong community involvement," they say, is necessary in order to ensure that "the needs of the poorest...residents are prioritized," while local governments can enact "equitable zoning policies, rent-control laws, and property tax reforms in favor of long-time homeowners" to combat the trend toward gentrification.
"Ultimately," they conclude, countering gentrification "requires slow and inclusive steps that balance new initiatives and neighborhood stability to make cities 'just green enough.'"
Campus Reform reached out to Bosco and Joassart-Marcelli for comment, but neither professor responded in time for publication.
Reader Comments
First, conduct a truly unbiased poll by 'our' government, (kinda like the FBI's Non-bias in the whole Non-Russia scandal*) to determine the appropriate 'community approved' amount/lack/level of melanin in skin of what all agree is a prototypical 'white person. (However, albinos get treated as if they were as dark black as melanin can get one.)
Then measure everyone else vis a vis that standard.
Then analyze the results, and if they don't show what you want, hire the numbers fixers who screwed up the AGW non scandal and hope they don't get caught this time.
Then do an AGW tax on all folks and the less melanin they have the more that they owe for their 'white privilege' and have them pay out hard cash to 'oppressed minorities' (who've already gotten free scholarships with grades 3/5ths of what mine were, while I had to work through under and grad law school.) (I could have gotten another job tutoring them - for free to them - but I was too busy working as a teachers' assistant at grad level stuff.) {Hence, no surprise, I'm in love with the white girl in Canada - Lindsay Shepherd? I love ladies who know how and when to be tough!) (See, also, Russia's Maria...Z I forget. Same concept- No whining from either lady! Great!)
Thus as far as the divide and conquer PTB controllers feel, problem, solved because the division between races would be aggravated to even higher heights.
What I don't understand is how supposedly informed/smart white/black/purple people can actually not see through this obvious divide and conquer charade.
R.C.
* Which of course SHOULD be a huge scandal if Trump would be allowed to have some truly independent counsel research Killary's scams, which ARE the issue (including Killary's creation of the 'Dodgy Dossier'. et al.) Just ask Mark Rich...uh, you can't do that as he was whacked for being a person who believed in the system and tried to fix it... truly a warning style execution killing. I believe it was a .22 L.R. pistol, and I bet they followed up with multiple shots to the cerebral cortex via the mouth or the back of the skull.
The affirmative failure to take anything of value from him was also meant as a warning - as they knew the cops would call it a robbery gone awry.
RC
'Cause they're easily convinced that they have a stake in it, which of course, they don't.
Let's just nutshell this article: Eating fruits & vegetables & homemade baked goods makes you a RACIST.
The professors are, of course, retards.
Nonetheless, there is an extreme amount of snobbery, carefully concealed or hidden violence and mayhem and complete insincerity (aka lying, no-good, god-damned shit) in the so-called 'farmer friendly' or 'country pleasant' movement. This is because everything on earth today operates according to a strict hierarchy. This hierarchy is imposed upon everyone by the wealthiest of the wealthy, who are then aided and abetted by the slightly less wealthiest of the wealthy who are in turn aided and abetted by those who are slightly less wealthy than that. The retarded professors are somewhere in this hierarchy and are without any human quality (aka common sense or compassion) as a result.
This hierarchy is completely dependent upon the constant imposition on and intrusion into and disruption of 'natural law of life ingredients' by technology. It is, as I have stated frequently,and via this technology, in complete possession and dominance of our wonderful earth, at this present time. There is just about zero freedom and zero actual choice. Zero and getting less, can you imagine that?
No one can own any land nor have remotely 'original' access to things like food and water and shelter, except by pleasing this total control system or hierarchy of the wealthy, who depend on technology for their 'control'. We can also call this hierarchy, 'government'.
ALL THE LAND AND THE NATURAL RESOURCES (ie., the food, water, home building materials and inherent freedom to be) have been taken from the 'lesser' people by these 'greater' people over the course of the last two thousand years.
Things will only get worse, as this hierarchy seeks to maintain itself in violation of everything that is just and right and truly profound.
The only 'good news' in a certain sense, is that we all die and face the actual truth of what we did, during our earthly presence and our 'activity'.
My suggestion to everyone would be to use that tiny little shred of freedom and actual choice that you might have left, wisely.
'Even when the Tao is violated, it is never violated.'
Wake the fuck up.
Thanks.
ned, out