Culinary Deserts

Culinary Deserts, Gastronomic Oases: AClassification of US Cities

Zachary Paul Neal

[Paper first received, February 2005; in final form, June 2005]

Summary. This paper explores the role of restaurants, as consumption spaces, in defining theconsumptional identity of 243 American cities. Specifically, it is asked whether, and how, UScities can be classified on the basis of the local prevalence of specific types of restaurants—aresome cities culinary deserts, while others are gastronomic oases? A two-stage cluster analysisreveals four distinct city types, which fall along two intersecting dimensions: a quantitativedimension of restaurant availability and a qualitative cultural dimension. These four city typesare characterised and connected to the existing literature on consumption spaces, with particularattention to a strong parallel between these city types and the communities discussed by RichardFlorida. Several directions for future research using the city classification as a conceptualframework are offered. Additionally, these analyses involve the development and application of anew method of measuring a city’s number of consumption spaces, which is theoretically superiorto traditional per capita measures and which is described in a methodological appendix.

Without bread, all is misery (WilliamCobbett (1763—1835)).

In the Phoenix New Times “Best of Phoenix2003” issue, readers identified Olive Gardenas the city’s best Italian restaurant, P. F.Chang’s as the best Chinese restaurant andLa Madeleine as the best French restaurant.Other national chains were also named asPhoenix’s best in a number of other categoriesand, in fact, they have been so recognised byPhoenix New Times readers for years (seeRentschler, 2003). What does it mean whenthe most popular restaurants in Phoenix—the6th largest city in the US—are the same stan-dardised eating-places available in nearlyevery other large American city?

Perhaps Phoenix is a desert in more thanjust the climatic sense. The term ‘food

desert’ is used in the public health literature

to refer to places with limited access to

reasonably priced nutritious foods (Wrigley,

2002). However, food is not only a functional

good, but also a cultural object—consumed

not only for its nutrients, but also for its sym-

bolic and aesthetic value. Thus, areas with

limited culturally satisfying restaurant

options might be described by a similar

term: ‘culinary desert’. For those who

believe that “dining at a spectacular restaurant

is essential to the claim that one is cultured

and civilized”, Phoenix just may be a ‘culin-

ary desert’ (Finkelstein, 1989, p.76).Crewe and Lowe (1995, p. 1877) have

argued that “through their organisation ofconsumption retailers are creating particularurban landscapes and that qualitative

Urban Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1, 1–21, January 2006

Zachary Paul Neal is in the Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 West Harrison Street, Chicago, Illinois60607, USA. Fax: 312 996 5104. E-mail: [email protected]. The author would like to thank (alphabetically) William Bridges, AnthonyOrum, Pamela Popielarz and Jennifer Watling-Neal, and also three anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts.

0042-0980 Print=1360-063X Online=06=010001–21 # 2006 The Editors of Urban Studies

DOI: 10.1080=00420980500388728

differences are emerging between areas ofconsumption centres”. Hence ‘microgeogra-phies of consumption’ emerge and individualshave increasingly differential levels of accessto specific types of consumption spaces,which can have important consequences fortheir quality of life (Mullins et al., 1999;Zukin, 2004). Given the highly urbanisednature of both the American population andAmerican consumption activity, to beginmapping these microgeographies we mightask: What kind of cities contain what kind ofconsumption spaces? Because restaurants areamong the most varied and common, yetunderstudied, consumption spaces, in thisstudy I aim to develop an understanding ofcities in terms of their restaurants. In particu-lar, I ask whether, and how, US cities can beclassified on the basis of the local prevalenceof specific types of restaurants—are somecities culinary deserts, while others are gastro-nomic oases?

In the first section, I examine the keyconcepts and prior work that motivate andinform this study—the roles of consumptionspaces and, more narrowly, the restaurant asa consumption space. In the second and thirdsections, I detail the methodology and dataemployed and describe the city classificationscheme they reveal. Finally, by characterisingeach of the identified city types, I considertheir theoretical implications.

The Mise en Place

Consumption and the City

Quality of life. Mullins et al. (1999) note that

because consumerism is a core component ofcontemporary culture, any consideration of ahousehold’s quality of life must thereforetake into account . . . ease of access to con-sumption spaces (Mullins et al., 1999, p. 49).

The connection between quality of life andaccess to consumption spaces rests on thepost-materialist shift from a “focus on mate-rial necessities to issues of self-actualisation”(Mullins et al., 1999, p. 49; citing Abrahamsonand Inglehart, 1995). That is, because basic

material needs are increasingly easily satisfiedin the developed world, attention has shiftedto individuals’ ability to cultivate theirdesired identities. A significant part of indi-vidual identity—what Corner (1994) hastermed ‘consumptional identity’—is construc-ted and expressed through consumptionchoices (Bourdieu, 1984; Zukin, 1995,2004). Limited access to the desired kind ofconsumption spaces translates into a corre-spondingly limited ability to self-actualiseand therefore into a lower quality of life.Thus, the number and variety of local con-sumption spaces has the potential to impactdirectly on one’s quality of life.

The specific collection of consumptionspaces in an area can also impact on quality oflife to the extent that it serves as a marker ofthe social and demographic character of aplace, demarcating a sort of metageography.Certainly, such markers not only help us to navi-gate the social world, but they also indicatewhere we belong and where we do not. Forexample, the boutiques of Beverly Hills commu-nicate not only that it is an up-scale area, but alsothat if we are not a member of the social elite, weshould proceed to the nearest suburban shoppingmall. As Zukin has suggested

the debate about which kinds of goods andstores belong on the street is also a debateabout who belongs in the city (Zukin,2004, p. 284).

Lacking access to consumption spaces inwhich an individual ‘fits in’, can render him/her an outsider, inviting disapproving glancesand inspiring feelings of social isolation.

While discussing consumption spaces interms of quality of life may seem overblown,the increasingly dominant role of consump-tion and consumerism in advanced societiesmeans that such phenomena cannot beignored or marginalised. However, as theseare new and evolving phenomena, theyremain difficult to understand and I do notintend to test empirically the claims ofMullins et al. (1999) or Zukin (2004).Instead, my aim is to provide a preliminarymapping of the ‘microgeographies of con-sumption’ which Crewe and Lowe (1995)

2 ZACHARY PAUL NEAL

argue are emerging, which can then serve as aconceptual framework and methodologicaltool for future explorations of the role(s) ofconsumption spaces in cities and theirimpact on individuals’ quality of life.

Urban consumptional identities. Corner’s(1994) notion of consumptional identity isuseful not only when discussing individuals,as above, but also when discussing cities.Using the term ‘symbolic economy’, Zukin(1995) has suggested that a city’s collectionof broadly consumption-oriented institutionshelps to specify its identity or image. Byexamining the kind and number of consump-tion spaces a city contains, it becomes possibleto understand and define its consumptionalidentity and to know what ‘kind’ of city it is(Crewe and Lowe, 1995). This, in turn,makes it possible to identify patterns in urbanconsumptional identities which both define amicrogeography of consumption and createthe differential levels of access to consumptionspaces which impact on quality of life.

This type of interplay between consumptionspaces and urban identity has been observed inmany places. The West Edmonton Mall inCanada—the largest of its kind at the time—asserted a “new urban identity of centralityfor Edmonton” (Shields, 1989, p. 161).York’s image as a repository of British heri-tage was cultivated through the developmentof—for example, historically themed shop-ping centres (Meethan, 1996). Similarly,Nottingham’s Lace Market has recently beenrenewed through retail growth and is, as itonce was in the early 20th century, a centrefor British fashion (Crewe and Lowe, 1995).

Chicago’s Millennium Park provides aparticularly clear and current example inAmerica. Like many other urban entertain-ment districts, this one offers an opportunityto consume music, art and food. What iscrucial is the specific type of consumptionspace in which each is offered. The city didnot build a concert hall, but an open-airamphitheatre; not a gallery, but two massiveoutdoor installations; not simply a restaurant,but a vast al fresco cafe—all of which are situ-ated within a meticulously landscaped 25 acres

near the lakefront. It is through these consump-tion spaces that the city (re)produces its ‘urbsin horto’ (city in a garden) identity.

The development of these specific types ofconsumption spaces suggests that Chicago is acity that values music, art and architecture. Italso suggests that it values recreational ame-nities, especially those that draw on LakeMichigan as a natural resource. Together,these values, as expressed through consump-tion spaces, point to a city interested in captur-ing and holding the attention of ademographic sub-segment that includes atonce a bohemian-outdoorsy element and abourgeois-high culture component. That is,by constructing a specific consumptional iden-tity through its consumption spaces, Chicagocasts itself as a specific kind of city in abroad social and demographic sense.

While a city’s consumptional identity fre-quently serves to differentiate it from othercities, it is not necessarily so. Scott (1997,p. 324) distinguishes between urban culturesthat are place-bound and those that areinstances of “non-place globalized occur-rences and experiences”. Italo Calvino(1974) captured the experience of the non-place place when he observed that the shops,signs and even hotels do not change asone travels from city to city; “Only thename of the airport changes” (p. 102).Numerous instances of this phenomenonhave been offered, among which Ritzer’s(1996) explorations of society’s increasing‘McDonaldisation’ may be the most promi-nent. Even microbreweries, which Schnelland Reese (2003) have specifically identifiedas a mode of local identity construction,have recently been franchised and mass dis-tributed. In the wake of these and other obser-vations, Zukin (1998, p. 837) concludesthat the “multiplicity of standardised attrac-tions . . . reduce[s] the uniqueness of urbanidentities”.

Clearly, cities can construct (whether inten-tionally or not) many possible consumptionalidentities, ranging from the vibrant andunique to the utterly featureless. Thinkingabout cities in terms of their specific con-sumptional identities, as Crewe and Lowe

CULINARY DESERTS, GASTRONOMIC OASES 3

(1995) have suggested, brings a new perspec-tive to urban studies to the extent that itreveals previously obscured geographies.Moreover, when these microgeographies ofconsumption have consequences for individ-uals’ quality of life, identifying them allowsfor a fuller understanding of the social pro-cesses involved in consumption. (For a morethorough review of the growing literature onthe roles and landscapes of consumptionspaces, see Jackson and Thrift, 1995;Wrigley and Lowe, 1996, 2002).

The Restaurant as Consumption Space

Although a city’s consumptional identity cer-tainly has many components, this studyfocuses specifically on the role of food con-sumption spaces—restaurants. This raisestwo important questions, one conceptual andone methodological. First, among the myriadother kinds of consumption spaces, whystudy restaurants? Secondly, how canrestaurant-focused research deal with theextreme variety among restaurants? Irespond to the first question here, while thelatter question, as a methodological issue, isdealt with in the following section.

Why study restaurants?. The most straight-forward reason restaurants warrant exclusiveconsideration in a study of consumptionspaces is that “the geography of diningout . . . seems to be a neglected area ofresearch” (Johns and Pine, 2002, p. 126).First, much work on the locational patternsof restaurants has been conducted outside theUS, focusing primarily on Canada (Smith,1985), Australia (Mullins et al., 1999) andthe UK (Clarke et al., 2002), Zelinsky’s(1985) study of North American ethnic food-ways being a notable exception. Secondly,several recent books which address the claimthat ‘You are where you eat’ have examinedrestaurants from a cultural and historical, butnot explicitly geographical, viewpoint (Fine,2001). Finally, while Smith (1985) andZelinsky (1985) have offered the most directexamination of restaurant location patterns todate, their data are now more than a quarter

of a century old. Moreover, both were nar-rowly focused—the former on business-oriented site selection issues, the latter exclu-sively on ethnic restaurants. This study is anopportunity to update the record, widen thescope and improve upon the methodology(see below and Appendix).

Mullins et al. (1999) used more recent dataand adopted a much wider scope, but thebreadth of their study led to the considerationof restaurants as consumption spaces only tothe extent that they “essentially arouse tasteand smell” (Mullins et al., 1999, p. 48). Thisconception neglects a wide range of othersenses restaurants aim to arouse. Since the“semiarchitectural confections” of AntoninCareme, haute cuisine has focused as muchon the visual as on the olfactory or gustatorysenses (Ferguson, 1998, p. 614). More recently,an entirely new mode of food consumption hasbeen identified, in which entertainment—through audio and visual displays, and oppor-tunities to buy non-food items—is the primaryfocus (Bell and Valentine, 1997; Gottdiener,2000; Miele and Murdoch, 2002). Beyondexciting the senses, restaurants have alsobeen identified as serving important socialfunctions ranging from ordinary socialising(Oldenberg, 1989; Gaudio, 2003) to enforcingsocial norms and hierarchies (Gottlieb, 1957;Finkelstein, 1989) and might be consideredas a “symbolic space or theater for thinking[that] is connected to self-fashioning”(Shelton, 1990, p. 507). Crang, for example,has offered a detailed participant-observeraccount of one restaurant in which

the function of the dining out experience . . .is not just about the biological necessityof eating but about social and culturalpositionings, interactions, and experiences(Crang, 1994, p. 699).

Moreover, food consumption spaces—in par-ticular, the English coffeehouse and GermanTischgesellshaft (table societies)—have beenrecognised by Habermas (1989, ch. 5) assome of the most transformative institutionsin the public sphere. Restaurants are, there-fore, more than just places to taste andsmell, and restaurant-focused consumption

4 ZACHARY PAUL NEAL

research will help to situate them more cen-trally among consumption spaces.

Finally, while not specifically aimed atissues of consumption, Freeman and Hannan(1983) have identified several methodologicaladvantages to studying restaurants. First,because even moderately sized cities containsome restaurants, research is not restricted toa focus on only the largest cities. Secondly,to the extent that restaurant success dependson local visibility, the Yellow Pages providesa ready sampling frame. Finally, there is agreat deal of variability among restaurants.Freeman and Hannan (1983, p. 1131) alonenoted that restaurants are distinguishable interms of “type of cuisine, style of service,hours of operation, price range, diversity ofmenu items, and range of services”. Thisvariability allows restaurant-focused researchto consider a wide and nuanced range of insti-tutions within the broad category of‘restaurant’.

Some Expectations

In this study, I seek to uncover patterns in theway that restaurants are distributed in citiesacross the US. Can US cities be grouped onthe basis of their populations of specific typesof restaurants and what can these groupingstell us about their consumptional urban identi-ties and their broader social and demographiccharacter? Beyond this relatively exploratoryaim, previous studies offer a number of theor-etically driven preliminary expectations.

Examining restaurant locational patterns inCanadian cities, Smith found that cities withlarger populations inevitably have a greaternumber and diversity of restaurants, whichhe attributes to “small town traditions ofrelying on family and friends for entertain-ment”, or what might now be called ‘socialcapital’ (Smith, 1985, p. 590). More specifi-cally, he found that smaller towns containfewer ‘regular restaurants’, but more ‘pizzaparlors’ and ‘fast food outlets’ than largertowns. Thus, I expect that population sizewill play a significant role in the consump-tional identities of American cities. Urbanmodes of transport are also likely to be

important, as he suggests that “fast foodoutlets are an automobile-related phenom-enon, catering to a mobile population ofworkers and shoppers” (Smith, 1985, p. 597).

Zelinsky’s (1985) examination of ethnicrestaurants in North America is of onlypartial relevance to the present studybecause, whereas he focused on specific ethni-cities of cuisine, and Mexican, Italian andChinese in particular, I examine ethniccuisine as a unitary category and, moreover,one which excludes Mexican, Italian andChinese (see below). Nonetheless, he offersthree observations which are sufficientlygeneral to apply in this case. First, he suggeststhat “the higher the mean level of affluence,education, and associated characteristics themore likely we are to find more eatingplaces offering ethnic specialties” (Zelinsky,p. 68). Secondly, the “turnover of touristsand other affluent transients” (p. 68) is alsoexpected to be positively associated with thepresence of ethnic restaurants. Finally,although less easily observed, “the generalcultural-cum-socioeconomic character of aregion . . . helps determine its receptivity toexotic dishes” (Zelinsky, p. 68).

Mullins et al. (1999) also offer some poten-tially useful insights. First, they found that themajority of consumption spaces are located inrecently gentrified urban communities charac-terised by high socioeconomic status andethnic diversity. Secondly, urban commu-nities located at the periphery of the metropo-litan area experience a ‘locationaldisadvantage’ because they contain relativelyfew consumption spaces. Finally, and surpris-ingly, they found that this ‘locational disad-vantage’ is uncorrelated with poverty. Thatis, both affluent and poor communities canbe found in areas with limited concentrationsof consumption spaces. These findingssuggest that socioeconomic features and aplace’s proximity to an urban centre will beinfluential although not dispositive.

Finally, Florida’s (2003) typology of com-munities, derived from his popular ‘creativeclass’ construct (2002), provides a specificclassificatory scheme against which thisstudy’s results may be compared. Although


an oversimplification of his theory, Floridasuggests that a city’s economic and socialviability depends crucially on its ability toattract members of the creative class (suchas scientists, professors and artists), who arethe driving-force behind the new creativeeconomy. Drawing on the work of RobertCushing, he offers a four-part classificationof communities based on a variety of indi-cators of the presence of, and their potentialto attract, members of the creative class.

The least viable community in the newcreative economy is the ‘Classic SocialCapital Community’, which has high levelsof social capital, but little diversity (forexample, Baton Rouge, Winston-Salem).Such places might be expected that to havefew restaurants generally (see Smith, 1985)and especially few ethnic restaurants. The‘Organisational age community’ scores highon Florida’s ‘working class index’ and rep-resents “the classic corporate centers of theorganisational age” (Florida, 2003, p. 14)(for example, Detroit, Cleveland). This com-munity may not be able to support morethan the most traditional and inexpensivedining options, but may feature a token eliterestaurant to serve the social needs of thecorporate brass.

The ‘Nerdistan’ is characterised as a fast-growing region plagued by sprawl andpollution, and focused on high-tech industry(for example, Phoenix, Los Angeles,Houston). The availability of inexpensiveland in these areas may encourage the con-struction of large casual dining and themedrestaurants, while long commutes mayelevate the demand for fast food restaurants.Finally, the ‘creative centre’ is the primaryresidence of the ‘creative class’ and is distin-guished by its high levels of Florida’s threeTs: technology, talent and tolerance (forexample, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago).The creative centre’s diversity may supportlarge populations of ethnic restaurants, itsconcentrations of wealth may support largerthan average numbers of elite restaurantsand its role as home to intellectuals and crea-tives may suggest the existence of a livelycoffeehouse scene.

Methodology

This study counted the number of restaurantsin 243 of the 245 incorporated places (forpractical purposes, cities) in the US with esti-mated populations of more than 100 000 in2003 (US Bureau of the Census, 2004a).New York was excluded because data wereunavailable for individual boroughs and city-wide data cast the city as an extreme outlier,while McAllen, TX, was excluded because,for unknown reasons, data were unavailablefrom the sources discussed below. To dealwith the variability noted by Freeman andHannan (1983), it was necessary to identifyseveral types of restaurant and count themseparately.

However, Warde and Martens (1998) haverecognised that classifying restaurants isextremely difficult, comparing it with a‘certain Chinese encyclopedia’ in which

animals are divided into: (a) those thatbelong to the Emperor, (b) embalmedones, (c) those that are trained, (d) sucklingpigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g)stray dogs, (h) those that are included inthe present classification, (i) those thattremble as if they were mad, (j) innumer-able ones, (k) those drawn with a veryfine camel’s hair brush, (l) others, (m)those that have just broken a flower vase,(n) those that resemble flies from a distance.(Borges, 1964, p. 103)

Even a brief glance at the previouslyemployed restaurant classification schemesconfirms that the Chinese encyclopedia entryis not an entirely inappropriate parallel (seeTable 1). They include simple binary dis-tinctions (Miele and Murdoch, 2002),cuisine-style lists (Warde et al., 1999),nominal categories (for example, Smith,1985), and complex hierarchical typologies(Finkelstein, 1989).

Unfortunately, none of these schemes aloneis suitable for the design of this study. The cat-egories they identify are, at times, too narrow(for example, Doughnut stores), too broad (forexample, Other types of restaurant), inap-propriate for an American context (for

6 ZACHARY PAUL NEAL

example, Fish and chips) or too difficult tooperationalise (for example, ‘formal’ versus‘informal’ Fete speciale). Thus, I compiled ahybrid classification scheme that draws onthe individual strengths of these earlier

efforts, but which also aims to capture thosetypes that have been prominently featured inrecent academic work involving restaurants.Each of the categories discussed belowserves both as a conceptual type and as anoperationalised count variable.

Elite restaurants. Highly regarded andexpensive restaurants might be described aselite in two ways: with respect to the qualityof the food served and with respect to thestatus they confer on diners. This dichotomyis captured by Finkelstein’s (1989) formaland informal ‘Fete speciale’ categories,respectively. Restaurants adopting Miele andMurdoch’s (2002) ‘gastronomic aesthetic’also belong to the former group, but otherclassifications have dealt with elite restaurantswithout making such a distinction (Cherulnik,1991; Muller and Woods, 1994). Because thequestion of whether a restaurant is elite onaccount of its food or status is primarily thedomain of food critics, this category includesboth types.

Because judging a restaurant to be elite isan inherently subjective task, the operationali-sation of such a variable is difficult and subjectto a level of imprecision. The most obvioussources of such information are travel guide-books, because they typically employ somescheme of distinguishing restaurants on thebasis of the quality of the food, service anddining experience. While many such guide-books exist, those published by the AmericanAutomobile Association (AAA) are superiorfor the present purposes for several reasons.First, they cover the widest number of cities,rather than focusing only on the largest or ontop tourist destinations (for example,Zagat’s). Secondly, they consider the widestrange of restaurants, rather than focusingonly on the most exclusive (for example,Michelin). Thirdly, they employ a longstand-ing system of awarding restaurants 1–5diamonds based on well-defined objectiveand subjective criteria (see AAA, 1997).Because a three-diamond establishment isdescribed as “the entry level into finedining” which aims at providing “an experi-ence rather than just a meal”, (AAA, 1997)

Table 1. Summary of existing restaurant classifi-cation schemes

Authors Categories

Smith (1985) Pizza parloursRegular restaurantsIce cream and frozen dessert storesFast food restaurantsDoughnut stores

Finkelstein(1989)

Fete specialeFormalInformalAmusementParodicBistro mondainConvenienceCafe mundaneFast-food chainLocal ethnic

Cherulnik(1991)

Luncheonette/Sandwich shopInexpensive dinner restaurantFamily diningExpensive dinner restaurant

Muller andWoods(1994)

Quick serviceModerate upscaleBusiness diningMidscaleUpscale

Beardsworthand Bryman(1999)

Modes of ThemingReliquary (e.g. sports autographs)Parodic (e.g. Wild West)Reflexive (e.g. branding)Ethnic

Mullins et al.(1999)

Ethnic restaurantsInternational fast foodCafe/Coffee shopOther types of restaurantNational (Australian) fast food

Warde et al.(1999)

Pizza, Fast food, Fish and chip,Wine bar, Roadside diner, Instore/Shopping mall, Cafe orteashop, Steakhouse, Pub (barmeal), Pub (restaurant), Hotelrestaurant, Other British, Indian,Chinese, Italian, American-style, French, Greek, Otherethnic, Vegetarian, Other

Miele andMurdoch(2002)

Restaurants may subscribe to:an Aesthetic of entertainment or a

Gastronomic aesthetic


this variable counts the total number of estab-lishments that have been awarded three ormore diamonds, as indicated in the AAATourBook’s on-line edition (accessed 2004).

Coffee shops. Although the coffee shopappears explicitly in only two prior classifi-cations (Mullins et al., 1999; Warde et al.,1999), it has been the subject of much recentscholarship. Oldenberg (1989) identified thecoffee shop as an example of a ‘thirdplace’—a place outside home and work/school where people can interact socially.Others have examined coffee houses andtheir effect on local culture (Thompson andArsel, 2004), social behaviours (Gaudio,2003) and modernity (Ors, 2002).

Data on this, and the remaining restauranttypes, were obtained from the ReferenceUSAdatabase (Version 2004.10) of Americanbusinesses. While many prior studies havenoted the usefulness of Yellow Pages tele-phone directories for identifying restaurants(Freeman and Hannan, 1983; Smith, 1985;Zelinsky, 1985; Mullins et al., 1999), theyhave also noted some problems. Using theReferenceUSA database avoids a number ofthese problems: it is compiled from multiplesources to avoid undercounting, verifiedthrough telephone screening to avoid over-counting and produced by a single firmusing consistent cataloging standards whichreinforce intercity reliability. This variablecounts the number of establishments definedas ‘Coffee shops’ by ReferenceUSA.

Exotic ethnic restaurants. Many of the exist-ing restaurant classifications include one ormore categories for ethnic restaurants.However, the classification of restaurants asethnic is uniquely problematic in America.Because “Americans have often suspendedtraditional racial prejudices and opened them-selves to a range of diverse culinary and cul-tural experiences” (Barbas, 2003, p. 669),certain ‘ethnic’ cuisines have become sofully Americanised that their identificationas ethnic is misleading. Barbas (2003) offersthe example of Chinese food, but a similarclaim can be made of Mexican (nachos and

tacos) and Italian (pizza and pasta) food(Zelinsky, 1985). Thus, in an attempt tocapture only restaurants serving ethniccuisine that is still somewhat exotic to theAmerican palate, Chinese, Mexican andItalian restaurants are excluded. This variable,then, counts the number of establishmentsspecialising in the 14 varieties of ethniccuisine (excluding Chinese, Mexican andItalian) distinguished in the ReferenceUSAdatabase.

Fast food. Fast food dining is a ubiquitouspart of American life and nearly every classi-fication scheme includes at least one fast foodcategory. Moreover, even the two papers thatdo not directly classify fast food restaurantsstill include discussions of such establish-ments. Beardsworth and Bryman (1999,p. 243) identify reflexive theming in fast foodchains through “corporate decor, logos, andarchitectural motifs” (such as McDonald’sgolden arches), while Miele and Murdoch(2002) discuss fast food as antithetical to theslow food movement. Finally, Ritzer (1996)secured fast food’s position as a permanentobject of social scientific interest by placingit at the centre of his work on rationalisation.Because the fast food segment of the res-taurant industry is concentrated in a fewvery large firms (US Bureau of the Census,2004b) and because fast food restaurantsoften “locate close together to create highlyvisible fast food strips” (Smith, 1985,p. 598), a measure of the number of locationsoperated by the largest firms is a reasonableproxy for the size of an area’s total fastfood restaurant population. Thus, this variablecounts the number of locations operatedby the 20 fast food chains with the mostlocations in the US. Pizza concepts areexcluded because many operate bothquick-service and full-service units. Forexample, some Pizza Hut locations offertakeout/delivery only, while others featuredining rooms.

Casual dining. This category is meant toinclude those establishments which havebeen termed Cafe mundane (Finkelstein,

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1989), Inexpensive dinner restaurant (Cherul-nik, 1991) or Midscale/Moderate upscale(Muller and Woods, 1994). Finkelstein(1989, p. 92) describes such restaurants asestablishments where “hybrid fare is pre-sented as more gastronomically respectablethan it is” to local suburban patrons who are“not disturbed by a sauce too strong . . . orthe use of inexpensive ingredients”, but alsonotes that they are ideal for “an undemandingevening”. Relying on the same logic of con-centration, this variable measures thenumber of locations operated by the 10casual dining chains with the most locationsin the US. Concepts identified as ‘familydining’ by the industry publication Restau-rants and Institutions are excluded becausethey do not typically maintain the same pre-tences of casual dining establishments,aiming rather at serving a more utilitarianfunction in a more ‘down-scale’ atmosphere(for example, Denny’s, IHOP).

‘Eatertainment’ restaurants. While nearly allrestaurants aim at providing the diner with anenjoyable and entertaining experience, thiscategory includes only that sub-group of res-taurants for which the provision of an enter-taining experience is the primary focus.Described as having an aesthetic of entertain-ment, Miele and Murdoch (2002, p. 314)suggest that this is where “people go . . . forthe ambience, to buy clothing, and to seemusic and movie memorabilia”. Others haveapproached this type of restaurant more nar-rowly through a discussion of theming as amechanism of creating an entertaining experi-ence (Finkelstein, 1989; Beardsworth andBryman, 1999). The emergence of entertain-ment and theme restaurants has recentlybeen dealt with by, among others, Bell andValentine (1997) and Gottdiener (2000).However, unlike fast food or casual diningrestaurants, theme and entertainment-focusedrestaurants are both less common and lessconcentrated. Thus, this variable measuresthe number of units operated by 10 themedor entertainment-focused restaurant conceptsselected on the basis of size (i.e. total

number of units in the US) and prominencein the academic literature.

These categories and variables (summar-ised in Table 2) are intended to be neithermutually exclusive nor exhaustive. Forexample, an individual restaurant may havethe properties of multiple types (forexample, an elite ethnic restaurant) and nocategory is provided for ice cream shops(such as Dairy Queen). This latter casepoints to an important caveat and limitationof this study. The data upon which the ana-lyses are conducted are not wholly descriptiveof an area’s restaurant industry, as many indi-vidual restaurants are not counted by any ofthese variables. Certainly, a more completeor more accurate classification (if one iseven possible), and data that constitute a truecensus of restaurants rather than just a proxysample, would yield better results. Nonethe-less, the present categories and variables dobegin to capture the variability among res-taurants, while relying on the most salientcategories in prior classifications and in thewider academic literature.

Results

These data can be used to describe twoimportant and differing aspects of cities’ res-taurant populations: the relative number (i.e.proportion) and absolute number (i.e. magni-tude) of each type of restaurant. Thus, theoriginal data were transformed to producetwo sets of variables—one reflecting pro-portions, another reflecting magnitudes—upon which separate two-stage cluster ana-lyses were conducted. The separate analyseswere then combined and the resulting clustersare profiled.

The ‘proportion’ data were obtained simplyby dividing each original variable by the sumof all original variables for each city, such thatthe resulting transformed variables indicatethe relative presence of each type of restaurantwithin the city. The ‘magnitude’ data, by com-parison, required a slightly more complextransformation. Because it is trivial toobserve that larger cities have more restau-rants, it is necessary to compare cities on the


basis of measures of the number of their res-taurants which are not sensitive to populationsize. However, the most obvious solution—tocompare cities on the basis of restaurants percapita—is also inappropriate because restau-rant populations do not increase linearlywith human populations (see Zelinsky,1985). For example, while the needs of acity of 10 000 people may be met by asingle McDonalds, it is not necessarily thecase that a city of 100 000 requires or couldsupport 10 McDonalds outlets. Therefore, apseudo-per-capita transformation based on aset of power functions was used whichaccounts for the unique non-linear relation-ship between each restaurant type and popu-lation (see Appendix).

The same clustering techniques wereapplied, separately, to both the ‘proportion’

and ‘magnitude’ data. First, all variableswere standardised to range between 0 and 1,which Milligan and Cooper (1988) demon-strated is superior, for the purposes of clusteranalysis, to more traditional standardisationusing z-scores. A hierarchical cluster analysiswas then performed, using squared Euclideandistance as a measure of similarity andWard’s method as the clustering algorithm.The resulting cluster solutions and their corre-sponding agglomeration coefficients wereinspected and, in each separate analysis, thetwo-cluster solution was selected as optimallyhomogeneous and interpretable (see Hill et al.,1998). Finally, using the cluster centroids gen-erated by the hierarchical clustering as start-ing-points, the cities were reclustered usingthe iterative k-means algorithm to fine-tunecluster memberships (Punj and Stewart, 1983).

Table 2. Summary of measurement definitions

Restaurant typevariable Definition Source

Elite Number of dining establishments awarded 3, 4 or 5diamonds

AAA TourBook(on-line 2004 edn)

Coffee shops Number of establishments listed under the heading‘Coffee shops’

ReferenceUSA

Exotic ethnic Number of establishments listed under the heading‘Restaurants—Cuisine X’, where X was replacedwith each of the following: Cajun, Caribbean,Continental, French, Greek, Indian, Irish, Japanese,Korean, Middle Eastern, Spanish, Swiss, Thai,Vietnamese

ReferenceUSA

Fast food Total number of establishments operated by: Subway,McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy’s,KFC, Arby’s, Sonic Drive-Ins, Quizno’s, Hardee’s,Jack in the Box, Blimpie Subs and Salads, Popeye’sChicken & Biscuits, Church’s Chicken, Long JohnSilver’s, Chick-fil-A, Carl’s Jr., Sbarro,Whataburger and Boston Market (listed indescending order by size)

ReferenceUSA

Casual dining Total number of establishments operated by:Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar & Grill, Chili’sGrill & Bar, Outback Steakhouse, Ruby Tuesday’s,Red Lobster, TGI Friday’s, Olive Garden,Ponderosa/Bonanza, Bennigan’s and Lone StarSteakhouse and Saloon (listed in descending orderby size)

ReferenceUSA

Eatertainment Total number of establishments operated by: ChuckE. Cheese, Hooters, Johnny Rockets, Hard RockCafe, Benihana, Jillian’s, Dave & Buster’s,Rainforest Cafe, Planet Hollywood and ESPN Zone

ReferenceUSA

10 ZACHARY PAUL NEAL

One cluster identified using the ‘magnitude’data contained cities with above averagevalues on all variables (i.e. many restaurantsof all types per person), while the othercluster contained cities with below averagevalues on all variables (i.e. few restaurantsof any type per person). Thus, the clusterswere named, respectively, Oasis and Desert.Among the clusters identified using the‘proportion’ data, one contained cities withabove average proportions of Coffee shops,and Elite and Exotic ethnic restaurants,while the other contained cities with aboveaverage proportions of Fast food, Casualdining and ‘Eatertainment’ restaurants. Theformer cluster was named Urbane, while thelatter cluster was named McCulture, follow-ing the tradition of Ritzer (1996) and othersof using the prefix ‘Mc’ to denote the kindof standardisation and ubiquity commonlyassociated with McDonalds.

Finally, because these two dimensions werelargely independent (lambda ¼ 0.013,p . 0.1), it was possible to intersect themorthogonally, yielding four unique and non-empty clusters that simultaneously capturethe contributions of both dimensions. Thatis—for example, cities identified as bothoases and urbane form a single cluster.Figure 1 graphically profiles these fourgroups, while Table 3 indicates each city’scluster membership.

Discussion

Returning to the case highlighted in the intro-duction, it turns out that Phoenix is not a culin-ary desert at all, but is in fact a gastronomicoasis. However, it is a very specific kind ofoasis—a McCulture oasis. This finding andthe other results discussed above suggestthat with respect to their consumption oppor-tunities, there are indeed identifiable types ofAmerican cities. Specifically, there are fourtypes defined by two intersecting dimensions:one quantitative, the other qualitative.

The quantitative dimension captures thenumber of restaurants in a city, after control-ling for the obvious inflationary effects ofpopulation size. Cities with many restaurantsare oases, while cities with few restaurantsare deserts. This is complemented by the quali-tative cultural dimension, which captures themix of different types of restaurants in a city.Cities with a greater-than-average proportionof coffee shops, and ethnic and elite restaurantsoffer distinctively cultured (i.e. urbane)consumption opportunities, while cities withan above average dominance of fast food,casual dining and entertainment-aimedeating establishments cater to the tastes ofmass culture.

To explore these four types, I will firstpresent a characterisation of each type ofcity, both in terms of the consumptionspaces upon which the classification is basedand by examining some of the cities’ othersocial and demographic features. Then I willcompare these results with the preliminaryexpectations discussed above. Finally, I willconclude by reviewing the study’s principallimitations and by offering some suggestionsfor future research.

Culinary Deserts and Gastronomic Oases

Urbane oases. Cities in this group are placeswhere one finds an abundance of restaurantsof all sorts. However, certain types of restau-rants—those that offer a more refined, bohe-mian or fashionable experience—are foundin higher proportions than elsewhere.Although establishments like McDonalds

Figure 1. Graphic profile of cluster centers. Notes:For clarity of presentation, the figure displayscluster means on each value in the ‘magnitude’data only. Because the scales of each variable arenot substantively meaningful, each set of fourcluster means is displayed as ranging between the

same minimum and maximum values.


and Burger King are still common in thesecities, stylish haute cuisine, hip coffeehouses and exotic ethnic fare are also easyto find. The elite restaurants here cater not

only to the well-heeled, but also to gastro-nomes and ‘foodies’ who want to eat at theculinary cutting edge; the coffee housesprovide a culture of ‘cafe cool’ sought by a

Table 3. Cluster memberships

Urbane oasesLos Angeles, CA Chicago, IL Philadelphia, PA San Diego, CA San Jose, CASan Francisco, CA Baltimore, MD Charlotte, NC Boston, MA Seattle, WAWashington, DC Denver, CO Portland, OR Las Vegas, NV Sacramento, CAAtlanta, GA Honolulu, HI Minneapolis, MN Pittsburgh, PA Anchorage, AKMadison, WI Scottsdale, AZ Tacoma, WA Reno, NV Salt Lake City, UTProvidence, RI Fort Lauderdale, FL Pasadena, CA Alexandria, VA Ann Arbor, MIBerkeley, CA Cambridge, MA Charleston, SC

McCulture oasesHouston, TX Phoenix, AZ San Antonio, TX Dallas, TX Indianapolis, INJacksonville, FL Columbus, OH Austin, TX Memphis, TN Milwaukee, WIOklahoma City, OK Tucson, AZ Albuquerque, NM Cleveland, OH Tulsa, OKMiami, FL Colorado Springs, CO St Louis, MO Tampa, FL Cincinnati, OHRaleigh, NC Louisville, KY Birmingham, AL Baton Rouge, LA Rochester, NYOrlando, FL Grand Rapids, MI Richmond, VA Knoxville, TN Savannah, GAColumbia, SC Clearwater, FL

Urbane desertsLong Beach, CA Fresno, CA Oakland, CA Santa Ana, CA Anaheim, CABuffalo, NY Riverside, CA St Paul, MN Newark, NJ Fremont, CAGlendale, CA Chula Vista, CA Yonkers, NY Spokane, WA Huntington Beach, CAArlington, VA Worcester, MA Irvine, CA Garden Grove, CA Santa Clarita, CAOverland Park, KS Santa Rosa, CA Springfield, MA Vancouver, WA Paterson, NJSyracuse, NY Hollywood, FL Torrance, CA Corona, CA Eugene, ORHayward, CA Bridgeport, CT Naperville, IL Orange, CA Fullerton, CASunnyvale, CA Concord, CA New Haven, CT Hartford, CT Elizabeth, NJStamford, CT Simi Valley, CA Inglewood, CA Bellevue, WA Downey, CACosta Mesa, CA Manchester, NH West Covina, CA Allentown, PA Lowell, MAVentura, CA Burbank, CA Richmond, CA Santa Clara, CA Daly City, CAVisalia, CA

McCulture desertsDetroit, MI Fort Worth, TX El Paso, TX Nashville, TN Kansas City, MOVirginia Beach, VA Mesa, AZ Omaha, NE Arlington, TX Wichita, KSToledo, OH Aurora, CO Corpus Christi, TX Stockton, CA Bakersfield, TXLexington, KY St Petersburg, FL Plano, TX Norfolk, VA Lincoln, NEGlendale, AZ Greensboro, NC Hialeah, FL Fort Wayne, IN Garland, TXHenderson, NV Akron, OH Chandler, AZ Chesapeake, VA Modesto, CALubbock, TX Montgomery, AL Durham, NC Shreveport, LA Laredo, TXDes Moines, IA San Bernardino, CA Irving, TX Mobile, AL Augusta, GAWinston-Salem, NC Boise, ID Columbus, GA Little Rock, AR Newport News, VAOxnard, CA Jackson, MS Amarillo, TX Ontario, CA Oceanside, CAHuntsville, AL Aurora, CA Dayton, OH Tempe, AZ Moreno Valley, CABrownsville, TX Chattanooga, TN Pomona, CA Tallahassee, FL Fontana, CARockford, IL Rancho Cucamonga, CA Springfield, CA Pembroke Pines, FL Salinas, CAHampton, VA Kansas City, KS Gilbert, AZ North Las Vegas, NV Pasadena, CASalem, OR Lakewood, CO Grand Prairie, TX Escondido, CA Warren, MISioux Falls, SD Mesquite, TX Palmdale, CA Peoria, AZ Coral Springs, FLSterling Heights, MI Lancaster, CA Fort Collins, CO Fayetteville, NC Thousand Oaks, CAJoliet, IL Cedar Rapids, IA Topeka, KS El Monte, CA Flint, MIVallejo, CA Cape Coral, FL Lansing, MI Evansville, IN Waco, TXCarrollton, TX Abilene, TX Springfield, IL Peoria, IL Beaumont, TXIndependence, MO West Valley, UT Lafayette, LA Gainesville, FL Waterbury, CTClarksville, TN Norwalk, CA South Bend, IN Port St Lucie, FL Provo, UTOlathe, KS Pueblo, CO Westminster, CO Fairfield, CA Athens, GAWichita Falls, TX Arvada, CO Green Bay, WI Erie, PA Antioch, CA

Note: Within each group, cities are ordered by population size.


new generation of beatniks and literati(Thompson and Arsel, 2004); the global diver-sity of ethnic restaurants allows the adventur-ous to sate their wanderlust (Zelinsky, 1985).

The defining features of the Urbaneoases go beyond simply their restaurant con-sumption options—they are also distinguishedby a number of social and demographiccharacteristics (see Table 4). Most obviously,they tend to be populous, dense urban centres.The primary exceptions are home to majoruniversities (for example, Harvard and MITin Cambridge and state universities in Berke-ley, Ann Arbor and Madison) and have largestudent populations—they are college towns.In addition, the general population is highlyeducated and tends to work in professional,rather than manufacturing, occupations,earning a relatively high per capita income.These features of affluence and urban-nessconverge to suggest a haven for yuppies andhipsters, which may explain the lack of house-holds with children. The same features,together with the cities’ narrow gender earn-ings gap and large immigrant populations,also seem to suggest a more liberal populationand a culture of equality and tolerance.Gastronomically, but also more generallyspeaking, these cities are trendsetting and

progressive—places that Zelinsky (1973,p. 138) aptly foresaw as “latter-day bohemias”.

McCulture oases. Like the cities in theprevious group, these cities also have manyrestaurants. However, unlike ‘Urbane’ cities,‘McCulture’ cities have larger than normalconcentrations of highly standardised eating-places designed for mass consumption.While a walk—or, in these places, morelikely a drive—down the street will yield awealth of restaurant options, Big Macs andThe Olive Garden’s trademarked ‘Hospita-liano’ atmosphere are more the specialite dujour. Because many of the restaurants foundin these cities are nationally franchised, resi-dents of McCulture oases are all eatingroughly the same food when they dine out.Recalling Calvino’s (1974) observation,when deciding where to eat, one need notknow if one is in Houston, or Phoenix, orIndianapolis—the choices are the same.However, the predictability of the foodavailable at such places—and amenities likeMcDonalds Playland or Chuck E. Cheese’svideo games—also make the McCulturedining scene more family-friendly.

These cities are quite different from their‘urbane’ counterparts in other respects as

Table 4. Means for selected social and demographic characteristics of clusters

CharacteristicUrbaneoasis

McCultureoasis

Urbanedesert

McCulturedesert

Oasis vs DesertPercentage employed in manufacturing 8.34 10.67 14.34 13.03Percentage of households with own children 25.57 28.69 34.47 35.50Difference in median earnings for males and

females (US$)6 731 6 301 9 145 8 994

Number living in college dormitories (per 1000) 21.33 13.28 7.60 8.58Population 598 475 507 979 174 339 189 602

Urbane vs McCulturePercentage employed in management,

professional or related occupations41.08 33.00 35.15 31.70

Percentage with BA or higher 35.51 25.49 27.22 23.40Percentage foreign born 18.04 10.64 24.52 12.17Per capita income (US$) 24 546 19 281 22 090 19 383Population per square mile 6 079 3 273 6 289 2 879

Source: US Bureau of the Census (2000).

Note: Values in bold are above the overall mean.


well. While they have similarly large popu-lations, they are not nearly as dense. Instead,they are the models of urban sprawl, designedfor a driving public. Both classic socioeco-nomic status indicators—educational attain-ment and income—are lower. Thepopulation is more ethnically homogeneous,despite many of the cities being located insome of the country’s primary points ofentry—Texas and Florida. There are morehouseholds with children and, relative tothese cities’ lower per capita income, thegender earnings gap is wider. Finally, thereare many fewer people employed in pro-fessional occupations—only service, salesand office occupational categories haveabove average employment levels. As asprawling agglomeration of housing develop-ments filled with homogeneous families, andan economic landscape of service industryand office parks, McCulture oases seem tobe typical of American suburbia.

The deserts. While Urbane and McCulturedeserts share the same proportional distri-bution of restaurant types as their oasiscounterparts above, overall they have fewrestaurants of any type. For example, in aMcCulture desert, there may be only one ortwo fast food establishments, and no coffeehouses at all. Similarly, a family may find acluster of ethnic restaurants or a singlestylish bistro in an Urbane desert, but haveto drive to the next town for a meal the kidswill eat.

In many respects, Urbane and McCulturedeserts differ socially and demographicallyin the same way as their oasis counterparts,although the differences are narrower. As aresult, they are more difficult to characteriseindividually. As a group, however, the culin-ary deserts are easily distinguished from thegastronomic oases. Three features in particu-lar come together to suggest a coherentimage for these places: a high level of employ-ment in manufacturing, a large number ofhouseholds with children and a wide gap inmedian earnings between men and women.These seem to suggest that traditional genderroles still have currency in culinary

deserts—the men work in factories and thewomen care for the children at home. Further-more, the small student population indicatesthat these are not small college towns, butrather exemplify ‘small town’ America.

A comment on political geography. A briefglance at the cluster memberships revealsthat the Urbane/McCulture divide roughlyparallels the 2004 ‘Red’ state/‘Blue’ statedichotomy (i.e. states whose electoral voteswent to George Bush (Republican) and JohnKerry (Democrat) respectively, in the 2004presidential election). Although such obser-vations are especially fashionable at the timeof writing, some have suggested that the‘red’ state/‘blue’ state mentality is misleading(Gastner et al., 2004; Vanderbei, 2004).Mapping election outcomes, especially whenthe election is so divisive and contentious, ishighly sensitive to choices of measurement(for example, winner-take-all vs pro-portional), unit of analysis (for example,state vs county), and scaling (for example,land size vs population size). To be sure, pol-itical alignments are likely to differ systemati-cally between the four clusters identified bythis study, but the methodological difficultiesinvolved in connecting such a phenomenonto a mapping of 2004 presidential electionoutcomes places it beyond the scope of thispaper.

Examining the Classification

The above characterisations indicate that thereare at least a few easily recognisable types ofcities, consumptionally speaking. Thissuggests that Ritzer’s (1996), Zukin’s (1998)and others’ warning that America is becomingincreasingly standardised and homogenisedmay be premature. There are still cities withunique place-bound identities. Moreover,Urbane cities, with their more eclectic mixof consumption opportunities, are nearly ascommon as McCulture cities. On the otherhand, the most fully ‘McDonaldised’ citytype—the McCulture desert—is morecommon than the other three types combined.And, in more than two-thirds of the cities,


there are more fast food chains than allother restaurant types combined. Thus, therole of such consumptional isomorphism inthese city types remains somewhatambiguous.

There are, however, a number of unambigu-ous connections between this classificationand the preliminary expectations identifiedearlier. Smith’s (1985) relatively obviousobservation that larger cities have more res-taurants is confirmed, but also expanded bythe finding that populous gastronomic oaseshave more restaurants than their smallerdesert counterparts even after adjusting forthe inflationary effects of population size.This study did not directly confirm thatsmall towns have few regular restaurants andmany fast food restaurants, but did find thatculinary deserts, which tend to be small, arealso often McCulture cities dominated byfast food. Finally, his observation that “fastfood outlets are an automobile-relatedphenomenon” (Smith, 1985, p. 597) helps toexplain why cities with more disperse popu-lations that must commute tend to be in theMcCulture groups.

Returning to the hypotheses offered byZelsinky (1985), the results are mixed. It isconfirmed that cities with a greater proportionof ethnic restaurants—urbane cities—containpopulations of greater affluence and edu-cational attainment. However, it does notseem that such ‘affluent’ places also havethe highest tourist turnover. Although notdirectly measured, there is significant facialvalidity (see Table 3) to a connectionbetween high levels of tourism and citieswith large restaurant populations generally(for example, oases), rather than only withethnic restaurant populations. This inconsis-tency may be due in part to the fact thatZelinsky (1985) conflates ‘tourist’ and ‘afflu-ent transient’. Finally, while defining aregion’s ‘cultural-cum-socioeconomic char-acter’ is a thorny task indeed, the categoriesdivide cities into cultural geographicalregions roughly similar to those identified byZelinsky (1973, 1985), albeit with numerousexceptions—McCulture cities are dominantin the South, Southwest and Middle West,

while Urbaneness tends to be a bi-coastalphenomenon.

While Mullins et al. (1999) found that con-sumption spaces of all kinds are concentratedin areas of high socioeconomic status anddiversity, I found that such places—urbanecities—tend to have concentrations of a par-ticular type of consumption space. Findingsconcerning ‘locational disadvantage’ weremore consistent. The culinary deserts—thoseplaces lacking in consumption spaces—seemto be largely peripheral to or distant frommajor urban centres. Detroit, however, is anotable exception—although highly urba-nised, its residents still experience a locationaldisadvantage. Also confirmed was the findingthat locational disadvantage has little to dowith poverty, since the culinary deserts spana range of socioeconomic conditions.

Among the elements expected to emerge inthis classification, the clearest was the role ofFlorida’s creative class. The four city typesprofiled above seem to correspond closelywith Florida’s (2003) four community types.Moreover, in a recent expansion of histheory, which appeared after the inception ofthis study, Florida notes that

The industrial economy emphasized big-ticket amenities like professional sports,the fine arts, and cultural destinations. Crea-tive economy amenities typically revolvearound outdoor recreational activities andlifestyle amenities. While there is notmuch in the way of systematic and compar-able data that allows one to examine thesedifferences (Florida, 2005, p. 70).

The results of this study provide the kind ofsystematic and comparable data Floridabelieves is necessary to understand a pivotaldifference between cities that can and cannotattract members of the creative class.

Florida’s (2003) classic social capital com-munity shares a number of features with theMcCulture desert. Both are non-diverse andhave lower levels of educational attainment.One key feature of this type of communityfor Florida is the importance of Putnam’s(2000) conception of social capital, whichincludes such elements as faith-based


institutions, social clubs, volunteerism andcivic leadership. While not measured here,levels of social capital are likely to be highin the small, largely rural, manufacturingcities common among McCulture deserts. Asexpected, places with these features havefew restaurants and are particularly lackingin ethnic establishments.

The parallels between the organisational-age community and the Urbane desert aremore difficult to identify. However, consistentwith their characterisation as older, corporate-dominated areas, the population is denselyconcentrated and slightly more educated, andemployment is dominated by a mix of bothmanufacturing and management occupations.The striking presence of Californian cities inthis category may obscure a clearer connec-tion. Nonetheless, as expected these areasoffer limited dining options, but show aslight tendency towards more upscalerestaurants.

The McCulture oasis seems to correspond toFlorida’s unceremoniously labelled ‘Nerdistan’.Both have been characterised as big, sprawlingregions with economies focused on the servicesector. As places that concentrate on building“sports stadiums, freeways, urban malls, andtourism-and-entertainment districts thatresemble theme parks”, it is certainly not sur-prising to find a dominant presence of ‘eatertain-ment’ venues and unpretentious casual diningchains. However, as these regions have been“lauded by some as models of rapid economicgrowth”, some may be incubating a handful ofmore Urbane consumption spaces (Florida,2005, p. 44). For example, in the 2004Phoenix New Times “Best of Phoenix”, a moreelite establishment had unseated the La Made-leine chain as the city’s best French restaurant.

The connection appears strongest betweenthe Creative centre and Urbane oasis. Florida’sthree Ts of economic development—talent,technology, and tolerance—can be found pro-minently in both places. A highly educatedpublic employed primarily in a professionaland managerial capacity suggests high levelsof talent. Because “fledgling high-technologyenterprises are typically incubated in andaround the districts surrounding major

university campuses” (Florida, 2005, p. 81),the significant student population denotes(the necessary conditions for) the presenceof technology. Finally, a large immigrantpopulation and the narrowest (relative to percapita income) gender earnings gap indicatea clear climate of tolerance and diversity.

The parallel structure of this classificationwith Florida’s supports one of his centralclaims: members of the creative class preferto live in areas with many lifestyle amenities,especially participatory ones. As culinarydeserts, social capital and organisational-agecommunities cannot attract these ‘creatives’and may be nearing the end of their urbanlife cycle. The McCulture oasis offers moreamenities in the form of an abundance ofrestaurants and thus may be slightly moreattractive. However, few experiences aremore mundane and less participatory thanobtaining food at a fast food chain.

It is, instead, the particular kind of amenitiesavailable in an Urbane oasis that are sought bythe creative class. Coffee houses can be partici-patory venues when they feature music by localartists, when they become social gatheringspots or when WI-FI (wireless internetaccess) is available for getting work done.Ethnic restaurants are participatory to theextent that they engage the diner in a gastro-nomic voyage. Finally, although the morebohemian factions of the creative class maynot frequent elite establishments, they stillprovide a desirable “external symbol of [the]region’s vibrancy” (Florida, 2005, p. 84).

The relationship between a city’s consump-tion spaces and the desires of the creative classunderscore the ideas at which this study wasinitially aimed. Consumption spaces allowus to map the world socially, providing hintsabout whether a city is upscale or industrial,yuppie-friendly or family-friendly, on itsway up or down. These metageographiesdemarcate specific regions within whichcertain types of people may or may not haveaccess to the kinds of consumption spacesthat are constitutive of their consumptionalidentities. That is, to the extent that post-materialism binds quality of life to consump-tion space access, these social maps are


maps to consumptional happiness. Forexample, those seeking a more bohemian orbourgeois lifestyle—perhaps Florida’s crea-tive class or Brooks’ (2000) Bobos—may behappier in an Urbane oasis. In contrast, ayoung family needing room to grow andchild-friendly restaurants may prefer livingin a McCulture oasis. And for those fewAmericans who still do not bowl alone, thelack of consumption spaces in a culinarydesert may be offset by the less urbanisedenvironment. What is really crucial to recog-nise is that, just as people have or desiredifferent consumptional identities, placesalso have unique consumptional identities.Consumption spaces help us to navigate theterrain, but when the consumptional identitiesof the individual and the place are inconsist-ent, quality of life can suffer.

Some Limitations

Although cluster analysis is a powerful toolfor uncovering typological structures, it isalso constrained by a number of importantlimitations. Perhaps most conspicuous in thispaper is the absence of a series of traditionalhypothesis tests and significance levels,which are generally not suitable for evaluatingcluster analyses. As a result, this classificationmust be considered tentative, pending furthervalidation using alternative measures andsources of data, and statistical techniquesmore amenable to significance testing.

When the technique is used for urban classi-fication, the selection of a unit of analysis canalso serve as a limitation and source of bias.This study focused on the politically defined‘incorporated place’—that is, the city proper.However, other units of analysis are also poss-ible and it is likely that they would yieldslightly different results (Crewe and Lowe,1995). Using a larger unit (such as a Metropo-litan Statistical Area) may be appropriatebecause it groups together consumptionspaces that may be located in adjacent butunique political municipalities. A smallerunit (such as a census tract) could yield amore nuanced picture and reveal whether theconsumption spaces which drive a city’s

classification are actually concentrated in afew ‘consumption centres’. The most ambi-tious, but also most robust unit of analysis,might be a contextually and behaviourallydefined one. That is, for example, the specificgeographical boundaries for each regionmight be defined in terms of the distance resi-dents typically travel for a consumptionexperience.

Finally, various measurement errorscommon to quantitative analyses are particu-larly salient in cluster analyses as they canlead to misclassifications. For example, thecoffee shop measure used here includes allcoffee shops, including Starbucks, whichmight more properly be classified as aninstance of a McCulture rather than Urbaneestablishment.

Conclusion

I have taken care not to embed this studywithin any particular discipline or its attendantbody of literature as this is rarely a fruitfulapproach. Therefore, and by way of con-clusion, I would like to note some connectionsof this study to the concerns of those severalacademic disciplines which heretofore haveexamined issues of consumption in relativeisolation from one another, and offer somepotential directions for future (and hopefullyinterdisciplinary) work along these lines.

A first broad collection of issues concernsthe impact of consumption on individuals,especially as they are embedded in particularsocial roles and structures. It has beensuggested that “what is critical . . . is how con-temporary consumption is intrinsically linkedto quality of life” (Crewe and Lowe, 1995,p. 1881). While this linkage undoubtedly isdriven by the roles that consumption playsfirst in constructing (Zukin and Maguire,2004) and later in paradoxically both con-straining and enabling (Miles, 1998), the con-suming subject, more questions remain thanhave been answered. How is one’s consump-tional identity constructed and lived outthrough the available consumption spaces?For whom, and under what conditions, doesleisure consumption have constraining or


enabling effects, especially as the result of alack of access to consumption spaces of aspecific type? And most closely related tothis study’s aims, how does matching occurbetween individuals’ consumptional identitiesand the consumptional identities of the citiesin which they live and to which they move?

Moving to the next higher level of analysis,this study raises a parallel set of questionsabout places. That is, what role do varioustypes of consumption practices and spacesplay in the cultivation of an urban identityand what is the relative importance of the res-taurant qua consumption space in thisprocess? Many explorations of this topichave offered largely descriptive and idiosyn-cratic accounts of the branding of a particularcity. In contrast, I have attempted to identifythe urban (consumptional) identities them-selves. The next step in this process towardsa generalisable theory, then, is to specify amodel whereby a place’s cultural capital, inthe form of consumption and other culturalamenities, and certain relevant exogenouselements are causally connected to the culti-vation of a specific type of identity. Beyondthe question of cultivation, there are twoother important but poorly understood pro-cesses. First, there is the issue of the institutio-nalisation and maintenance of identity. How,that is, do urban identities become legitimateand embedded in the local culture, and howare they sustained or how do they changeover time? Secondly, as Mullins (1991,p. 331) has observed, “cities compete withone another for the consumption dollar . . .for capital, for state expenditure, and for thecontrol and command functions of corpor-ations and the state . . . image becomesvital”. How does the necessity of a competi-tive image strategy impact the specific imageand consumption offerings a city develops?

Finally, this study raises questions about howspecific types of consumption spaces fit intomodels of urban economic development. Foryears, the dominant model of urban economicdevelopment identified human capital as thekey driving variable (Florida, 2003). Morerecently, however, some have questioned thisposition, noting that “human capital theory is

. . . contextually incomplete, underspecified, inthat it does not explain where and why humancapital locates” (Clark, 2004, p.106). Theycontend that levels of human capital can beexplained by the presence of urban amenities,which include restaurants and other consump-tion spaces. While this addition makes themodel more specified, it certainly does notmake the model fully specified. First, while thenew model distinguishes between the effectsof natural amenities (such as good weather)and constructed amenities (such as opera, juicebars), it does not distinguish between differenttypes of constructed amenities, as the resultsof this study suggest is important. Secondly,and parallel to Clark’s (2004) criticism, itmight be said that this new urban amenitiestheory is underspecified in that it does notexplain where and why urban amenitieslocate. Therefore, the next incarnation ofurban development theory must explain whycertain places have few urban amenities whileothers have many and why even the specifictypes of amenities differ from place to place.

This study has only provided a rough-and-ready framework within which these typesof question can be addressed. It has its limit-ations, but the breadth of the suggestions forfuture research above highlights its potentialusefulness. There are, at the level of theindividual, issues of identity formation andquality of life which are influenced by the con-sumption space and urban context. Turning tothe more macro scale of cities and regions,urban identities must play a significant rolein understanding urban competition and theuneven distribution of urban amenities mustplay a significant role in understandingurban development. These three broadstreams of future inquiry—on individuals, onurban identity and competition, and on urbanamenities and development—stand to benefitfrom this study to the extent that they drawupon three parallel typologies exploredherein: types of people (see Table 4), typesof places (see Table 3) and types of amenities(i.e. Urbane and McCulture), respectively. Tobe sure, these processes are complex andmuch additional work is necessary. Luckily,the data are tasty.


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Appendix. Power-based Transformation of‘Magnitude’ Data

Restaurants enjoy an economy of scale with regardto the number of establishments that are necessaryto serve a population. While larger populationsrequire more restaurants to satisfy their needs, thespecific number of restaurants necessary percapita decreases for each additional person (i.e. atthe margin). Moreover, the rate at which it


decreases depends in part on the type of restaurant.Thus, it was first necessary to understand howrestaurant population size and human populationsize are related for each type of restaurant underconsideration. To do so, a trial-and-error searchmethod was employed to identify (to two decimalplaces) the power to which a city’s humanpopulation size must be raised to maximise itslinear correlation with each restaurant type’s popu-lation size (see Gujarati, 2003, p. 566). A uniqueexponent value was obtained for each restauranttype: Coffee shops (0.74), Exotic ethnic (0.64),Casual dining (0.41), Fast food (0.36), Elite(0.31) and Eatertainment (0.19).

Apart from their role in this transformation,these exponent values hold some interestingsubstantive information. As a city’s populationgrows, in order to keep pace with consumerneeds, its population of coffee shops must growat nearly the same rate, while a city’s populationof elite restaurants must grow at only a fractionof the human population growth rate. That is, theeconomy of scale enjoyed by coffee shops isminimal because each additional coffee shopmeets the needs of nearly the same number of cus-tomers as the previous one, while eatertainmentvenues enjoy a dramatic economy of scale.Although its confirmation is beyond the scope ofthis study, one possible explanation is that coffeeshops and ethnic restaurants cater to and dependon a loyal group of regulars who consume mostof their output, while elite and themed restaurantsdiffuse their output through a constantly circulating

group of status-seekers and tourists. To oversim-plify, perhaps each new coffee-drinker wants hisown seat in a place where ‘everybody knowsyour name’, while patrons of theme restaurantsare less likely to have the same sort of personal affi-nity for any particular establishment.

Whatever the explanation of the specific expo-nent values that correspond to certain types of res-taurant, they indicate the rate at which each type ofrestaurant might be expected to grow as a city’shuman population increases. Put another way,they indicate the degree to which each additionalperson necessitates an additional restaurant of aspecific type (i.e. the diminishing marginal utilityof people to restaurants). Therefore, through aseries of six equations parallel in form to

Number of elite restaurants

city population0:31¼

�elite

magnitude

six ‘magnitude’ values were obtained that are con-ceptually parallel to per capita measures, but whichaccord lesser weight to each additional person at arate which corresponds to the specific restauranttype. While the resulting values are difficult tointerpret substantively, higher values indicatemore restaurants per person and lower values indi-cate fewer restaurants per person considering therestaurant type and city size. Hence, these valuesare employed as pseudo-per-capita measures ofrestaurant population suitable for making compari-sons across cities of different sizes.


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