Urban foodways and social sustainability: neighborhood restaurants as social infrastructure

ABSTRACTThe concept of social sustainability presents many questions for food studies, both about how communities sustain foodways, and how foodways sustain communities. Based on an ethnographic study of restaurants in a single Tokyo neighborhood, this research focuses on how commercial restaurant scenes in a busy area of Tokyo serve as social infrastructure, supporting community life. First, they are an economic resource for employers, workers, and customers, an accessible, though risky, point of entry into business ownership for disadvantaged or resource-poor people. Secondly, eateries are a resource for social organization and networking, that is, spaces in which varieties of social capital can be created and deployed. Thirdly, neighborhood eateries are infrastructure for political mobilization both in the formal organization of local merchant associations but also for informal and oppositional social movements. Overall, the research shows how urban neighborhood restaurant scenes may serve as a “place framing” device through which a community defines and spatially locates what is worthwhile in community life. (8497 words)KEYWORDS: social sustainabilityfoodwaysrestaurantsJapanTokyourban studies Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThe work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [16K04099]; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [22K01909].