Foursquare and Gentrification: Understanding Shifts in Community Identity and Location Based Smartphone Apps

• In Event: 1451 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 5. Gentrification Today

Abstract

Location based smartphone apps alter spatial patterns experienced by users in the urban world. By using apps like Yelp or Foursquare, users can locate new shopping and restaurant destinations that would otherwise go unknown. Many urban neighborhoods boast histories of rich cultural traditions, falling into the category of cross-national or ethnic enclaves. Ethnic enclaves are value centered neighborhoods where individuals share unifying, culturally determined norms, often displayed through language. Restaurants and shops in these neighborhoods cater to the culture of the residents that live there. Location based apps can expedite a pattern of increased spatial travel of outsiders to otherwise culturally homogenous neighborhoods- potentially taking away from how long term residents experience their “right to the city”. In our modern digital age, the thought of venturing into a shady, otherwise avoided neighborhood to eat at a restaurant with “killer” Yelp reviews is not out of the question. In this paper, I will evaluate location based apps in relation to gentrification, an issue that could potentially spawn from increased access to ethically specific and lower-income neighborhoods. Ultimately, gentrification results in cases of displacement.- Can apps like Foursquare be understood as tools of development that stimulate gentrification?

Author

• Andrew Joseph Long, The New School