Battle of Food Festivals: New York City versus Toronto

Neha Huzure

Culture, Creativity, and Cities Capstone Course | Dept. of Sociology | University of

Toronto Scarborough
1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4 Canada
Abstract:
This research study attempts to summarize and explain
what mechanisms and factors are involved in food
festivals, that are held in two major cities within North
America: New York City and Toronto. It aims to
understand how demographics, spatial positioning,
social ecology and economic factors play a key role in
the types of food festivals held in both major cities and
what types of attendees they attract. It also considers
whether both cities have a similar approach to food
festivals or not. It researches this by using coding
methods, which identify the similarities and differences
up close. The terms that were coded in this article are:
Admissions, Affordability, Entertainment, Authenticity,
Family Appropriateness, Ethnic Specialty and Sales
Growth/Success.
By using a spatial analysis, the results indicate
Key words: food, festival, New York City, Toronto,
North America
Introduction
Food festivals have emerged rapidly throughout the past
few years. In cities like Toronto and New York City,
these festivals are at the peak of success and are being
promoted and advertised in many ways. With
descriptions ranging from themed festivals, exotic
culinary cuisines, kid friendly, vegan friendly and much
more. Food festivals cater to the general public for the
most part. Food festivals attract many different ethnic,
cultural and social backgrounds from all parts of the city
and most likely even abroad. Within that general public,
there are still specific groups that food festivals attract
more than others or have more influence in some
attendees rather than others. This article looks at how
festivals attract and how inclusive their framings are.
Factors that it considers are concepts like social ecology
and transportation. They are both creative hubs with
multicultural diversities, ethnic backgrounds and
cuisines catering to the specific food preferences of
that may or may not differ and the policies of these food
festivals, their planning and organizing will also change
Culture, Creativity, and Cities Capstone Course | Dept. of Sociology | University of
Toronto Scarborough
1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4 Canada
individuals in the city. This article finds food festivals
interesting because they are events that pop up through
different parts of the city for some days to even a couple
of weeks. Which also means the event coordinators must
do a lot of research, planning and organizing to pinpoint
exactly where in the city they think it will generate the
most attention, crowd and interest.
Background
Food festivals give ways to study other things than just
food. With this study, it is important to see how
geographical place plays a very important role in the
spacing of festivals in certain areas of Toronto and New
York City. Both Toronto and Manhattan, which is a
borough located in New York City, are homes to a very
culturally diverse demographic, with immigrants from
all over the globe. What is interesting is that most of
New York Citys festivals happen in the Downtown
Core which is Manhattan where the demographics and
percentage of minorities or immigrants permanently
living in this spatial distance is only around 16%. The
rest of the visible minority and immigrants live and
work elsewhere with 1 million out of 3 million living in
Brooklyn. Not to mention that the demographic that
does live in Manhattan is mainly wealthy in comparison
to other parts of New York City.
Another important thing to note is that these people are
mostly single, childless adults of all ages who have time
on their hands and the wealth to go out and enjoy these
food festivals and take in what they offer from time to
time. This demographic scene looks more like a perfect
audience mixed with critical mass since these food
festivals are tailoring up right after each other in several
parts of Manhattan. Manhattan does have a perfect
audience with most of its residence having the time and
resources to go out and spend on different foods of
different cultures and backgrounds. Asides from that it is
essentially the types of people in this city,
There was a mention in the background research that
New York City is known as a city where there are
clusters of people living in higher income
the way they are inclusive, highly-attended and neighborhoods such as Manhattan that can afford more
profitable.Toronto,accordingtotheEnglishconsulting than an average person in Toronto so that may be a
firmWealthworthishometoaquarterofCanadas reason why New York City gets a 0 for affordability
millionaires,around118,00ofthem.Thesemillionaires compared to Toronto. To clarify, the food festivals aren't
andelitesalsolivearoundthemaindowntowncore, necessarily affordable for everyone just for those in the
aroundYorkville,Lawrenceeastandalsorentingout higher income neighborhoods in New York City.
condosindowntownitself.Therestofthemainresearch
populationisscatteredaroundScarborough,northYork, Conclusion and Recommendation
Mississauga.Thismaybeareasonwhy.thefestivals
thathappeninTorontoarereflectingtheirpopulations I commenced my research brief by inquiring about food
festivals in two major cities: New York City and
byalsobeingwellscatteredaroundtheGTA,morethan
Toronto. Reflecting back to the claims made, I studied
NYCsare.
the demographic population, spatial surroundings and
social and economic factors that play a key role in the
Methods
attendance of food festivals by locals and those who the
I began my study by first going on different websites of
festivals garner interest in. Food festivals occur in an
food festivals all over the city of New York and Toronto.
atmosphere where different cultures, foods and types of
I began to chart them, and map them on two separate
people from many socioeconomic backgrounds are
maps, to see which part of the city they took place in.
present, many times no differentiation can be noticed. I
Afterwards I color coded for both festivals in regard to
studied the two cities, weeding out different types of
what types of festival they were (vegan, cultural,
festivals within them and then ranking them on a chart
fusion). This was so I could see the similar festivals held
to see whether they fit criterias that festival goers look
in each city, and the different ones and whether they
for that are inviting, scream inclusivity and garner
played a symbolic role to that city and not the other.
attendance based on 8 main factors. The findings of my
I randomly selected 10 food festivals from each city and
study were interesting, but not very surprising. Both
then looked out for key terms for each category.
New York and Toronto ranked closely in all categories
Then, to study the differences and similarities and what
but Toronto had more family settings for food festivals
plays a factor in attendees of the food festivals I coded
while New York had better entertainment. While
for these terms: Admissions, Affordability,
Toronto festivals are much more affordable overall than
Entertainment, Authenticity, Family Appropriateness,
New York. In conclusion, food festivals in both New
Ethnic Specialty, Sales Growth/Success. I gave 1 point
York and Toronto, are very similar, with a handful of
to the city that fit the criteria in the specific group and 0
different types of themed festivals scattered across the
for the city that did not.
cities.
Findings
For further research, although I looked at the population
The findings show that there is a difference in some of
of the cities, and the number of elites living in the
the categories from New York City and Toronto. New
neighborhoods, further investigation should be down on
York City gets a 1 for entertainment and Toronto gets 1
how these elite groups and higher socioeconomic ranked
for family appropriateness, while New York City has a
individuals seem to have an impact of whether
higher rate of success rates in food festivals, Toronto
organizers plan a food festival, or stay away from.
beats out New York City in admissions and affordability
according to our coding.

Culture, Creativity, and Cities Capstone Course | Dept. of Sociology | University of

Toronto Scarborough
1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4 Canada
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https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/05/09/toronto_has_118000_millionaires.html
https://www.city-journal.org/html/childless-city-13577.html

Culture, Creativity, and Cities Capstone Course | Dept. of Sociology | University of

Toronto Scarborough
1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4 Canada