Studies in Eating, Walking and Trashing in the City

City life is characterized by peripatetic consumerism: paths through the city are lined with opportunities to purchase foodstuffs, either to satisfy our immediate hunger or to accommodate everything we might wish to cook at... [ view full abstract ]

City life is characterized by peripatetic consumerism: paths through the city are lined with opportunities to purchase foodstuffs, either to satisfy our immediate hunger or to accommodate everything we might wish to cook at home. The routes we take say as much about us as consumers as do the purchases made: both qualitative and quantitative studies of city dwellers and of general consumer behaviors (Penn, 2005; Erincik et al, 2015; Berry, 1969) have ascertained that the synergy between space traversed and purchasing behavior is characteristic of both the city and the individual navigating it, with consumption occurring both opportunistically, along the route, and at a destination to which a route leads.

Using the powerful tools offered by GIS-based apps and GPS mapping, coupled with photo and text journaling integrated into the apps, to test urban movement/consumption link, we have completed a series of focused studies on the interfaces among eating, movement and waste production in upper Manhattan, New York City. The technology we deployed allows both quantitative and qualitative assessments. While “big data” methods usually aim to diagnose prototypical behaviors and motivations through the accrual of as many data points as possible, we have repurposed ubiquitous computing to offer a series of bespoke, highly individual case studies. Our five subjects each represent a unique variation on the interplay of movement, food consumption and waste – in particular, non-organic wastes, whose impact on New York’s ecological footprint is most critical.

Our data analysis offers a broad spectrum of initial conclusions. These include insights into the comparative practices of on-line, dedicated and just-in-time grocery shopping. The analysis also addresses the outcomes in terms of non-organic waste of consumers’ decisions to favor perceived efficiency by eating on the go and disposing of items in the public realm. Finally, the plotted tracking information, accompanied by real time photographs and journals, suggests how movement within the city is impacted by the quest for food; and, alternately, how the presence of highly varied food options is overlaid onto the typical spatial patterns pursued by the individuals studied.