Teaser

Description

One crucial way that urban forms emerge, transform, and spread is through defining them as spaces geared for specific activities.  This imposes costs on using them for different activities, making them more likely to persist, but also perhaps decreasing flexibility.  This project develops a case study of this dimension of urban formetics, studying the spread of certified Neapolitan Pizza establishments across and within cities. By developing a case, we hope to contribute to a more refined understanding of key concepts in the UGP and illustrate how they might be studied.  Key questions include:

  1. What kind of urban environment did this pizza style emerge out of?
  2. What kind of urban environments, did this pizza style spread to?
  3. Are there regularities in the spatial diffusion of Neopolitan pizza over time?

To develop and pursue these propositions, we adapt key ideas from evolutionary ecology, such as density dependence and niche width. 

For example, we hypothesize that uncertified pizza is likely to proliferate where density of pizza and similar establishments is low; by contrast, certified pizza is likely to emerge where the pizza carrying capacity is near its threshold, and success depends upon quality indicators.  We also hypothesize that other mechanisms are at work.   For instance, content bias: Neopolitan pizza should initially appear in spatially and socially proximate areas, i.e. it should appear both nearby its “home” and in areas with high proportions of Italian immigrants.  Frequency bias: as it spreads, others copy it, thereby increasing its niche width to more socially diverse environments.