Café culture and retail gentrification: a nonlinear canonical correlation analysis of intraclass diversity and bivalent class narratives in Cluj, Romania

Abstract

ABSTRACT Retail gentrification remodels high streets and inner cities worldwide to appeal to the middle class, including specialty coffee consumption. The consumption of coffee in Cluj-Napoca’s inner-city district, a Central and Eastern Europe city, challenges certain tenets of the ‘revanchist city’ hypothesis, as shown through the concepts of ‘intraclass diversity’ and ‘bivalent class narratives’. Analyzing café consumer preferences, keywords associated with cafés, and social positions through nonlinear canonical correlation revealed that the working-class is co-opted into sustaining a creative, business-friendly city image consistent with middle-class consumption fantasies and self-expression.