The pivotal role of the food service industry in alleviating urban segregation and boosting city vitality

Urban segregation challenges the sustainable and inclusive development of cities, yet little is known about how to address it effectively. This study examines how restaurants in Chengdu, China, a city renowned for its vibrant food culture, shape social interactions in daily life, aiming to uncover ways to promote greater social mixing. Drawing on 1.52 million cell phone records and information on 5,347 restaurants from Dianping.com, social isolation indices were measured across residential contexts and dining-out activities. The results show that the social isolation index during dining-out activities is, on average, 47.3% lower than in residential settings. Community restaurants with dense service coverage within 5.76 km demonstrate substantial potential to reduce social isolation. However, restaurant visits are highly unevenly distributed, and concentrated in a limited number of neighborhoods in central and newly developed districts. Regression analyses reveal that restaurant-level social segregation is strongly negatively associated with customer flows, while service radius has a positive effect, by contrast, price level and cuisine type show no significant impact. These findings from Chengdu, China provide a motivation and an analytical framework for future research in other contexts to examine how the food service industry may relate to social integration, including through factors such as affordability and transport accessibility.