PreprintArticleVersion 1Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
An Ecological Interpretation of the Return of Mom-and-Pop Stores in South Korea: A Sustainable Commercial Format-Enhancing Urban Diversity or Just a Temporary Trend?
Version 1
: Received: 22 November 2019 / Approved: 24 November 2019 / Online: 24 November 2019 (13:21:12 CET)
How to cite:
Kim, J. An Ecological Interpretation of the Return of Mom-and-Pop Stores in South Korea: A Sustainable Commercial Format-Enhancing Urban Diversity or Just a Temporary Trend?. Preprints2019, 2019110277. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201911.0277.v1
Kim, J. An Ecological Interpretation of the Return of Mom-and-Pop Stores in South Korea: A Sustainable Commercial Format-Enhancing Urban Diversity or Just a Temporary Trend?. Preprints 2019, 2019110277. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201911.0277.v1
Kim, J. An Ecological Interpretation of the Return of Mom-and-Pop Stores in South Korea: A Sustainable Commercial Format-Enhancing Urban Diversity or Just a Temporary Trend?. Preprints2019, 2019110277. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201911.0277.v1
APA Style
Kim, J. (2019). An Ecological Interpretation of the Return of Mom-and-Pop Stores in South Korea: A Sustainable Commercial Format-Enhancing Urban Diversity or Just a Temporary Trend?. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201911.0277.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Kim, J. 2019 "An Ecological Interpretation of the Return of Mom-and-Pop Stores in South Korea: A Sustainable Commercial Format-Enhancing Urban Diversity or Just a Temporary Trend?" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201911.0277.v1
Abstract
After globalization, South Korea’s retail landscape has been saturated with large-scale, corporate type retails. However, recently new commercial districts composed of small retail units are returning and bringing about a change. This study sought to take note of this phenomenon and identify its features and meanings from the perspective of urban ecology. A density-distribution analysis was conducted to investigate how they were forms, and an analysis of traces on the Internet and an analysis on the types of businesses were done to identify sociocultural characteristics. Results showed that they had similar type of locations and growth patterns, that they harmoniously congregated in a form of smaller-individual stores, and that their use of similar names for their stores had an impact of branding their entire districts. It was also noted that a shared culture through social networking services served as a growth boost for their unfavorable location. The spontaneous formation of such commercial districts can be an outcome of an urban ecological process geared toward blank niches burgeoning in the current retail structure of Korea. The causes and conditions found in the cases reveal meaningful policy implications for cities facing the same urban crisis diversity.
Keywords
urban diversity; commercial landscape; small retail unit; mon-and-pop store
Subject
Social Sciences, Geography, Planning and Development
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
