Abstract：Downtown area was traditionally the main shopping space of urban residents. However, the role of retailing has clearly diminished in the center of Western cities since its heyday in the 1920s. This trend was caused by violent transformations in the economic, social and locational context, which involves residential suburbanization, as well as new forms of commercial development out of town. In transforming China, under much similar urban-developing route, the retail decentralization has also presented itself in many cities. Several earlier researches have analyzed such phenomenon from their macroscopical perspective, which paid much attention on the physical development of urban retailing out of town. To date, however, limited studies choose the approach of consumer behavior, the other side influence of commercial space, to reflect the temporary retailing change. What's more, compared with suburban commercial development, there's seldom focus on the factual situation of downtown area.
The present research investigates the residents' utilization of both traditional and rising new commercial centers with different types of retailing form, which aims at making clear the change of residents' shopping behavior, especially spatial transformation, in such quite a different retailing context and in turn its reflection of and impacts on urban commercial space. The questionnaire survey was carried out among typical residential areas distributed different location of Beijing. Particularly, the residents' utilization and related problems of downtown retail center is discussed in this paper.
Study results showed that downtown retailing still plays important part in residents shopping activity. However, with rapid urban sprawl, retailing in urban center has greatly threatened by booming out-of-town commerce. Average month frequency and average expend per time of consumers in downtown retailing centers overwhelms that in suburban retailing centers, the trend of which is much more obvious as to suburban residents. The preponderant consumer groups of downtown retailing is the old and the young, who are both weak in purchasing power; while suburban areas can draw groups of different age, occupation, income, residential location, and those with strong power tend to make more use of such new retailing centers. Besides, take the increasing use of private car into account, the difficulty of retailing of downtown may be exacerbated too. Among three of the old centers, Qianmen showed its lost of commercial vibrancy more evidently and it will probably change its role for residents' shopping totally. The research also discovered that retailing located in inner city began to experiencing badly decline that once appeared in Western cities, which was also an important evidence of the change of commercial space. Finally, the paper emphasized the need to further discuss on this topic, combining it with current change of urban population distribution, urban spatial structure, urban life and its space, as well as the preference of urban consumers.
沈洁, 柴彦威. 郊区化背景下北京市民城市中心商业区的利用特征[J]. 人文地理, 2006, 21(5): 113-116,123.
SHEN Jie, CHAI Yan-wei. STUDY ON RESIDENTS' UTILIZATION OF DOWNTOWN RETAIL CENTER IN BEIJING IN THE CONTEXT OF CITY SUBURBANIZATION. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, 2006, 21(5): 113-116,123.
