Abstract：Since the 1990s, with the in-depth development of market economy and the rapid growth of the urbanization level, the commercial activity is gradually flourishing in Chinese cities. The whole era witnessed a decentralization of the urban retailing structure and the diversification of retailing formats. Shopping center is a collection of independent retail stores, services, and parking areas constructed and maintained by a management firm as a unit. It arises from America, and only developed initially in China in recent years. This kind of retailing formats often located in the suburb of the city, and close to the main drag. The development of shopping center not only changed the structure of commercial space in Chinese cites, but also offered a new consume style and a possibility to lead a modern life.
Shopping center has long been an important research interest in the field of retailing geography in western countries. Compared with the abundant literature in English journals, the research of the shopping center is barely set up in our country, mainly concentrated in the filed of architecture and commercial management. Correspondingly, there is little research on shopping center come forth in geographical journals. Departed research often took the shopping center as a retailing format, discussed its characteristic of siting and its influence on the urban spatial structure, unconsciously ignored the subjective role of consumer in the commercial activities, and resulted a lack of positive research conjoint the shopping center with the consumer behavior. Therefore, this paper try to use the methodology of empirical behaviorism to discuss the interactive relationship between suburb shopping center and the consumer behavior, hopes the new trends of the transformation of urban commercial space be grasped from a microcosmic view.
Beijing was choseN to be the case city in this paper, and JinYuanShiDai shopping center the main research object. The research panel carried out a questionnaire survey on the shopping behavior of residents in Beijing during the April, 2005. Based on the firsthand data collected in this survey, as well as the on-site observation, the development course and the physical environment of the shopping center was carefully reviewed, the utilization of this new type commercial space by residents was also investigated from a two-dimension perspective, both on the customers' side and on the residents' side. The result showed that:professional and white-collar, young women and middle-aged parents who takes child was the dominating customer of this shopping center. Car-oriented trip mode, diversified and leisureful shopping purpose, and the socialization of the shopping process was the main characteristics of the shopping behavior when people make use of this commercial space. The emergence of this suburb shopping mall has significantly changed the spatial choice of the residents nearby, though showed a little impact on the people who lived in the inner city. As the utilization of the inner city shopping center was quickly weakened, there would be a greater shock on it in the future.
龙韬, 柴彦威. 北京市民郊区大型购物中心的利用特征——以北京金源时代购物中心为例[J]. 人文地理, 2006, 21(5): 117-123.
LONG Tao, CHAI Yan-Wei. STUDY ON RESIDENTS' UTILIZATION OF SUBURBAN SHOPPING MALL IN BEIJING CITY——A Case Study of JinYuanShiDai Shopping Mall. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, 2006, 21(5): 117-123.
