The Commercial Structure of Pedestrian Streets and Shopping Districts - Three Cases from Finland

Abstract

Pedestrian streets have been a recognized method of revitalizing inner-city trade for decades. At first many shop owners are sceptical to what changes a pedestrianizations brings about, but experience shows pedestrian streets have been successful and raises the sales of businesses located on it. However, certain businesses are not favoured by a pedestrianization while others can gain a lot from it. This master’s thesis examines the commercial structure of pedestrian streets in order to find out what businesses are located on pedestrian streets. The results are compared with the commercial structure of the shopping district in which the pedestrian street is located. In this way the differences in the commercial structure is found out. The thesis also looks into how frequent chain stores are on pedestrian streets and in shopping districts. The research material was gathered using a commercial inventory in three Finnish towns: Ekenäs, Kerava and Pori. The material was classified into categories and the results drawn onto a map as well as analyzed by basic statistical methods. The results are separated for pedestrian streets, shopping centres and other locations and put into the overall categories of retailers, restaurants and other services. The results show that there are clear differences in commercial structure when comparing pedestrian streets with the surrounding shopping district. Pedestrian streets have much more retailers, especially fashion shops, than has other locations. Shopping centres show a similar commercial structure to pedestrian streets, while the rest of the shopping district has fewer retailers and more service businesses. Restaurants are more evenly spread out over the shopping district as a whole. The results for chain stores are ambiguous. There are some hints that they are more common on pedestrian streets, especially in bigger towns. The results gained are however not sufficient to make far reaching conclusions. During the last 10–15 years pedestrian streets in Finland has become more dominated by restaurants on the expense of other services, while the number of retailers has remained the same. Finnish pedestrian streets still show a different commercial structure to pedestrian streets in Scandinavia that have more retailers and fewer services than their Finnish counterparts. The case specific results show a lot of local variance. Local factors are in many cases stronger than general theories of shop localization on pedestrian streets. In general the findings support the theoretical framework. The results give more exact information on the commercial structure of pedestrian streets and shopping districts and what impacts on this structure.