I think the change on local shopping streets is inevitable. In Global Cities, Local Streets: Everyday Diversity from New York to Shanghai, the authors pointed out the ethnic clusters of the local shopping streets. Ethnic clusters don’t last because different ethnic groups might move away from the community or the shopkeepers don’t have any successors to keep the stores going. What is happening today is that a lot of the local shopping streets look very similar to each other even if they are from different countries. There is no longer a concentration of ethnic clusters but instead a very diverse spread of shopping streets. As time passes and as humans grow old or move away, the stores they own will also disappear along with them. In addition, other factors such as increase in rents or big chain stores can push the storekeepers to close the stores. The storekeepers might not be able to paid for the high rent or they have a lost of profits because of the big chain stores acting as competitions.
The effects on local businesses of continued growth of online commerce and retail chains are that local businesses will eventually be closed down. Today, customers want on demand services so even getting dress to go to the local market might be too troublesome for them. Instead, they will rely on online stores, which are one click away to buy anything that they need. In addition, buying things online also comes with shipping so customers don’t even have to carry the things they brought home because these online stores will ship the things they brought right to their doorsteps. Most local businesses specialize in selling identical products such as one store only selling health care products and another store selling only meat. Because of the different specialization of each local store, customers have to move from one store to another if they want to buy different things. However, retail stores are big stores with different sections selling different products within a step away. Customers can buy furniture and then turn around to buy electronics. This will save the customers’ time because everything they want to buy will be at one location. Local businesses are essentially in a competition with online stores and retail chains and they are currently losing because people want to buy things quick and without any hassles.
True but maybe these desires on consumers’ part will make the city less interesting…and maybe small retail businesses offer an economic opportunity to people without much money…