Ethnic Retail Research Articles

Planners as Gatekeepers: Spatial Justice Through the lens of Planning Theory in Helsinki

Abstract Planning practice is a device of controlling land use and ideally corresponds to societal demands. It can contribute to spatial justice through its two roles, substantive and procedural. Planning theory, on the other hand, studies both roles of planning practice focusing on the interplay of power. Helsinki witnesses a rapid and dynamic urban growth with the Finnish capital city plan adopting bold ideas aiming to create pedestrian friendly urban centers further from the inner city. Among other objectives, the city plan employs anti-segregation policy in certain areas. Ethnic retail has been emerging in Helsinki at several locations not only fulfilling socio-economic needs of immigrants but also enhancing public street life and creating urban hubs. In particular, ethnic retail is clustered at two strip malls located in two neighborhoods under urban renewal. Two competitions were organized to guide the land-use based on the objectives of the city plan. This article studies how urban planning policy and planners have steered the urban renewal outcome. The findings show that the planners can serve as gatekeepers allowing specific outcomes in favor of certain actors. The article contributes to literature analyzing planning practice through the theory lens.

Mismatched planning and place-based identity in Helsinki: The impacts of anti-segregation policy on ethnic retail, and socio-cultural inclusion

ABSTRACT Declining independent retail and oligopoly of retail chains are common in Helsinki, leaving many premises at strip malls erected in the 1960s vacant. Despite this, ethnic retail has spontaneously clustered at two malls converting them into livable hubs. Both malls have been announced as destinations for tourists and food lovers on the city webpage by Marketing Helsinki. In 2019–2020, two planning competitions were held with the objective of forming urban centers through densification. Through two case studies, this paper examines the role of urban planning policy in supporting the branded destinations and their place-based identity. The findings show that innovative ethnic neighborhoods acknowledged in many European cities played no role in the process. On the contrary, both clusters face displacement in an urban renewal steered by anti-segregation policy. The city will lose authentic destinations and the immigrant community will consequently lose places of jobs and attachment. Non-decision-making ignored ethnic retailers in defining the actors and urban diversity as a value. There is limited research on contested spaces in semi-peripheral areas and their relation to urban planning. This paper contributes to the research body studying the implications of urban renewal on ethnic retail hubs and interplay of power.

The hidden city of immigrants in Helsinki's urban leftovers – the homogenization of the city and the lost diversity

Cities acknowledge the diversity of their population and consider the multicultural component a richness of their socio-cultural assets. Immigrants contribute to the reshaping of urban space in many European cities through their amenities. Such amenities, be they secular or spiritual, are a clear spatialization of multiculturalism. Ethnic retail is an emerging phenomenon in Helsinki, and it has increasingly replaced declining independent mainstream retail. Often, clusters of immigrant amenities are formed around Muslim prayer rooms activating a mosque-bazaar alliance that enjoys a dynamic footfall. Such a setting takes place spontaneously and typically at abandoned spaces, called in this dissertation urban leftovers. The leftovers are located in, or nearby, the neighbourhoods with a relative overrepresentation of immigrant population. However, these neighbourhoods are exposed to urban renewal steered by anti-segregation policy, thus facing the threat of erasure. This dissertation examines the capacity of urban planning to plan for diversity. It further studies the characteristics that ethnic retail requires to survive and emerge. The paradigm of The Right to the City is deployed to interpret the response of urban planning to multiculturalism. The findings are numerous. First, immigrant amenities prove their capability to play a role in place making and act as catalysts for public life recovery. Second, in doing so the created places not only fulfil the socio-cultural needs of immigrants, but they also attract mainstream clientele. Third, spontaneity, improvisation and authenticity are the main characteristics empowering the emergence of ethnic retail. However, the findings also show a failure of urban planning to reflect multiculturalism in the growth of the city. Often, the retail premises used by immigrants are demolished. Furthermore, conventional planning as well as alternative planning methods, such as scenario planning and urban planning competitions, have failed to reflect immigrants in the development. The main constraint preventing planning from being multicultural is the absence of a political interest and, accordingly, a clear vision to deal with the spatialization of multiculturalism. On the contrary, the clear vision of the city is its anti-segregation policy, which is by nature a homogenizing mechanism. Thus, the dissertation concludes that immigrants' Right to the City has been ignored.

How to Save Chinatown: Preserving affordability and community service through ethnic retail

Chinatowns in North America have been especially hit hard by COVID-19, a reality of anti-Asian racist and xenophobic sentiment exacerbated by the global pandemic. The factors contributing to increased business closures, commercial vacancy, and gentrification in Chinatowns have existed before the pandemic and have only been exacerbated. In order to preserve Chinatowns, municipalities have enacted historic preservation and small business support measures, such as historic designations, technical assistance for businesses, increased permit scrutiny, and legacy business programs. This study investigates the difference in retail changes across three Chinatowns in Vancouver, San Francisco and Los Angeles both prior and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Concurrently, this study also examines the impact of retaining a legacy business program and other preservation measures on the retail landscape. Interviews with city officials, organizers, community institutions, and members of the business community were conducted along with an analysis of existing local programs, policies and reports. This study finds that measures taken through historic preservation, small business support, and pandemic relief have not significantly addressed core needs within Chinatown communities. The most effective forms of relief and preservation was affordable housing, community-ownership of commercial businesses, and direct assistance for commercial rent. This study also acknowledges that some Chinatowns are faring better than others due to the ability of the Chinese community to fight against to historic discriminatory planning practices such as urban renewal, slum clearance, and highway building. The impact of these histories is deeply intertwined with the survivability of ethnic retail within each distinct Chinatown, and depending on the strength of existing community ties that remain will inform how preservation policies should be enacted.

Ethnic Chinese Retail Trade Activities in Banyuwangi in 1967-1998

This article discusses the retail trading activities of ethnic Chinese in Banyuwangi in 1967-1998. During this period, various restrictive regulations emerged among the Chinese. One of them is Cabinet Presidium Instruction No. 37/UN/IN/6/1967, which contains a ban on business and residence for foreign Chinese. This condition made retail trading activities to a halt due to the forcible sealing of stores. The outline of the problems studied in this study includes the background of the Chinese ethnic retail trade activity and the formation of the ethnic Chinese retail trade network in Banyuwangi in 1967-1998. The research method used is the historical method which consists of heuristics, criticism, interpretation and historiography. The approach used is an economic sociology approach. The results of the study show that ethnic Chinese are increasingly developing their business by acting as retail traders due to limited capital and no special skills are needed. The establishment of a retail trade network is based on the nature of trust and shared experiences, using the concept of family and ethnic networks. The available commodities are diverse, reflecting the needs of the community and showing the development of the socio-economic life of the people in Banyuwangi.
 Keywords: Trading activities, ethnic Chinese, Banyuwangi

Just city planning competitions in Helsinki: between the power of image and many images of power

ABSTRACT City growth in Helsinki is based on urban renewal steered by a policy preventing segregation. Meanwhile, chain stores dominate the Finnish retail market, and small mainstream retail is hardly seen in Helsinki. Although many old strip malls have been left vacant by the decline in small mainstream retail, ethnic retail has remarkably converted two strip malls into the most livable urban hubs in Helsinki. In 2019–2020, two planning competitions were held in response to the city objectives of forming urban centers through densification. This paper studies both competitions to examine their capacity to reflect urban diversity as a value in their results. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it demonstrates that competitions were not structured to respond to urban diversity. Second, both cases lacked effective consulting with ethnic retailers and the immigrant community affected by the urban renewal. Third, it argues that urban diversity is achievable if a genuine will exists to support competitions in freely inventing ideas empowering diversity. Furthermore, the results suggest that the alliance between the municipal monopoly of planning, the chain stores and the property shareholding companies created many images of power in the process.

The death and life of Malmi neighbourhood shopping street: is ethnic retail a catalyst for public life recovery in Helsinki?

ABSTRACT Chain stores have changed the retail landscape leading to the decline of small independent retail. Consequently, public street life on shopping streets is fading, and many premises have been left vacant during the past decade. However, in Finland, such transformation in the retail landscape coincides with the rapid growth of ethnic retail in some Helsinki neighbourhoods, such as Malmi, an area undergoing major urban renewal. The aim of this research is to study the current condition of Malmi public life and to investigate the capacity of ethnic retail to enhance it. Another aim is to examine how ethnic retail has been reflected in deploying scenario planning. The paper argues that ethnic retail has an evident role in improving vitality. The city of Helsinki showed willingness to integrate ethnic retail in its vision for developing the area, but with some shortcomings. The study recommends that ethnic retailers in Malmi, and similar areas, should be recognized for their role in formulating ethnic identities and reinforcing public street life. As such, the paper contributes to literature on urban renewal and space identity with a focus on future uncertainties facing small retailers.

The role of business agglomerations in stimulating static and social activities in multicultural streets

ABSTRACT Urban designers and city planners are increasingly interested in how streets can support social activities. Street-based social activities are influenced by relationships between the street’s physical characteristics, the business activities that take place there and how these two factors are managed over time. As New Zealand’s population becomes more diverse, a key challenge is to design and manage public spaces so that people from different socio-cultural backgrounds can enjoy spending time there. The ethnic retail phenomenon is considered one of the most recognisable symbols of multiculturalism. In many cases, the identity of an ethnic neighbourhood has developed around a specific mix of retailing activities. Despite this, very little work has been done to identify the characteristics of shops and businesses along streets that can help stimulate social intercourse. This paper explores how commercial business agglomerations can support efforts to make streets more culturally diverse. Through observations of activity along streets and interviews with people from three ethnically diverse communities in New Zealand, it was revealed that the extent to which streets become the public domain of different ethnic groups is dependent on the retail activities on offer. We conclude with reflections about the importance of municipal intervention and management for multicultural planning practice in streets.

Serving whom? Immigrant entrepreneurs in a new local context

In Helsinki, the current number of immigrants is quickly rising. Ethnic retail has emerged as a new, but visible, part of the city landscape. Compared to other European countries, becoming an entrepreneur is typically not very popular in Finland. Therefore, in this paper, we seek to comprehend this phenomenon and more specifically discover: what motivates immigrants to become entrepreneurs; what is the impact of their background and culture on the phenomenon; and finally, is the help provided by the city useful for them? Based on interviews and observations, we conclude that immigrant entrepreneurship facilitates in fluid ways the maintenance of cultural practices, while simultaneously enhancing meaningful encounters between immigrants and mainstream society. In our sample, we identify three types of entrepreneurs: growth-oriented, investors and status builders, as well as freedom and stability seekers. Although the groups are neither mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive, they display differences in certain aspects, which include their ways of entering into entrepreneurship, how their business is run, who their main clientele is, as well as in the future prospects for their businesses. We further infer that immigrant entrepreneurs, via their practices, also participate in making immigrant needs visible to politicians and policy-makers, thus also adding a layer to the local context within which they operate. However, we surmise that more effort is needed in addressing the freedom and stability seeker entrepreneurs if the aim of the city is to anchor immigrant retail in the city.

Ethnic Entrepreneurship and Placemaking in Toronto's Ethnic Retail Neighbourhoods

AbstractResearch about ethnic businesses primarily focuses on the urban context; yet, contemporary immigrants in North America have increasingly been settling and establishing new businesses in suburbs. This paper explores emerging suburban ethnic retail clusters in the Greater Toronto Area by comparing them to established urban business enclaves. Drawing on extensive field research, surveys, and interviews in more than 100 suburban Chinese and South Asian retail clusters, this paper explores entrepreneurial experiences in suburban retail spaces, the role of ethnic entrepreneurs in suburban placemaking, and the opportunities and constraints affecting entrepreneurs' interaction with other key players. It demonstrates the need to build on the mixed embeddedness model when exploring ethnic entrepreneurship in a suburban context, as well as the need to consider how the institutional framework plays a role in shaping ethnic retail places and the spatial and physical outcomes of ethnic entrepreneurship.

Ethnic groups, urban places, and retail enterprise: the United States, 1900

ABSTRACTThis study proposes an entrepreneurship model that (1) uses sociological literature on ethnic stratification to develop a typology of subdominant, marginalized, subordinate, and outcast minority groups and (2) applies geographic principles to spatially define variation in entrepreneurial environments in terms of urban hierarchies, regional milieus, and hinterland centres. Examining retail enterprise, the study utilizes the interactionist approach, which holds that ethnic business differences result from an interplay of groups’ attributes (supply) and locations’ opportunity structures (demand). The study extends this approach by incorporating the mixed embeddedness concept, which stresses the importance of ethnic groups’ situation in broad social, political, and institutional contexts. Regression analyses of Census data for US cities in 1900 show why retail enterprise among outcast minorities is demand-side resistant, while retail enterprise among marginalized minorities is demand-side reactive. The model thus yields insights into how ethnic stratification and geographical positions interact to produce inequalities of ethnic entrepreneurship.

The role of ethnic retailing in retrofitting suburbia: case studies from Toronto, Canada

Today’s immigrants to Canada are increasingly and directly settling into suburban areas of major cities; a trend that has resulted in new retail opportunities: suburban ethnic shopping centres are a growing phenomenon in areas with major immigrant settlement. This paper discusses the development and retrofitting processes of three suburban Chinese shopping malls in the Toronto area. The paper explores how these malls successfully regenerated areas once affected by business decline and how they can act as a catalyst to develop a new urban form that makes the suburban landscape less uniform and more sustainable. Various perspectives from key players involved in ethnic retail activities and developments were collected, including surveys with entrepreneurs and shoppers, and semi-structured interviews with city councillors, city planners, developers and an architect. The paper suggests that municipalities could invest in established ethnic retail places as an innovative means of “retrofitting suburbia.”

A Study of the Role of Small Ethnic Retail Grocery Stores in Urban Renewal in a Social Housing Project, Toronto, Canada.

Urban renewal often drives away the original residents, replacing them with higher income residents who can afford the new spaces, leading to gentrification. Urban renewal that takes place over many years can create uncertainties for retailers and residents, exacerbating the gentrification process. This qualitative study explored how the urban renewal process in a multi-cultural social housing neighborhood in Toronto (Regent Park) affected the small ethnic retail grocery stores (SERGS) that supplied ethnic foods and items to the ethnic populations living there. Interviews were conducted with ten SERGS store owners/managers and 16 ethnic residents who lived in Regent Park before renewal and were displaced, or who were displaced and returned. The SERGS stated that they provided culturally familiar items and offered a social credit scheme that recognized existing social relationships and allowed low-income residents to afford food and other amenities in a dignified manner and pay later, without penalty or interest. At the same time, the SERGS were unsupported during the renewal, were excluded from the civic planning processes, could not compete for space in the new buildings, and experienced declining sales and loss of business. The residents stated that the SERGS were trusted, provided a valued cultural social spaces for ethnic identity formation, and ethnic food security but they faced many uncertainties about the role of SERGS in a renewed neighborhood. Based on this study, it is recommended that ethnic retailers be recognized for the role they play in formulating ethnic identities and food security in mixed-use mixed-income communities and that they be included in planning processes during urban renewal. Such recognition may enable more former residents to return and lessen the gentrification.

Construction and reconstruction of ethnicity in retail landscapes: case studies in the Toronto area

The ethnic retail phenomenon is a highly recognizable symbol of Canada’s multiculturalism. However, very little research has examined how ‘ethnicity’ is reflected through physical retail spaces or how a neighbourhood’s ethnic identity is constructed and reconstructed through ethnic retail spaces. Interviews and surveys with key informants in four ethnic retail neighbourhoods in Toronto, Canada, revealed the dynamics of changing ethnic retail landscapes, how ethnicity may be physically manifested, and the complex meanings behind architectural or structural changes. The results can inform municipalities about the importance of appropriate public policies in the areas of urban design, neighbourhood identity and economic development to help enhance the flourishing ethnic landscapes.

The influence of ethnic attributes on ethnic consumer choice of service outlet

PurposeMarketers are increasingly aware of ethnic subgroups as segments to target with customized offers. This paper aims to investigate the role of ethnic‐related outlet attributes in determining the attractiveness of mainstream and ethnic service outlets to ethnic consumers.Design/methodology/approachBased on institutional theory and self‐congruity theory, the paper proposes that two sets of outlet attributes, ethnic‐related and performative attributes, influence the attractiveness of an outlet. These effects are mediated by a business's pragmatic legitimacy, its social legitimacy (in terms of perceived sensitivity to ethnic culture), and the congruity between the consumer's self‐image and the business. A model is proposed and hypotheses derived. They are tested on data from an online survey among 483 Chinese Australian consumers about their use of travel agents. The hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling.FindingsThe study reveals that ethnic‐related attributes play a specific and significant role in determining outlet attractiveness for Chinese consumers in Australia. Although they have a smaller effect than service and price, ethnic‐related attributes contribute positively to perceived attractiveness. Of the performative attributes, customer service has the largest effect; offering competitive prices has the second largest effect. Outlet accessibility has no significant effect while store atmosphere has an unexpected negative effect. Store atmosphere acts as both a performative and an ethnic‐related attribute. The results confirm the hypothesized mediation effects of pragmatic legitimacy, social legitimacy and congruity.Originality/valueThis study contributes to a better understanding of ethnic consumer behaviour and the role of ethnic retail and service outlets in the market place. It provides new insights by drawing from different theoretical frameworks (institutional theory and self‐congruity theory) and conducting an empirical study that uses validated scales in a unique setting among real consumers reporting about their use of a service provider. The results not only demonstrate the role and potential of ethnic attributes, but also how customer service and store atmosphere play a more intricate role than initially expected.

Recent Trends of Ethnic Chinese Retailing in Metropolitan Toronto

As the population diversifies in many North American cities due to increased immigration, ethnic retailing has become an important and increasingly visible component of the local retail economy. To date, business geographers have paid little attention to ethnic retailing. This paper attempts to redress this gap by providing a spatial analytical study of the demand for and supply of ethnic retail in the largest Canadian urban market, Toronto. The findings highlight that since the late 1990s, ethnic Chinese retailing in the Toronto market has continued to expand. Three key trends are identified. First, there has been a resurgence of food retailing and growth of modern large-scale supermarkets. Second, developments have begun to shift away from clusters of exclusive ethnic retailing towards a mix with mainstream businesses. Third, a new corridor of ethnic Chinese retailing has developed forming the geographical center of an emerging Chinese-dominated ethnoburb.

High Street Adaptations: Ethnicity, Independent Retail Practices, and Localism in London's Urban Margins

Two key forces are likely to impact on the retail profile of London's high streets. First is the increasing expansion of London's retail sector across both affiliated and independent sectors, paralleled with economic volatility associated in part with the global crisis in 2008. The second is the political shift, at both national and city scales, towards the recognition of small independent shops and local high streets, as signalled in The Mayor's Draft Replacement London Plan, 2010. This brings us to a third consideration: the growth of ethnic retail, evidenced particularly in London where national levels of immigration and ethnic diversity are at their highest. The 2010 High Street London report commissioned by the Mayor's Office emphasises ‘the local’ role of London's high streets for a local’ populous, reflecting a larger national policy emphasis on Localism as outlined in The Localism Bill in 2010. This paper explores what forms of planning are best suited to recognise a rapidly evolving retail landscape together with the crucial differentiations inherent in the local landscape. The focus is explicitly contextual: it is London centric in its scope, and relies on detailed survey and ethnographic data of a south London high street located within an area with high Indices of Deprivation. The context sits in contrast to the notions of the village high street and the upmarket high street, which encapsulate cultural notations of vitality and viability which frame much of the literature and policy around the value of high streets. By analysing the adaptive practices of the ethnically diverse, independent retailers on the Walworth Road, socioeconomic measures of high street values are explored. Further, the paper conceptualises adaptation as the strategic adjustments made by independent proprietors in recognition of large-scale economic forces, national regulatory frameworks, and local cultural nuances. The paper reframes ‘the local’ as ‘the particular’ and emphasises the need for disaggregated, fine-grained research on retail practices in high streets which reflect crucial contextual differentiations. Finally it explores what a planning framework and stewardship mechanism for high streets in London's urban margins might comprise.

The Role of Ethnicity in the Geography of Consumption

Two notable trends in immigrant gateway cities—the growth of immigrant-owned businesses and accelerated ethnic marketing efforts of mainstream firms—raise an interesting research question of how ethnicity interacts with accessibility in the geography of consumption. Given that many immigrants today are better educated and more affluent than their predecessors, and an ethnic business and its mass counterpart can differ little in size and product variety terms, it is intriguing to discover how urban consumers choose between businesses owned and operated by ethnic minorities and those in the mass market. Based on two surveys, this article compares the grocery shopping behavior of Chinese immigrants and the rest of the population in two study areas in one of the most culturally diverse urban regions of the world—Toronto, Canada. Although a large Chinese population and mainstream supermarkets are found in both locations, one of the study areas is characterized by a high concentration of Chinese supermarkets, and the other contains only one. Analyses show that Chinese and non-Chinese populations in Toronto exhibit distinct grocery shopping behaviors. Chinese supermarkets and mainstream supermarkets are complementary consumption sites for Chinese residents but independent ones for non-Chinese. The role of ethnicity/culture is strong. Recognizing the sociocultural embeddedness of immigrant shoppers and the cultural representation of ethnic retail spaces, this study raises the question of how effective ethnic marketing can be in the case of grocery retailing from the perspective of both mainstream and Chinese businesses, with implications for immigrant community development, urban retail planning, and national multicultural and integration policies.

Immigrant Grocery-Shopping Behavior: Ethnic Identity versus Accessibility

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate in the ‘new’ economic geography over the dialectic between the cultural and the economic, and in which the study of the geography of consumption is a prime example. The consumer behavior of culturally distinct immigrants is an intriguing and complex economic and cultural inquiry. In this paper we explore the grocery-shopping behavior of suburban middle-class Chinese immigrants in Toronto, where the group's ethnic economy has become full-fledged. Using a mixed approach combining focus groups and logistic modeling, we examine the preferences of Chinese immigrants between the fast-growing Chinese supermarkets and competing mainstream supermarket chains. Attention is focused upon the interplay of ethnic identity and accessibility in determining store patronage. The findings suggest a stronger effect of ethnic affinity on immigrants' choice of shopping venue than that of economic rationality. Grocery shopping, a most mundane and taken-for-granted activity, is practiced with sociocultural meanings by immigrants, and the social use of ethnic shopping spaces indicates that immigrants are not only consumers in ethnic shopping places but coactors in producing the unique ethnic retail environment.

Playing to win: an explorative study of marketing strategies of small ethnic retail entrepreneurs in the UK

The paper is based on an explorative study of small ethnic retail entrepreneurs and their target consumers in the UK. The paper argues that the ethnic entrepreneurs engage in a number of marketing practices that reveal their competency, innovation and networking abilities to successfully compete in a competitive context. In doing so, the paper highlights the ambivalent nature of marketing practices followed by ethnic entrepreneurs revealing their role as bicultural mediators seeking to facilitate negotiations of multiple identities by their multi-ethnic consumers. The paper discusses implications for marketers of mainstream brands who are interested in targeting ethnic minority consumers.