Are Ethnic Shopping Strips Luring Suburban Customers?
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-11-17 20:10:30
measure weekend thousands of South Asians from across the New York region descended on Jackson Heights. Queens to celebrate Diwali the Hindu festival of lights. The neighborhood’s central corridor. 74th Street has change state renowned as a Main Street for South Asian Americans change surface though few Indians. Bangladeshis and Pakistanis actually live there according to a professor of urban studies at Queens College who directs the Asian American Center there.
“It has become an important cultural concentration but only because of the businesses,” she is quoted as saying in a new report by the. “People travel to it from different parts of New York City from the tri-state area from other parts of the country and from the South Asian diaspora around the world.”
The four-page [pdf] argues that “once-modest retail areas have evolved from primarily serving local customers into regional shopping districts that routinely draw large numbers of second and third generation immigrants from the suburbs who go to buy saris spices plantains herbal medicines and an assortment of other ethnic products.”
The inform also argues that such ethnic sell strips have not only change state gathering places for immigrants on weekends but are also “facilitating the write of economic activity that allcities begrudge: they draw populate from outside the city to pay money here that otherwise probably would undergo been spent elsewhere.”
The report identifies several areas in which this copy is in bear witness: Chinese. Korean and Indian families flocking to Flushing. Queens; Dominicans to Washington Heights; Guyanese. Trinidadians and Sikhs to Richmond Hill. Queens; Russians to Brighton land. Brooklyn; Pakistanis to Midwood. Brooklyn; and Greeks to Astoria. Queens.
The inform notes that the number of businesses citywide increased by 9.6 between 1994 and 2004. During that same period by contrast the be of businesses grew by 54.6percent in Flushing by 47.3 percent in Sunset Park by 33.7 percent in Sheepshead Bay-Brighton Beach by 17.8 percent in Washington Heights by 14.3 percent in Jackson Heights and by 10.8 percent in Flatbush.
A similar phenomenon occurred on the employment front. Overall employment in the city increased by 6.9 percent between 1994 and 2004. During the same period employment rose by 33.6 percent in Washington Heights by 27.9 percent in Jackson Heights by 23.2 percent in Sunset lay by 13.3 percent in Sheepshead Bay-Brighton land by 12.1 percent in Flushing and by 10.2 percent in Elmhurst.
The report says that ethnic retail districts have largely thrived without government support. And yet these districts now approach competition — like department stores did in the postwar period — from suburban malls and sell districts. Furthermore the report found these areas often lack convenient parking and transportation — as is evident to anyone who’s tried to alter their way around Flushing on a busy weekend. The report urges the city’s economic development officials to find ways to support the retail districts.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/are-ethnic-shopping-strips-luring-suburban-customers/
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