Recent Trends of Ethnic Chinese Retailing in Metropolitan Toronto

Recent Trends of Ethnic Chinese Retailing in Metropolitan Toronto

Shuguang Wang (Department of Geography, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada), Rebecca Hii (Policy Studies PhD Program, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada), Jason Zhong (Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, Edmonton, ALTA, Canada) and Paul Du (Centre for the Study of Commercial Activities, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada)
Copyright: © 2013 |Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/jagr.2013010104

Abstract

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.
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Understanding Ethnic Entrepreneurship And Ethnic Economy

Ethnic businesses have existed in immigrant-receiving countries for over a century. Yet, ethnic entrepreneurship and the ethnic economy did not become a serious area of research until the early 1980s and onward (see such seminal works as Bonacich & Modell, 1980; Light, 1984; Aldrich & Waldinger, 1990; Light & Rosenstein, 1995; Light & Gold, 2000).

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