Accessibility to Grocery Stores in Japan

Abstract

This paper examines the present conditions of accessibility of a certain section of the population to grocery stores in Japan, focusing on a comparison between urban and rural areas. We define an urban area as a DID (densely inhabited district) and a rural area as a non-DID. The population under study in this paper satisfies three criteria: (1) they reside at a distance of over 500 m from a store, (2) they do not have a car, and (3) they are aged 65 years and above. These criteria helped us identify the people most likely to find the process of shopping for food inconvenient and laborious. We estimate that for fresh food stores and for food supermarkets, 3.3 million people and 5.6 million people, respectively, satisfy these criteria. In the case of fresh food stores, the size of this population and the average distance in a non-DID are greater than in a DID. In the case of food supermarkets, however, the size of this population in a DID is greater than in a non-DID. It is thus evident that accessibility even in a DID is constrained if people desire to go shopping at a store having a greater variety of foods. However, as the average distance in a non-DID is four times greater than in a DID, the locational disadvantage faced by people in rural areas is quantitatively demonstrated.

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