Abstract
The writer uses the number of pedestrians on the street as one of the elements which may indicate the character of the central shopping street in each city.
By picking up the central shopping streets in sixty cities except million-cities (Tokyo, etc), the writer has surveyed the ratio of the specialty stores on the central shopping streets, and has used the data of pedestrians by the city offices, the commercial high schools, the chambers of commerce and industry, etc.
The investigations treated here may be summarized as follows:
(1) Generally, there is a close relation between the number of pedestrians on the central shopping street and the ratio of the specialty stores on the central shopping streets. Number of pedestrians is different from place to place, and we can decide the extent of the central shopping streets by the difference in number except small cities where the difference is slight.
(2) As the city population increases, the number of pedestrians on the central shopping streets tends to increase except in Hiroshima, Sendai, etc. and on the whole, they are ten percent of the city population. The ratio of the number of pedestrians on holidays to that on weekdays is 1.5 times.
(3) Types of the central shopping streets in view of the number of pedestrians (on weekdays) can be classified as follows: shopping streets with amusing establishments where the number increase towards evening, such as TanukikRji in Sapporo (a type) ; shopping streets with business offices, restaurants, etc. where there are two peaks around 12 and 17 o'clock, such as. Higashi-ichibanchô in Sendai (b type); shopping streets consisting mainly of shopping stores where the peak of the number appears 14-15 o'clock such as Burakuri in Wakayama (c type); and shopping streets where we can see no remarkable peaks as in the case of smaller and medium-sized cities (d type).
