Aestheticizing Old Buildings in New Shopping Streets

Abstract

Empirical researches of New Shopping Streets within the inner city consider old buildings to be incubators for starting up new shops. Based on this insight, this article explores the relationships between built environments and entrepreneurs. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs, land-owners, and estate agents in Kyojima, an ex-industrial district of east Tokyo, I demonstrate how building tastes have worked as alternative channels in human networks.