(Small businesses) Marketplaces dying away, again

Charlie the KimcheeGI at Budaechigae pointed me to a recent series of KBS reports on the plight of marketplaces, or traditional marketplaces (chaerae sijang) is you like. It's ch'usôk (chuseok) soon, which is a usual time for reporting how bad the economy in marketplaces and other sites of "ordinary people's economy" is compared to department stores or discount stores. (Actually the latter if any is ordinary people's shopping place.) Also the death of traditional markets has been a constant topic for some time (my previous post), and also this time it seems as if it really was the case. • Pushed away by discount stores (in Korean) (the same in English) Among about 190,000 [stores in] traditional markets across the nation, 17 percent remains vacant. While the traditional markets' commodity items are losing popularity, big retailers are rapidly gaining recognition among consumers. As a result, the number of traditional markets has currently decreased to about 1100 from about 1500 five years ago. (translation original) • No survival without change Categories at del.icio.us/hunjang: marketplaces