Yesterday, William posted about yaoya (vegetable shops). I share his affection for them but, unfortunately, their numbers are in decline. In the following graph, numbers of several types of stores are show relative to their peaks (for each category, the peak number is 100 and all other values are relative to that). The greatest decline has been in shoe stores (red) but vegetable shops (light green) have declined quite a lot too. As people still need to eat and, presumedly, are eating about the same amount of vegetables, this means that more people are buying their veggies at large-scale supermarkets.
Source: https://www.hosei.ac.jp/fujimi/riim/img/img_res/WPNo.136_Minami.pdf
Nationally, however, Kumamoto’s yaoya are doing better than most other parts of Japan. The following page ranks Kumamoto as 8th of Japan’s prefectures in it’s population-to-veggie shop ratio (about 22 shops per 10,000 people):
Source: https://todo-ran.com/t/kiji/21193
Like William, I like having little shops nearby where I can get to know the people and that I can get to on foot. Big supermarkets are efficient but yaoya certainly have their charms. :)
– Kirk
P.S. Kokai Shotengai (Kokai Shopping Street) near Kumamoto University is a great place to find lots of small, traditional shops, including yaoya, where you can get great bargains as you chat with the shop owners. Nationally, however, such shotengai (shopping streets) are also in decline.