Impacts

Local Residents

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The local residents have mixed feelings towards the gentrification. On a Facebook group name Tsuen Wan Locals, some residents have expressed their concerns on the increasing pharmacies, jewellery shops in the districts and the business environment for new shops to operate under the rapid rents increase. Pharmacies, in particular has increased from 11 to 21 stores in Tsuen Wan, the original CD shops, stamp card shops were forced to close down. This becomes a worrying trend (On.cc, 2014).

 

A Figure above is made to compare the two food streets in Tsuen Wan. From the graph, these food streets provide a large variety of cuisines, ranging from Japanese, Taiwanese, Thai, drinks and desserts. Among them, the desserts shop with Western favour outgrows the others and there are a stress on spicy cuisines in Tsuen Wan in recent years. This shows the increase in food chocies for residents and visitors.

Besides food choices, the revitalization in the shopping malls also provide better shopping experiences for the residents . For instance, the shops in Luk Yeung Galleria has been gentrified into cosmetics, middle-to-high income goods, which makes Tsuen Wan attained self-containment as a new town. People no longer require to commute outside Tsuen Wan to buy their desirable goods.

The shopping malls in Tsuen Wan has both similarities and differences in the products they sell. For instance, Sasa, a cosmetic brand has nearly four shops within Tsuen Wan. The shopping malls aimed at restricting the visitors' commute distance so that they can spend in one single mall for a whole day. This tourist-friendly strategy to some extent benefits the local Tsuen Wan residents.

Local Business: Old and New

NEW BUSINESS

The gentrification opens up new opportunities for new businesses. Food Streets are dominated by new shops which is opened by individuals. For Tsuen Hing Path, only less than 20% shops are chain stores and for Shi Lin Food Street, 100% are individually-owned restaurants and catering businesses. This highlights the opportunities given by gentrification, in which young business can have a chance to grow.

However, there are also additional concerns regarding the rent increase problems. From various newspaper collected in these few years, the rents have increased in a tremedous way. One of the reasons are due to the competitve investors who are willing to sell their shops stock for high profits.

The rents in Tsuen Wan has increased for 16% within two months (The Sun, 2012). As explained by the District Councilor , the rents increased rapidly due to the promotion of tourism and increase in development potenial in Tsuen Wan. The business environment has been dimmed and there is high turnover rate particularly in Tsuen Hing Path. New shops keep on opening and closed down, which results in the question of sustainability of the Tsuen Wan’s urban environment.

The invest environment in Tsuen Wan favoured many to follow the footsteps of Shi Lin Food street to obtain much larger profits and avoid vacancy issues existed in the past. For example, some even divide their shops into small stores such as the The Cube, Tsuen Fung Centre and T-mark,this increases the numbers of shop leases and gain skyrocketed profits. One owner, for example, has earned 20 million by selling its shop stock last year (The Sun, 2012).

 

OLD BUSINESSES

 

The rent increase has severly jeopardized the living of the traditional businesses in Tsuen Wan. They are the salons, bookstores, grocery stores that have operated within the same neighbourhood for decades. For instance, the 30-year-old Toys and Stationary shop expressed that the rents in the area has climbed drastically, which makes it hard for them to continue their business in the future.

But they still hope to survive in the neighbourhood because of the affiliation between the customers and the neighbourhood. Yet, they believe that the demographic visiting their shops have been different. For instance, more people outside Tsuen Wan has visited the toy shop because of the disappearing of related stores in other places. Yet, their profits remain limited and they are still struggling to survive.

Sometimes, relocations may be a better option for them. Below is a map showing the relocation of traditional shops into the secondary streets.

Some of the traditional shops, who cannot compete with the gentrification and increasing rents, has to move to upstairs stores instead, such as the Tai Ho Book Store and some traditional facial treatment and salons. Another option is to relocate the shops to the secondary streets indicated as purple in the map. On the map, the light blue shows the traditional primary streets which has the highest rents in Tsuen Wan. On average, the shops rents around $80,000 to $10,000 in those areas. And others secondary streets are around $40,000 to $60,000. (Information collected from Midland Realty )

 

District Council

As mentioned in the previous page, the Hau Tei Square Hawker Bazaar was revitalized recently. However, upon further investigation, there were no new stores opened at the spot. Instead, most of the hawkers maintain their usual business after the renovations.

However, the Dsitrict Coucil was originally planned to develop Hau Tei Square into a local landmark. Mr. Li, one of the Jeans shops there expressed his criticisms that their business environemnt is still not satisfactory, most likely related to the changes in demographic patterns which makes their old customers move out. They urge for the District Council to retain their promises for upgrading their place as a flea market for tourism.

Towards this, Mr. Peter Lo, the Tsuen Wan District Councillor, has expressed that the District Council has already been discussing the future plans about that. At the same time, he feels satisfied towards the changes, believing that Tsuen Wan is heading a good direction in the long-term. Shops changes are of natural phenomenon, developing into food streets symbolizes local trends and can attract vistiors to certain places. The concentration of shopping malls in Tsuen Wan also provides multiplier effects to attract more visitors to Tsuen Wan and thus they could help enhance Tsuen Wan's image.