The Renewal of Xinmin Food Market under the Background of "Relieving Beijing of Functions Nonessential to Its Role as the Capital"

¹ Beijing City University, Urban construction school, 100083 Beijing, China
² University of Oslo, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, 0315 OSLO, Norway

^* Corresponding author: yichizhangzyc@gmail.com

Abstract

In response to the needs for "relieving Beijing of functions nonessential to its role as the capital", Beijing has fulfilled a series of tasks including old urban area renewal and population dispersion in the central urban area so as to strictly control the increment and effectively relieve the pressure over the stock. Some community food markets have been shut down, or regulated, transformed and upgraded. As a typical case, the Xinmin Food Market was renewed and upgraded in 2016, which has produced some impacts on consumers, business owners and managers. By taking the Xinmin Food Market as a case, this paper makes an in-depth survey and interview with its stakeholders, explores the pre-transformation problems and post-transformation improvements, analyzes the potential needs of consumers, business owners and administrators, summarizes the development status and improvement potential of food markets and propose the strategies for further renewal, with a view to providing references and suggestions for the optimization and upgrading of food markets in the old urban area.