Location of Commercial Facilities and Regional Development Potential: Comparative Analysis of Facilities in Kyushu, Japan

This study investigates the impact of the opening of Aeon’s (AEON Co., Ltd) large commercial facilities on land prices. Aeon is a large shopping center with, as of November 2023, 167 stores in Japan and 35 overseas. For this study, we use four municipalities’ prefectural land prices from Japan’s Kyushu region and analyze them using time-series clustering. Since 2000, while Fukutsu and Nogata have opened Aeon malls, Koga and Tagawa have had no newly opened large commercial facilities. In terms of population and geography, Koga and Tagawa are similar to Fukutsu and Nogata, respectively, enabling comparative analysis. This study found that (i) municipalities’ land prices increased after Aeon malls’ were launched, and this impact spread to municipalities in the vicinity. (ii) The land around Aeon malls was newly developed in approximately 10 years, with land prices remaining high. The findings signify significant policy implications because they provide evidence of the broad impact of launching malls, which could motivate local municipalities to attract large-scale commercial facilities. This is particularly true in Japan due to its decline birth rate and accelerating concentration of urban residents.