Organization of Shopping Support Measures and Prospects for GIS Analysis in Iwaki City, Japan

As the population declines and aging continues, access to shopping varies across areas. This study aimed to organize shopping support measures and provide directions for analysis using a geographic information system (GIS), taking Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, as a case study. The initiatives described in the city’s publicly available documents were organized according to the five categories of measures for disadvantaged shoppers presented by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. For logistics, initiatives by the Fukushima Prefecture were included as a supplement. Additionally, drawing on previous studies, GIS analysis methods were organized for the five categories using the available data. These methods included analyses to identify the relationships of districts with relatively few stores with existing services and community hubs, as well as factors that could disrupt road transport. The proposed GIS analyses could enable the examination of existing initiatives in relation to intra-city spatial differences. Future work should apply these methods to identify such spatial differences. Furthermore, it is advisable to examine additional aspects, such as residents’ shopping circumstances, to evaluate existing initiatives.