Perhaps you're in the market for a new motorcycle. Or maybe you've decided to upgrade your home theater system with a sleek, wall-mounted LCD TV. Or maybe, it's lunch time and the only thing you're craving is a steaming pile of spicy tteokbokki rice cakes.
Whatever it is you're looking for, there is probably a street, district or a market in Seoul devoted to just that.
Head over to Chungmuro in central Seoul to find dozens of motorcycle retailers and try Yongsan for hundreds of shops selling electronics. And in case you were wondering, tteokbokki has a town, and it's in Sindang-dong.
Specialty streets are not unique to Korea -- most cities have large areas devoted to the sale of things like produce, flowers, clothing and shoes. Seoul, however, seems to take it to the extremes of specificity. Many of these specialty streets have popped up north of the Han River in the last 50 years, a time during which Seoul has seen incredible population growth. While there are some doubts about whether these types of neighborhoods will be sustained in years to come, for now Seoulites are spoiled for choice at the city's specialty markets.
You'll find clusters of shops selling pet supplies, jewelry, film cameras, jokbal (boiled pigs feet) and a specific kind of North Korean naengmyeon (cold noodles), just to name a few, all within walking distance of each other in central Seoul.
Toward City Hall is one of Seoul's most unique markets, the Nakwon Arcade, home to over 200 musical instrument shops under one roof. But it pales in comparison to Ahyeon-dong's wedding town, which has more than 2,000 wedding dress shops.
This sort of clustering, in which businesses selling the same thing group together in the same area, is called agglomeration. When an area becomes known for a certain type of good or service, it attracts more buyers and, as a result, more sellers to the same place.
"It is the principle that similar stores agglomerate to share economies of scale and reduced costs such as sharing infrastructure and also for networking purposes," says Chang Dae-ryun, a professor at the Yonsei University School of Business. "Also, when neighborhoods specialize, it offers customers greater intra-category selection when searching for goods."
For business owners, opening up shop in an agglomeration, rather than in an area with few similar businesses, means entering into a highly competitive marketplace. The rationale, according to Chang, is that "it's better to share in a much bigger pie than to monopolize a small one."
While competition can be fierce, there is often a camaraderie and cooperation between store owners. Itaewon's antique furniture district took root when U.S. servicemen based at the nearby Yongsan Garrison began selling their used furniture before returning home. Kim Young-chul, president of the Itaewon Antique Furniture Association, says the area began with only a few shops.
But when it became known as an "antique mecca," the number of shops grew very quickly as antique stores from across the city relocated to Itaewon. Kim says there is value in partnering together to promote the area because an increase in the number antique lovers coming to Itaewon will help all businesses prosper.
"We are all competitive, but since we all have different wares and our stores have different personalities, everyone has their own niche," he says. "The association does online marketing to help promote the area and, we also hold five-day flea markets every May and October."
Seoul resident Oh Kyong-yon says Seoul's specialty streets are great for shoppers who love to spend time browsing through a wide selection of goods in one place.
"A lot of people, especially women, love window shopping. So these kinds of markets are great for that. I am able to look around at several shops and sometimes I find far more items than I had even expected. And I may ending up buying, or maybe not," Oh says.
It's not just shops selling goods like toys (Changshin-dong, near Dongdaemun Market), baking supplies (Bangsan Market), sports equipment (Gwanghee-dong), exotic pets (Dongdaemun Market) and upscale furniture (Nonhyeon-dong) that have clusters in Seoul.
Agglomeration applies to restaurants as well.
Sillim-dong is famous for its cluster of restaurants serving sundae -- the popular Korean-style blood sausage. Seoul also has its share of ethnic enclaves. There is a street near Konkuk University with a large number of Chinese lamb kebab restaurants, a reflection of the number of Chinese residents in the area. Sometimes these restaurant clusters are the result of one eatery becoming popular and others seeking to capitalize, like in the Seoul suburb of Uijeongbu, home to a street devoted to budaejjigae, a stew made with kimchi, Spam, hot dogs, bean sprouts and ramen noodles, which began with just one original eatery 30 years ago. Today, the restaurants join together to hold an annual festival.
The benefits of clustering can be seen in other areas of industry in Seoul as well. There is likely no better example of the potential of the cluster effect than Seoul's Digital Media City. In the late 90s, the Seoul city government began planning and developing a 133-acre high-tech complex meant to bring together the country's multimedia, IT and entertainment industries in one place. Digital Media City is now home to hundreds of companies large and small that benefit from shared infrastructure, knowledge and communication.
The complex is credited with fueling the growth of Korea as a world leader in these industries.
While Digital Media City is certain to remain a leading force in Seoul's business landscape, the small-scale specialty streets may be squeezed out over the next decade, according to Chang. "The area of Seoul north of the Han River was for a very long time underdeveloped," he says. "That is rapidly changing and the economics of having these small specialized clusters will diminish when rental fees go up."
Many of these clusters are housed in older areas of the city. As the landscape of "Gangbuk (north of the river)" begins to look more like "Gangnam (south of the river)," with more high rises and more modern shopping malls, some small businesses will be replaced by chain stores, Chang says.
Namdaemun and Dongdaemun markets are still going to exist, but they will probably be much smaller," he says. "A lot of these specialty streets will be vulnerable to change."
But at least for the time being, this golden age of specialty streets will continue to be a defining feature of shopping in Seoul. (Yonhap)