Placelessness Mechanism of Local Restaurants: A Case Study of Heyuan Hakka Restaurant in Guangdong Province

Abstract

With consumerism prevailing in modern cities, their uniqueness and diversity is gradually disappearing. People no longer pay attention to place significance and traditional values. Therefore, the "place" has become a meaningless activity space, which attracted the attention of several disciplines. However, at present, there are few studies on microgeographic units' delocalization from multiple dimensions, and there is a lack of discussion on the relationships between individual attributes such as emotion, social interaction, and consumption with placelessness. Based on the theoretical framework of placelessness, this study analyzed the process and dynamic mechanism of the evolution of the Heyuan Hakka restaurant into a placeless landscape from a micro perspective. The study showed that: 1) The synergy of power, capital, consumption, and operators contributes to the delocalization of restaurants. The government allocates resources through administrative means, such as administrative division adjustment, planning, and system reform, and begins the reconstruction and commercialization of urban space, which is the external driving force for the evolution of local restaurants. 2) In the course of urban development, local restaurants prefer to operate in new urban commercial centers, and they are gradually moving from older towns to achieve higher commercial efficiency. Therefore, the place significance implicit in the location of a restaurant gradually disappears. 3) To meet the needs of modern food consumption, capital has driven the development of restaurant chains and the integration of food across regions, which has inevitably led to the development of more homogeneous restaurants. 4) Operators believe that higher efficiency leads to higher profitability, so they are increasing their focus on the spatial efficiency of their restaurants. Competition for restaurant locations, environmental construction, and chain expansion reflect space production practices. 5) Local restaurants that gradually gather in the urban business center and surrounding areas alienate their relationship with residents, who find it difficult to engage in daily, frequent, social activities and emotional exchanges in such places. 6) Residents' original intimacy toward local restaurants has disappeared, and it has become difficult to establish a stable emotional connection with the new food consumption space. The main contributions of this study are as follows: First, at the micro level, the study explored how the power of modernity has contributed to the development of placelessness in three dimensions and expanded the study of consumption based on the 'human-object-land' relationship. Therefore, this study responds to the consumption research tendency of the new cultural geography based on the behavior, place, material, and the social-cultural mechanism behind it. Second, a processual analysis of the evolution of place into non-place, revealing the interaction between place and socioeconomic culture in the process of its construction, was completed. Third, this study prompts local restaurant operators to think deeply about their traditions and development processes, guiding operators to re-establish the connections between local restaurants and their communities, which will enhance the social value of local restaurants. Finally, this study enriches place theory, which will promote consumption space development. As a manifestation and consumption space of local culture, local restaurants should allow residents, tourists, and other consumers to experience the unique local culture of their region. This study also has value for the construction of urban consumption space.

Keywords

• place
• placelessness
• local restaurant
• heyuan city