生協の商品供給にみる空間の組織化

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the spatial structure of commodity supply systems developed by consumer cooperatives. The Co-op Kobe, one of the biggest cooperatives in Japan, has been selected for the case study. The Co-op Kobe, embracing more than one million participants, has two types of supply systems. One is the supply through its shops, the other is the group purchase systems (kyodo-konyu). While in the former goods are available at a fixed place, in the latter goods are delivered to consumers' groups.<br>The analsis of both systems can be summarized as follows:<br>1) The location of the shops developed during the period of rapid economic growth (1960-1974). These shops adopted self-service systems and the Co-op Kobe had been acheiving scale merit at the same time. And the location of shops has been remarkable particularly in the built-up urban areas such as the eastern part of Kobe City, Ashiya City and Nishinomiya City. During the period of the moderate economic growth after the first oil crisis, the demand of consumers diversified. The Co-op Kobe developed the several types of shops, according to the diversification of comsumers' needs. In this way, the Co-op Kobe could develop a hierarchical structure of shops. At the same time, the location of shops has expanded to the suburbs. Subsequently, the Co-op Kobe established a dominant area -an area of high shop density- in Hyogo Prefecture where Kobe is located. Owing to the dominant area, the Co-op Kobe could reduce the cost of physical distribution.<br>2) Group purchase (kyodo-konyu) started at the period of the first oil crisis when market prices had been rising with tremendous speed. After the rapid rise of market prices was over, group purchase changed its characteristic into a system for supplying safe and healthy foods. The areas where group purchase has been developed are suburbs which are characterized by white color workers families with small children. Moreover, since group purchase is convenient for the residents in low population areas, it has expanded to the rural areas.<br>The Co-op Kobe has matched itself with differing demand in various areas (built-up urban areas, suburban areas and rural areas) through these two distribution systems. As a result, the Co-op Kobe established its own spatial organization which can supply goods rationally and equally in terms of spatial distribution.