Folia Geographica 10. sējums - Latvijas Universitāte

VIETU UN REĢIONU ATTĪSTĪBAdeveloping types of companies and location patterns in the urban retail trade were essentiallydetermined both by a factor complex that influenced the operating structure of retail trade andby a complex of spatial factors; each complex can be subdivided into three single aspects (seeFigure 1).The three factors of influence, concerning the operating structure are:• the process and the result of the change of ownership structures in retail trade, whichis caused both by privatisation measures and by creating new establishments;• the transition of the real estate and land market;• the general economic (internal as well as external) conditions under which theprivatised and the newly established enterprises must work influences the further progress of theretail trade.The three spatial determinants, which are directly responsible for the change of thelocation pattern of the retail trade and for the change of the functional and spatial organisationof the city centre (town centre), refer to:• the structure and function of the existing buildings and their utilisation for the retailtrade (traditional shopping-streets);• the competition with other locations of the retail trade inside and outside the cityboundaries;• the range of the private use or appropriation of public area by the informal retail tradein the form of kiosks and market stands.These two groups of factors in each case are effective (temporally as well as spatially) onthat which can be measured by the indicators. Because of this variable dominance of thedeterminants, different functional and spatial patterns in the city centres must result, which werecomparatively analysed in detail for the three Baltic capitals, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius [seeStandl 2002].The first bundle of factors:The three determinant factors influencing the operating structure of retail trade in the citycentre, and the indicators of transitionOne of the most important and most extensive aspects of the transformation to a marketeconomy (as in all the countries of East Central and Eastern Europe) consisted in profoundchanges in the operating structure of the retail trade. Due to a drastic political turn (i.e., througha fast privatisation or denationalisation of what had been state property and by rearranging theprinciples of private property) a free sales market was also established in Latvia.Factor I: The transition of the ownership structures in the retail tradeThe transition of the ownership structures in retail trade rapidly improved around thesupply of goods and services, since each government wanted to satisfy the demand forconsumer goods (of short and medium-term necessity) as fast as possible, particularly duringthe initial phase of the economic change. In order to accomplish this quickly in Latvia, the legalproperty transformation of the formerly national and cooperative trade organisations wasintroduced as part of the so-called Small Privatisation, which led to many former state orcooperatively organised retail trade and service enterprises being transferred to privateownership. Moreover, the establishment of new retail businesses was again permitted by thelegislature. Both measures inevitably had a large influence both on the development of the retailtrade and on the changes of urban structure in the central part of Riga.Table 1 gives, among other things, detailed information on which forms of retail tradeprivatisation was used. It shows that (excluding very few individually-owned companies) onlysmall units were normally privatised; larger parts of former national chains were not sold aswhole packages (e.g., as the East German Handelsorganisation / HO was) to big investors inLatvia. And only citizens were also entitled to privatisation. The future development to aconsiderable degree was predetermined, because the further right of use took place throughdirect sales to the prospective entrepreneurs at the nominal value of the enterprise specified bythe privatisation authority.78