Spatial Stratification of Urban Commercial Land: A Convergence and Diagnostic Framework for Seoul’s Commercial Districts

Abstract

Commercial districts constitute an intensively used form of urban land, yet little is known about how commercial vitality is distributed across an entire urban land system, whether spatial disadvantage persists over time, and how such evidence can inform differentiated land governance. This study develops a spatial convergence framework and applies it to the complete administrative universe of Seoul’s 1644 commercial districts observed quarterly from 2023Q1 to 2025Q4. The framework integrates inequality and β/σ-convergence measures, global and local spatial autocorrelation, Markov rank-mobility analysis, and panel regressions with autonomous-district and quarter fixed effects. Commercial vitality is highly unequal (Gini ≈ 0.53), significantly spatially clustered (Moran’s I = 0.083), and strongly persistent, with no detectable β-convergence. Dispersion increased by 7.2% over the study period and most rapidly among traditional markets (+14.1%). Vitality levels are significantly spatially clustered, whereas the evidence of clustering in growth is weaker and not significant at conventional levels, a pattern more consistent with persistent accumulated spatial advantage than with spatially synchronized short-run shocks. Evidence for High–High clusters is also considerably stronger both over time and under multiple-testing correction than evidence for Low–Low clusters, highlighting the importance of multi-period rather than single-period spatial monitoring. Per-store performance shows an inverted-U relationship with store density, with a peak around 59 stores per hectare, though the quadratic relationship is not statistically significant in the context of aggregate district sales; assessed land values, however, are negatively associated with per-store performance even after controlling for commercial-district fixed effects and are therefore largely cross-sectional. Finally, these diagnostics are integrated into an illustrative district-level diagnostic framework combining position on the density–performance profile with a land-value residual. The results characterize commercial decline as a persistent and spatially stratified feature of urban land and provide a reproducible basis for differentiated commercial-land management and place-based regeneration.