The Social Change in Japan and Reorganization of Urban Neighborhood Associations

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We recognize that a remarkable social change comes out in urban society in Japan today. We analyzed the social changes in urban through some investigations into the actual circumstances. Our study had gone on three years. The first year, we gathered and discussed many antecedent, researches for establishing a hypothesis. The second year, we took presidents of neighborhood associations (Chonaikai or Jichikai) as object of our survey. Then we made questionnaires and decided two places to survey in Tokyo, one is Adachi-ku, and the other is Hachiouji-shi. We instituted the questionnaire. The third year, we tallied up the questionnaire returns (the number of answers 385, in percentage of terms 43%). The analysis gives the following results.1. There are a large affiliates of the neighborhood association in both cities, Adachi-ku and Hachiouji-shi. About eighty percent of the presidents of the neighborhood association answered that over seventy percent of houses join their associations. The n … More eighborhood associations seem traditional system in communities. Also, the citizens of both cities kept the system for a long time. Almost all of the presidents at resent of the neighborhood association lived same place for two or three generations. Associations succeed from generation to generation.2. Sixty percent of the houses, which join in the neighborhood association, are new comers. There are many problems in the association. It is difficult to elect the director and the president. Always same person will be elected the president in communities. Also, they will be advanced in years. The people who do not obey the rules in community have increased in recent years, too. The social change produced new attempts in the community. Over sixty percent of communities put new attempts into many actions. Those actions are meeting with member disaster prevention measures, clean-up campaigns, having festivals, crime preventions, recycling activities, administering public institutions and so on.3. Associations cooperate with local governments in doing the community work. Local governments have help office work from associations, for example, printing staffs, delivering public papers, collecting the community chest assembling people for some events and recycling activities (over eighty percent in Adachi-ku, about fifty percent in Hachiouji-shi). The other hand, local governments give grants for many activities to associations.We perceive various changes in the social function of the neighborhood associations in the urban communities in Japan today with the social changes, however, the neighborhood associations keep their traditional system. Less