Basic Study of Rebuilding a Wide-area Sports Space after Community Merger

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This surveillance study was intended to comprehend the current sports environment of which spatial extent has been broadened in a wave of large scale community mergers, known as the Great Merger of the Heisei, identify various issues to address for building a future desirable sports activity space, and obtain fundamental data to create a desirable wide-area sports space for community residents.The surveillance study was conducted in the form of questionnaire to 9,575 sports coordinators, who belong to 294 merged communities nationwide respectively. We received valid responses from 4,049 persons or at a collection rate of 42.3%.The surveillance findings show the satisfaction with the sports environment before the merger is generally higher than after the merger. The respondents described the reasons for such lower satisfaction after the merger as follow : the raised admission fee for the sports facilities due to the merger, complicated procedures for the use of these facilities, and wor … More sened accessibility to the facilities. On the contrary, a high percentage of the respondents answered that the sport environment was much improved as compared with that before the merger, according to the surveillance findings. They have visited and enjoyed sports activities in ex-neighbor communities since the merger, and eventually, we obtained such positive response to the question over the sports environment. On the mean time, the surveillance findings show that the merger helped the community residents get more interested in or feel more familiarity with their community. The community merger often opens lines of interchanging ideas and creating ties among the community residents for building a new sports environment. Besides, it is expected to help developing a community with a capacity of solving community issues additionally to sports issues. From these perspectives, it is indicated that proactive place-making is imperative for interaction and information exchange with other communities. Less