Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/54957

KEYWORDS : urban;community;building;Sapporo;challenges;implications;local;festival

As such termsastsunagari and kizuna arebuzzwords,onemajorissuewhich sociology considers todayis the need for communityparticularlyin urban local areas. There arevarious factors behind this,such as theseverelessons from thegreat earthquakes,risksofsocial isolation and death in isolation, and increasing loneolder residents;theseall point to thevulnerabilityof our social lifewithout readilyavailablemeaningful social relations. However,whiletheimportanceofcommunityis highlighted,what communityactuallyis and howit can bebuilt havenot been sufficientlyaddressed,therebymaking communitya useful but vagueand overused concept. Thus, this paper deals with these issues with a focus on Sapporo, referring to a fewsociological theories of community, Sapporo’s statistical data, and qualitative and quantitative data that the author has obtained during recent fieldwork. The paper first critically discusses the sociological concept of community, before putting forward threephasesofcommunitybuilding. With referenceto thesephases,it then looksat the current framework forcommunitybuilding in Sapporo,and pointsout afewchallengesinvolved in it due to which the framework has not functioned as expected. Following this, the paper analyses a local festival in the Soen area in the city;it is an area that attracts attention ofboth urban researchers and cityplanning officials alike because ofa varietyofvoluntarycommunity building initiatives underway. This paper considers the festival’s unique features and their implications for a successful renewal of locality-based community building. The implications are related to the agency of community building, participants, and functions of a local social system. As presented in the paper, the findings of this research are of general usefulness and applicable to other urban areas. However, since community is something that individuals concerned with a given locality collectively build, it requires their continuous efforts and commitment. Asthefestival in question also hasroomforimprovement,communityasan ideal typemaynot bebuilt perfectly,but theessenceofcommunitybuilding isitscontribution towards local people’s social relations and senseofownership towardsthearea;therealisation ofit isthe verykeyto tackling challenges facing contemporaryurban local areas.