Ordinance-designated cities have been decreasing the population, causing a hollowing out of urban centers. The number of schoolchildren there has dropped dramatically. As the result, merging and closing down elementary schools is prevailing and the dealing of the old schoolhouses and schoolyards becomes a big community-issue. Generally ordinance-designated cities decide the way of reusing such school-properties by administrative initiative, but Kyoto City takes the way of citizen's participation to decide it(The Kyoto Method). In Kyoto its community organization (Machigumi) and an elementary school have nurtured a strong relationship historically from the Meiji Era to today. This relationship becomes a kind of community culture and grows into a community resource. The Kyoto Method is the product of this unique relationship between Machigumi ando an elementary school, and realizes community-oriented reuse of old school-properties.
