The islands and mountainous areas of Japan struggle most from depopulation therefore village schools tend to be amalgamated and reorganized so many are lost. We hypothesized that a community cannot sustainably exist without an elementary school. We have studied three cases where residents' groups take residential support approaches developed specifically to enable the continued existence of their local school. The main objectives of the study are to describe and consider housing and residential systems for sustaining communities. In this paper we focus on the activities of the residents' groups and the characteristics of the newcomers. The results show that the schools are thriving because the residents' groups have managed to boost pupil numbers. Almost all new residents are young families who will expect a local school or nursery. We found that the activities by residents' groups are organized and working well. If the systems are independent from local government, residents' groups are free to implement their own local policies, e.g., choosing only family with children as new residents. But collaboration between local governments is so important to improve support systems that it is worth considering in the future.
