Community-Based Management and “Publicness”

-A Case Study of Ginowan City-

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between community-based management and the concept of “publicness” in a case study of Ginowan City, Okinawa. Ginowan City, with a population of about 90,000, hosts Futenma Air Station in its central area and Camp Zukeran in its northern area. These U.S. military facilities cover as much as 33% of the city's area. Furthermore, within Ginowan City, the Ginowan District is both an administrative region and the territory of a jichikai community-based association. However, the district was rebuilt in such a way that the prewar community was completely requisitioned for Futenma Air Station.
The inhabitants of Ginowan City, and in particular the Ginowan District, even now continue to face daily risks and problems in its relations with the U.S. military base. On the other hand, the community has developed a high dependence on economic benefits such as the base's land rental income and base employment. Here, we can see that the logic of “publicness,” which at the national or global level is symbolized by the existence of the U.S. military base, has penetrated to the local community. Accordingly, the tasks undertaken by Ginowan District as well as Ginowan City in community-based management are deeply connected to the problems of “publicness.”
This study will clarify the many-layered relations between community-based management and “publicness” based on the case study of Ginowan City.