Iida City in Nagano Prefecture, Japan, is an environmentally advanced municipality that describes itself an “environment-conscious city”, including citizen participation in the town’s environment plan, network of EMS (Environmental Management system) businesses, and citizen-owned power generation. In addition, Iida City is a town with advanced community center activities.
In this research, we have studied the civic capacity for regional environmental action, the connection between community center activities and activities related to low carbon cities (esppecially citizen-owned power generation). We conducted a comprehensive analysis based on interviews with main actors, questionnaire surveys to public hall directores, and interviews with members of the local community.
As a result of the analysis, the followings trends can be identified.
(1) The relationships between the administration sector and other sectors were formed through the accumulation of previous environmental measures. However the relationships between the community organization and other sectors were comparatively weak.
(2) The community center activities of Iida City had achieved the ideal as a community that valued the voluntarily activity by the residents; however, creating the common theme of global warming had only taken off after the middle of the 2000s.
(3) Two districts in Iida city invested in the citizen-owned power generation as a result of the accumulation of current environmental measures. There is a possibility that the civic capacity for regional environmental action can be further strengthened, if the connection of the community center activities and activities concerning low carbon cities is activated.
