Abstract
In recent years, the number of “elderly housing with life support service (hereinafter, this is called “elderly housing”)” has been increased under subsidiary programs supported by the national government.
NTT Urban Development Corporation has promoted a project to build an apartment for rent and an elderly housing in the same area, which could realize multi-generational community there. Furthermore, in order to forge local community, a micro library called “machi-library” has been set up in a cafe anyone can access to, which has been established in the elderly housing.
This thesis aims to provide analysis of how the machi-library influences the residents' social behavior and mindset, especially focusing on community ties in the elderly housing area, and what roles this machi-library plays there.
I performed a series of methods to verify my study: analyzing observations on the library, taking a survey from the users (both residents and non-residents) and monitoring, and hearing with the developers.
As a result, I have found that forging community ties in the elderly housing requires an environment with no social roles/status nor special interests involved. No matter how you old, people tend to look for relationships not being bothered with social roles/status nor special interests; however, their social activities have been reduced due to decreased strength with aging. Therefore, the elderly people who have less opportunity to meet people, have expected the library as a place for an encounter other than social welfare staff.
Considering the situation, I have found that a “community hub,” a person facilitating communications among people should play a very important role to function the community.
Additionally, the developer has evaluated the idea that deploying micro libraries to their commodities should be profitable from the business point of view.
To sum up, it is clear that investments to community facilities and its human resources in elderly housings could contribute to building customer satisfaction with residents and promote their commodities in the market. In addition to this, micro libraries should play a focal role to forge open community in society.
