Abstract
Around 1 percent of people living in Ofunato City in Iwate Prefecture were killed or remain missing as a result of the Tohoku Earthquake, which also affected the employment and/or living conditions of 68 percent of residents.
Against this background, Ofunato City Office made efforts for the early development of a reconstruction plan, formulating a basic policy (April 2011), a related outline (July 2011) and the plan itself (October 2011). During the planʼs development, city officials sought to reflect the opinions of residents by holding workshops, arranging district meetings and conducting a questionnaire survey. Based on strong local demand for the rapid restoration of living environment, administrators set the goal of completing the reconstruction plan as soon as possible. However, the plan had to be rescheduled several times due to delays in the application of governmental reconstruction support measures. As a result, achieving adequate community participation in regard to the details of the reconstruction plan has been difficult.
The results of surveying conducted by the authors indicated that local people are aware of two approaches to reconstruction: the bottom-up type based on careful consensus building, and the top-down type with governmental leadership. As reconstruction in individual districts advances, it becomes increasingly necessary to understand peopleʼs awareness of reconstruction approaches.
