Since 1990s, the period of economic depression and fiscal crisis in public sectors, many new policies and programmes, which are characterized by the words like “collaboration”, “the new public” and so on, have been planned and executed by the national as well as local governments. They try to reduce the scale of finance but want to keep the total amount and quality of public services in order to ensure the so-called “safety net” and social integration. Various experimental programmes are now proposed and practiced in order to activate and mobilize different activists in the “civil society”, who are expected to supply various public services in place of governments. In the last decade the system of “inner-municipal decentralization” has much interested not only academic but also practical, administrative and political circles. The interest is decisively influenced by the concept of “collaboration” in that the system should contribute to mobilizing different powers of “civil society” to supply public services whereas the system in European countries should primarily contribute to make public decision making more democratic.

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Japanese localities and local governments are currently facing the drastic change such as NPM and the shift “from local government to local governance” as other industrial countries. The recent comparative joint-research for the establishment of local governance in European and the US (B. Denters & L. E. Rose 2005), indicates the mainstream methods for efficient governance structures as follows: [1] improvement of elections for efficient citizen intention, [2] Round Table among sectors (such as Compact in each local government in England), [3] accommodation ofe-government plan for enhanced citizen invovlement, [4] establishment of advisory board by the public in the process of making Comprehensive plan of each sity, [5] the community-based decision-making process (devolution to communities).
Based upon theseissues, this article delimeates, how would be the decision-making system in which community-organizations commit or are involved for the public service on the communities.
(1) Community Planning and new types of community organizations in US
In the major cities such as Dayton, Pittsburg, Tacoma, they have developed “authorized” neighborhood councils since 1970's and 1980's, we confirmed the following four points for verifying how institutional supports for residents' decision making is built and authorized: [1] Purpose, [2] Organizing of neighborhoods (structure, range etc.), [3] Supporting system by the city (such as coordinator officials), [4] Participation in Decision-making process (Neighborhood Plans made from area citizens, Budget, Written advice to city council).
(2) Case study - Seattle City (WA)
On concrete case of Seattle City, the aspects concerning neighborhood-based decision-making system were analyzed (Background of Neighborhood Planning Program, authorized citizen's 13 “District Council”s, authorized citizens' “City”-wide Councils, 37 Planning citizen's committees for Neighborhood Plans). Through the analysis two issues were presented. [1] Through the 13 district council system that is authorized by city ordinance and of which representatives are elected through voting by neighborhood citizens, it is officially the official recognition that the district councils are the representative authority consisting of neighborhood citizens. [2] Making of “Neighborhood Plans” provides the community-citizens actual opportunity taking part in the community planning. (each Neighborhood plan is going to be adopted to the one part of comprehensive plan after city council approves). neighborhood based decision-making on neighborhood base is preserved with [1] and [2] processes in the case of Seattle City.
Social experiments have recently been undertaken in Japan, athough there have been remaind the traditional usual block association “Chonai-Kai”. Since 2000 due to the cities-merger policy promoted by Japanese Central Government, some cities has tried to make the district unit (“Chiiki-Jichi-Ku”). Joetu (Niigatga) City tried community voting systems within the district unit. Japanese case is a very prototype, but the international comparative studies on these issues should be further developed and become important for hereafter years.

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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.

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