Local governments are seeking to establish a new cooperation system in conjunction with local activities conducted by various parties such as community groups and the city planning council.

The key aspect is that the administration is not the only body to provide services to local residents. It is important for local governments to mutually collaborate with local residents, community groups (asessential partners), the city planning council, etc.

In this study, we go over the concepts of activities in which the public sector and the private sector (city planning council) work together in solving social issues, focusing on role-sharing with each other and mutual recognition.

In addition, we conducted interviews with the public sector and council members in Osaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, about their collaborative activities. As a result, we found that there are items with no recognition gaps and those with recognition gaps in their mutual role-sharing.

The result would provide collaboration between the public sector and the city planning council in a reasonable manner, and would be used as one of the methods to detect possible problems.

In Japan, National Spatial Strategy Regional Plans were developed twice in eight regions, but it is pointed out that these plans don’t have spatial principles for cities and city regions. This paper discusses the transformation of national planning in Ireland, focusing on spatial structural policies. In Ireland, the National Spatial Strategy (NSS) was introduced in 2002 as the first national plan. It was strongly influenced by the spatial planning concept shown in the European Spatial Development Perspective, and set out gateways and hubs to achieve polycentric spatial structure for balanced regional development. However, due to its conceptual description and lack of implementation policies, the NSS was replaced by the National Planning Framework in 2018, which sets the framework for regional development patterns and shows potential for regional development. Based on Ireland’s experience, Japan’s capability in setting explicit frames for spatial development for each region seems key to the success of its Regional Plans.