Although research on community sports has investigated sports and sports promotion in communities and municipalities, it has not discussed the relationship between the community or community life and sports. The purpose of the present research is to elucidate the policy for organizing sports and the life problems faced by the Kashima Development Project. Sports policy in Kashima town was established by an exogenous development model known as the Kashima Development Project. The Kashima Development Project concluded as the result of various life problems faced by old and new residents of Kashima during the dramatic change from merely a rural region to an important steel/petrochemical district and the establishment of a new traffic network. In particular, social strain in education was a serious problem. The Kashima Football Association was established as a life organization in order to eliminate social strain among residents. Another life problem faced in Kashima was the insufficient social overhead capital and the limited number of young residents who chose to settle in Kashima town. In order to make the Kashima district more attractive, Sumitomo Steel Industries (Ltd), the Governor of Ibaraki prefecture, the Mayor of Kashima, and corporations in the Kashima Coastal Industrial Zone and other concerned organizations developed a plan to enter the football team of Sumitomo Steel Industries (Ltd) in the J League and approached the Japan Football Association. The establishment of a sports promotion policy in the Kashima district resulted from the inevitability of life organization as a compensation for social strain in the community and community life and the introduction of an endogenous consciousness of factors critical to community life. The present research discusses the state of community sports and clarifies the necessity of a sports promotion policy by examining the relationship between community life and sport.

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