My interest in community development started in college days. In my third year, I entered a seminar of public finance, and came to realized that an effective economic policy did not necessarily improve the situations of citizens in Japan. I still remember the first field research in the Saitama prefecture, the adjacent city of Tokyo about the negative impacts of central government’s strong policy that encouraged mergers of many local governments. From book based study including economic analysis, I had learned reasonable conclusions that since the scale merits worked, mergers were effective policy for the local governments with huge debts, otherwise economically collapsed. However, the interviews from Saitama citizens revealed that the policy rather deprived some basic access to public services such as the health care for senior citizens and educational opportunity for children, since hospitals and elementary schools were moved out from countryside area to central areas after mergers. I was impressed with this serious impact on the social weak caused by the central government policy and realized that both economic sense of management with analytical skills and deep consideration to citizens’ daily lives are definitely necessary for really effective policies for everyone.
