Out of the blue, but do you know how many community centers there are in Nishinomiya City?
There are currently 24 community centers in Nishinomiya.
目次
Does Nishinomiya City have a lot of community centers?
Here are the community centers in Nishinomiya City↓
・Central Community Center
・Naruo Community Center
・Naruo Higashi Community Center
・Minami Koshien Community Center
・Imazu Community Center
・Yamaguchi Community Center
・Kami-Koshien Community Center
・Taisha Community Center
・Koto Community Center
・Shiose Community Center
・Harukaze Community Center
・Shukugawa Community Center
・Hamawaki Community Center
・Yokai Community Center
・Gakubun Community Center
・Wakatake Community Center
・Kawaragi Community Center
・Danjo Community Center
・Takasu Community Center
・Kambara Community Center
・Koshikiiwa Community Center
・Takagi Community Center
・Uegahara Community Center
・Nishinomiya-hama Community Center
There are this many.
I imagine many people have made use of their local community center at some point.
So, do you know how many community centers there are in neighboring Ashiya City?
Actually, there is one.
What about Kobe City?
Kobe City has seven.
Even compared with nearby municipalities, Nishinomiya has a very large number of community centers. (Incidentally, it also has 22 civic halls.)
Why is that?
What is a community center?
Community centers are facilities established by municipalities under a law called the Social Education Act.
For details, please see here↓
Kumiyama Town Official Website (Definition of community centers under the Social Education Act)
The functions and roles of community centers are also set out in detail by law, but broadly speaking, a community center is “a hub for lifelong learning, social education, and civic activities.”
In other words, it is not simply a rental space.
Nishinomiya City and community centers
For that reason, many municipalities consolidated various functions such as lifelong learning, social education, local activities, civic activities, and social welfare into one place, creating large community centers as major hubs.
However, in Nishinomiya City, the “1960 Report of the Nishinomiya City Social Education Committee” apparently decided, “Let’s create one community center in each junior high school district!” Initially, the city planned to establish 11 community centers.
Rather than building one large hub, the idea was to create many smaller hubs throughout the city in order to further energize local and civic activities.
After that, as the number of junior high schools increased, the number of community centers also grew. Today, there are 24 community centers for 20 junior high school districts.
Community centers and civic activities
Today, many civic activity groups use community centers as their base, including local “Youth Protection Councils” and “Social Welfare Councils,” as well as “children’s associations,” “senior citizens’ clubs,” “PTAs,” “Boy Scouts,” and others.
Nishinomiya City also has many other civic groups with long histories and active operations, and this may be a result of having created so many community centers.
In addition, each community center in Nishinomiya City has “Regional Learning Promotion Members” (formerly Community Center Activity Promotion Members), who also organize programs at their respective centers.
They sometimes hold surprisingly interesting events, so why not stop by a nearby community center again sometime?
