Hankyu-kita Neopolis
Kawanishi City, Hyogo Prefecture
About Hankyu-kita Neopolis
Hankyu-kita Neopolis (Daiwa district), located in the northeast of Kawanishi City, Hyogo Prefecture, started sales in 1965. It was developed as a dormitory suburb of the Keihanshin (Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe) metropolitan region, combining a rich natural environment with easy access to the major cities of Kansai. The population of children in the area is slowly rising as it continues to attract families with young children from Osaka City and elsewhere in the Hanshin (Osaka, Kobe) metropolitan region.
The strong bonds within the community are one of its attractions, with considerable activity by the residents’ association and other community groups who see the Daiwa district as their birthplace and want to make it an even better place to live. There are also a significant number of former residents who have moved back to the area seeking a better environment in which to raise their children as well as people relocating or moving house within the area and parents with young families living nearby.
Nevertheless, the district is also experiencing the usual challenges facing suburban single-family housing areas, including the elderly making up more than 40% of the population, an increasing number of empty lots and vacant homes, and the difficulty of getting around the area’s steep slopes.
With the aim of making Hankyu-kita Neopolis (Daiwa district) into a place where people can feel secure in their lives regardless of age, we have embarked first on a program of consultations with the goal of learning how the local people feel about the place where they live.
About Hankyu-kita Neopolis
- Sales start: 1965
- Site area: 1,540,000m2 (about 33 times the size of Tokyo Dome)
- Number of lots: 3,950
- Percentage of elderly: 41.4％ (approx.)*
- Number of residents: 10,156*
*From 2020 census
*The total population includes persons of unknown age, but the percentage of elderly is calculated by excluding persons of unknown age from the total population.
By engaging in dialogue, we will work with residents to sketch out what sort of place they want Hankyu-kita Neopolis (Daiwa district) to be. As well as being fortunate to participate in the seasonal and other community events that are part of what makes the area special, this also includes our working with the residents’ association and other community groups to hold discussion meetings and conduct surveys of all households. Initiatives are getting underway to resolve the challenges facing the area and to bring people together to build prosperity and new connections.
nocoto
Overview of nocoto
Location: 5-8 Daiwanishi 5-chome, Kawanishi City, Hyogo Prefecture
Opening hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 11:30-16:30 (except holidays)
*As of March 2025
- Purpose:
- Community facility
- Structure:
- Prefabricated
- Number of floors:
- Single story
- Completed:
- December 2024
The facility named nocoto is a community hall established as a place for residents to bring together their thoughts and ideas (about the community, child rearing, welfare, special skills and hobbies, etc.) and initiate their own activities, with the goal of making the Daiwa district into a lively community where people can reside for a long period in good health. We are empowering residents who want to perform activities or utilize their special skills in the community, in order to verify whether such actions can help foster connections and prosperity in the community.
Residents to commence activities are allowed to use a small box-shaped storefront space, a bookshelf, and a rental space in the hall, as well as the community café that would make dropping by the place easier. Since its opening in January 2025, we have been holding events to inform the community about the hall, along with other programs planned by our staff members. Now, more and more people have begun to utilize the rental space and commenced activities by exhibiting their own work in the storefront space and the bookshelf. Having our staff accompany the residents who are engaged in activities at nocoto, we will keep encouraging them to start their activities and exchanges in the community for further development.
COtoHAJIME Day (literally, the first day of the new venture)
We hold COtoHAJIME Day event at Hankyu-kita Neopolis to give residents an opportunity to start new community activities. In March 2024, we planned and arranged an event with children, as we had hoped to do something with the children who are family members of past activity participants. At the event, participants created a "Daiwa Sugoroku" board game with each of squares describing a memory of the community. Playing the game together deepened exchanges among the families with children.
The main players in community development are the residents. Utilizing their hobbies and skills, they started proposing what they can or want to do in the community and transforming them into concrete actions, and such a movement is gradually expanding. There are many different ways for them to interact with the community and its people; a resident with a childcare background planned a third place for mothers rearing children, while another person created a place where residents can talk to each other at ease, using a hobby of fortune-telling as a starting point. We support the creation of such a place where residents bring in their ideas that they want to try.