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As people buy daily foods at the supermarket recently, many small neighborhood stores were shut. But neighborhood stores have some important functions for the community. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the meaning of the neighborhood store for the elderly generation people. Three methods of surveys were taken for this study; 1) a survey to the dwellers in the mini-housing development in 1960s,2)a survey to the customers of the store in the area, 3)an observational research of customers in the store. The results are as follows. Main customers of neighborhood stores are elderly generation people and they live very near the store. People who enjoy chatting (or communicate with) neighbors in the store like shopping at the neighborhood store.

This paper proposes a facilities management strategy for the dissemination of information technology at the kominkan (community center), the main public facility for community adult education in Japan. This study was undertaken in August 2000 with the initial distribution of questionnaires. Of the 513 facilities that participated in this study, viable returned responses stood at 298, representing a rate of 58 per cent. According to findings in our study, the three main room‐types in the kominkan in which satellite communication hardware and personal computers were installed are: the audio‐visual learning room, the recreation room, and the cultural activity room. In order to effectively disseminate information technology at the kominkan, the research team proposes a management strategy based on three criteria. These concern the concepts of “openness”, “operation and management”, and “equipment and furniture.”

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