In Japan, town planning is often called "Machizukuri." Machizukuri usually refers to activities involving the cooperation of citizens living in a local area or the cooperation of citizens and government in order to solve problems in community life and to create comfortable living for the area. This means Machizukuri focuses on "the common value" because it strives to create better living in the local community, which is common to almost all citizens. Activities for Machizukuri are evaluated based on the possibilities of realization of the common value.
It is, however, very difficult for activities to realize the common value because there are very different notions among people about the problems of community life and comfortable living. Voluntary activities for Machizukuri must make their participants have a good time or comfortable through interactions with other participants, regardless of realization of the common value. Therefore, we have to consider the realistic possibilities of Machizukuri activities through analyses of situations in which the activities generate "personal value" such as fun or feelings of comfort.
This article redefines Machizukuri as working to make the community a better place, and considers the concept which Erving Goffman (1961) called an "encounter" (a focused gathering which causes face-to-face interaction) in order to explain the concept of "personal value." It describes encounters in Machizukuri situations through a case study of the voluntary association, "Tokiwadaira Chiiki Kasseitai" in Matsudo city of Chiba prefecture.

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