The twentieth-century city was not conceived as a city in which to dwell. Its center was intended for promoting economic activities. Commercial facilities assigned to the city center and residential areas pushed to the periphery have created the most broadly shared image of the modern city.

In such an arrangement, each dwelling is extremely isolated. The cause for this isolation is rather simple. Each dwelling is treated as a highly independent constituent unit. In other words, each dwelling has no correlation with other dwellings. That is its basic composition. Dwellings that have no correlation between each other fail to develop any particular housing configuration. Thus, such dwellings do not constitute a ‘collective form’.

We are yet to discover a set of principles with which to dwell in the city. Neither have we invented ‘spaces’ for city dwellers, who are,in fact, the protagonists of the city. The city is essentially a place in which to dwell. If so, what means are available to us in order to restructure the city into a habitable place? How shall each dwelling relate to others? What kind of community systems can be adopted? What are the roles of children and the elderly as city dwellers? What kind of support facilities do city dwellers require? And so on, and so forth.

What kind of basic amenities and infrastructure support the lives of city dwellers? Such amenities and infrastructure must be considered within specific spatial contexts. These considerations lead to a concept we call ‘community area’.