The Great East Japan Earthquake and the tsunami that occurred in March 2011 caused major damage in the Tohoku region. It is implicitly assumed that there is a local community in the reconstruction after the Great East Japan Earthquake, but the local community itself has suffered great damage. The members themselves are residents who are victims of the disaster, and the physical situation in the area has changed significantly due to reconstruction projects such as relocation. Capturing the recovery of the local community itself is also an important perspective for considering the possibility of reconstruction of the disaster victims as individuals and the disaster area. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the change of the local community after the damage of the Great East Japan Earthquake and reconstruction projects and the factors for the recovery of the local community.
As a result, firstly, each "Tonari-gumi" as a basic unit of community association was reorganised in a different way for each local community that damaged by GEJE. Secondly, there are two types of the structure of the community committee. One has consisted of chairpersons and committee members under them. The other one is the committee including some blocks "Chiku". The committee members belong to block committees. The latter remains the pre-modern structure based on the fishery community. Furthermore, board members are selected related to households in each local community. It was found that households and community associations have a multi-layered relationship. Finally, the relationship between community committee and event organization is three different types, both are different organizations, the committee including event organization, and all committee members joining event organization. The relationship between the committee and the event organization suggested that the community association may be maintained as an individual rather than as an organizational system. If the personal role is large, if the human damage is caused by the earthquake, the loss of the key person will cause great damage to the community association. On the other hand, community associations that have the organizational framework in cooperation with its subordinate organization was maintained even if human damage occurred. Such a multi-layered frame is considered to be a pre- modern form centered on livelihood, rather than a modern thinking aiming to be rational.
In conclusion, community association tends to focus only on the committee, but in reality, the situation of Neighboring groups "Tonari-gumi" directly related to households and the relationship with the committee are related to the resilience of the local community. It can be said that it is important to consider community associations from the perspective of community resilience, which is often addressed in recent disaster recovery. However, when the local community was vulnerable, it was not necessarily weakened only by the earthquake. Even if the community association is well maintained this time, it may not be possible to maintain it in future disasters due to aging and so on. It will be necessary to reconsider how the residents and community association should exist as organizations that support daily life.
