BECAUSE OF ADMINISTRATIVE amalgamations, Japanese cities contain within their limits substantial rural areas. Where they have not been overwhelmed by migrants, people in these areas continue to reproduce hamlet society through collective action. Although hamlets have not enjoyed legal standing in the postwar period, city administrations continue to contribute to their social reality. An examination of cases—instances of installation of city water, siting of a school road, purchases of fire-fighting equipment, and the expansion of trash incineration facilities—in hamlets in Inuyama City suggest this relationship prospers because it allows citizens and administrators to maintain high levels of confidence in the efficacy of local collective action, especially in the provision of public goods supported by national, regional, or local policy. [Japanese cities, urbanization, cooperation, collective action, public goods]