We turn vacant lots in the city into urban farms, reweave the relationships between people, and create places where children can grow creatively. Good Luck is a non-profit general incorporated association based in Kitakagaya, Osaka.
A vacant lot is not a gap in the city.
It is a place to plant the future.
Cities keep gaining vacant lots and vacant houses that have fallen out of use. We see them not as a "problem" but as a "possibility." Since 2012, we have turned vacant lots in Kitakagaya into farms, creating places where people gather, touch the soil, and grow together.
What we cultivate is not only soil. We cultivate relationships between people, daily life, and the future of the city. By making use of the people, things, and relationships already in the neighborhood, we nurture a community where everyone from children to adults can make their "I want to try" come true. That is our work.
An urban farm is more than a place to grow and enjoy vegetables.
Welfare, education, health care, disaster preparedness, community building, real estate.
Through both soft and hard sides, it can become a hub that connects society.
Vacant lots, vacant houses, empty spaces in shopping streets. Every community has resources that were never put to use. And both adults and children have a wish to make something and to try something. We connect the two and put them into practice in the city. Our aim is to increase the number of people who take an active part in making their own city better.
All of our work nurtures one of these three.
Vacant lots, vacant houses, shopping streets, and the people and culture that live there. We see what the city already has not as "what is lacking" but as "assets," and bring out its value from the residents' point of view.
Growing vegetables, cooking, making things, opening a shop. At any age, we help more people trust their own "I want to try" and get their hands moving, and enjoy doing so.
The encounters and wisdom born in our places should not stay within individuals. We share them with the city and with society. Those who were taught become teachers, and the next place is born. We set that cycle in motion.
We turn vacant lots in the city into community farms and nurture relationships that cross generations and occupations. What began in 2012 on a 150 m² vacant lot in Kitakagaya has spread across Osaka and Kobe.
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A creative hub for children where artists and shop owners in the city become teachers and hold workshops in making things, art, programming, and more. With the children's currency "puubu," children can take on what they want to try. Anyone aged 3 to 18 can join, free of charge.
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Residents become "correspondents" who report on and share the people, places, and culture of Kitakagaya (since 2022, commissioned by Osaka Metro). Rather than lamenting "what is missing," this is community building that draws out the value of "what is here."
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Using spare space in existing shops at Kagaya Shopping Street, we hold "co-existing pop-ups" where vendors can open with zero startup cost. This revitalization project backs the efforts of people who want to start small businesses, with the whole shopping street behind them (fiscal 2026, Osaka Prefecture Shopping Street Model Creation and Promotion Project).
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We return to society, as surveys, research, and recommendations, the practical knowledge from 14 years of turning vacant lots into farms. In partnership with government and public bodies, we open idle urban land and share our methods with the next city.
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As a member of the Osaka Prefecture Committee for Promoting Agricultural Space Creation, we reflect ways of using urban farmland and vacant lots in the prefecture's agricultural policy (since 2021). From the policy side, we pass on to the next city the practical knowledge that began on a vacant lot in Kitakagaya.
VIEW MORE →* Figures for Kodomo Publica are from the fiscal 2025 annual report.
From the people who gather at Minna no Uen.
I met lifelong friends after I turned 50.
A participant at Minna no Uen
I can talk here about things I can't say in my usual communities. It's a place where I can be myself.
A participant at Minna no Uen
I found new learning and experiences, and was able to take on a small challenge of my own.
A participant at Minna no Uen
* These are summaries of voices shared by participants.
Choose the activity you want to back from children's programs, farm programs, or research programs, and donate. From ¥1,000 a month.
Learn More →Tending the field, looking after workshops, running events. No experience needed.
Learn More →With the "Good Luck Letter," we send you the latest news about our work by email.
Learn More →Places for children, food and learning programs, experiments in opening vacant lots. We want to keep going with public-benefit work that is hard to make profitable, through donations. You can choose what your donation is used for from children's programs, farm programs, or research programs. From ¥1,000 a month, please join us in cultivating the city.
A handmade soy sauce we have kept making at the Kitakagaya farm since 2016. Every year, 20 to 35 people gather and spend about ten months raising a single barrel of soy sauce.
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At the Kitakagaya farm, we have held medicinal cuisine classes since the very beginning. It is everyday self-care you can do with ingredients from the supermarket.
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When we demolished a long-vacant building in Neyagawa to turn the site into a farm, we rescued what we could keep. The pillars that came out of the demolition also became firewood for our stone oven.
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