Community building in Japan, called Machizukuri, has been in existence since the 1960s, and many successful cases are referred to by researchers and public service officials as benchmarks for creating livable cities and towns in Korea. The purpose of this study is to identify the building factors for a sustainable community and to suggest implications through the cases of machizukuri in Japan. Based on the literature review related to the research topic, on-site visit case study was used as the major research methodology. Four cases -Setagaya, Kawagoe, Motomachi, and Manazuru- were selected as the research subjects and interviews with the representatives of the community(resident) council and public officials were conducted during October 19-22, 2011. The project overview, purpose, and planning characteristics of each case were described for data analysis. The major findings are as follows. Although most of the machizukuri in Japan were administration-dependent at the beginning stage, the case projects in this study showed resident-independence (self-support) from the perspective of sustainability. The results showed that successful community building is an everlasting project that requires cooperation among personnels including residents, civic officials, and related council members.