The city of Kobe formulated the ten-year Kobe Recovery Plan immediately after the occurrence of the Great Hansin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995. The author, a Kobe City official describes the lessons learned in promoting the Kobe City Recovery Plan. Specifically, this article uses the results of the Comprehensive Recovery Assessments in 1999 and 2003, before the fifth and tenth anniversaries respectively, to suggest strategies for promoting a recovery plan, and to convey the importance of adopting "self-governance and community solidarity" as values in the recovery process as well as expanding "social capital" to support those values.