Indonesia has become a majority urban society. Despite the classic images of rice fields, volcanoes and rural life we often associate with the country, now almost 60 per cent of Indonesia’s people live in cities, towns, suburbs, gated communities and other urban areas. Urbanisation has brought with it a familiar range of problems, including some of the worst traffic jams and air pollution in the world, housing scarcity, periodic flooding and dramatic land subsidence. These problems pose massive challenges to Indonesian governments as they try to provide clean water, public transport, housing, garbage disposal and other services to urban dwellers. Governing Urban Indonesia brings together scholars and practitioners with diverse backgrounds to examine how urbanisation is remaking Indonesia, and how governments are responding. It focuses on how varied political patterns are shaping urban governance, enabling some cities to pioneer improved service delivery and better public amenities for their citizens, while others stagnate. And it brings to bear multiple perspectives on how historical legacies, changing residential patterns, social inequality and myriad other factors are combining to produce a new social and political landscape across urban Indonesia.
This book presents the latest research on three issues of crucial importance to Asian cities: governance, livability, and sustainability. Together, these issues canvass the salient trends defining Asian urbanization and are explored through an eclectic compendium of studies that represent the many voices of this diverse region. Examining the processes and implications of Asian urbanization, the book interweaves practical cases with theories and empirical rigor while lending insight and complexity into the towering challenges of urban governance. The book targets a broad audience including thinkers, practitioners, and students.
Indonesia has urbanized rapidly since its independence in 1945, profoundly changing its economic geography and giving rise to a diverse array of urban places. These places range from the bustling metropolis of Jakarta to rapidly emerging urban centers in hitherto largely rural parts of the country. Although urbanization has produced considerable benefits for many Indonesians, its potential has only been partially realized. Time to ACT: Realizing Indonesia’s Urban Potential explores the extent to which urbanization in Indonesia has delivered in terms of prosperity, inclusiveness, and livability. The report takes a broad view of urbanization’s performance in these three key areas, covering both the monetary and nonmonetary aspects of welfare. It analyzes the fundamental reforms that can help the country to more fully achieve widespread and sustainable benefits, and it introduces a new policy framework—the ACT framework—to guide policy making. This framework emphasizes the three policy principles of Augment, Connect, and Target: • Augment the provision and quality of infrastructure and basic services across urban and rural locations • Connect places and people to jobs and opportunities and services • Target lagging areas and marginalized groups through well-designed place-based policies, as well as thoughtful urban planning and design. Using this framework, the report provides policy recommendations differentiated by four types of place that differ in both their economic characteristics and the challenges that they face— multidistrict metro areas, single-district metro areas, nonmetro urban areas, and nonmetro rural areas. In addition to its eight chapters, Time to ACT: Realizing Indonesia’s Urban Potential includes four spotlights on strengthening the disaster resilience of Indonesian cities, the nexus between urbanization and human capital, the “invisible†? crisis of wastewater management, and the potential for smart cities in Indonesia. If Indonesia continues to urbanize in line with global historical standards, more than 70 percent of its population will be living in towns and cities by the time the country celebrates the centenary of its independence in 2045. Accordingly, how Indonesia manages this continued expansion of its urban population—and the mounting congestion forces that expansion brings—will do much to determine whether the country reaches the upper rungs of the global ladder of prosperity, inclusiveness, and livability.
The objective of this book is to better understand the nature of urban governance regarding the provision of basic urban services in rapidly growing mid-sized towns and cities in developing countries. Set within the context of understanding urban planning and management within the wider city setting, the study focuses on the provision of the basic urban services of housing, water and sanitation especially within informal settlements. Using the case study of the mid-sized city of Jayapura, Papua, Indonesia, the publication explores: (i) the types, processes, and stakeholders that constitute formal urban governance in the provision of basic urban services; (ii) understanding how stakeholders gain and benefit from ‘on the ground’ formal service arrangements, and why; and (iii) for those who do not directly benefit from the formal arrangements, how individuals, groups and communities organize and access governance to meet their basic urban needs. The methods employed to better understand the nature of urban governance and its relationship to the provision of basic urban services comprised primary (face-to-face household surveys interviewing 448 respondents, ground mapping at a plot size level in four informal settlements, and semi-structured interviews with 12 stakeholders) and secondary data regarding urban governance, planning and management. The study reveals that urban governance arrangements in fast growing mid-sized cities have emerged both formally and informally to cope with basic urban service needs across a range of settlement types and socio-cultural groups. The major modes of governance arrangements in the informal settlements consist of traditional, formal and informal, and hybrid governance which co-evolve as their boundaries overlap and intersect through time at varying levels of ‘equilibrium’. The ‘governance equilibrium’ represents a ‘balance’ at a specific point and place in time in how stakeholders utilize and share resources, and access various contributions.
Contention has surrounded the status of minorities throughout Indonesian history. Two broad polarities are evident: one inclusive of minorities, regarding them as part of the nation’s rich complexity and a manifestation of its “Unity in Diversity” motto; the other exclusive, viewing with suspicion or disdain those communities or groups that differ from the perceived majority. State and community attitudes towards minorities have fluctuated over time. Some periods have been notable for the acceptance of minorities and protection of their rights, while others have been marked by anti-minority discrimination, marginalisation and sometimes violence. This book explores the complex historical and contemporary dimensions of Indonesia’s religious, ethnic, LGBT and disability minorities from a range of perspectives, including historical, legal, political, cultural, discursive and social. It addresses fundamental questions about Indonesia’s tolerance and acceptance of difference, and examines the extent to which diversity is embraced or suppressed.
This open access book presents the state-of-the-art environmental governance research and practices in Indonesia. It offers a wide scope, covering different sectors (e.g., forestry, mining) and geographical landscapes (e.g., inland and coastal areas). This book engages with existing theories and frameworks, including Earth System Governance, Adaptive and Interactive Governance, among others to trigger a debate regarding the operationalization of such concepts, which are mostly developed for the Global North context. It is also our ambition to incorporate more empirical knowledge from local contexts to indicate research gaps and future directions for environmental governance research agenda to be more diverse, inclusive, and facilitate the incorporation of inter-and transdisciplinary knowledge. This book will be useful for researchers, students, practitioners, and policymakers who are interested in the field of environmental governance, especially in Indonesia. Indonesia is one of the countries with the fastest-growing economies in Asia. Indonesia is rich in natural resources but also suffers from overexploitation and environmental threats exacerbated by climate and human pressures. Along with the growing global ambitions for achieving sustainable development and capacity to adapt to current and future threats, including climate change impacts and disaster risk, Indonesia's commitments to balance development while safeguarding a good environmental status are also increasing. The challenge is on how to govern complex and systemic natural, social and governance systems while adhering to the principle of equity and justice? As it will require more than traditional hierarchical modes of governance and current regulatory instruments (i.e., law and regulations). This is an open access book.
Over the next 20 years, most low-income countries will, for the first time, become more urban than rural. Understanding demographic trends in the cities of the developing world is critical to those countries - their societies, economies, and environments. The benefits from urbanization cannot be overlooked, but the speed and sheer scale of this transformation presents many challenges. In this uniquely thorough and authoritative volume, 16 of the world's leading scholars on urban population and development have worked together to produce the most comprehensive and detailed analysis of the changes taking place in cities and their implications and impacts. They focus on population dynamics, social and economic differentiation, fertility and reproductive health, mortality and morbidity, labor force, and urban governance. As many national governments decentralize and devolve their functions, the nature of urban management and governance is undergoing fundamental transformation, with programs in poverty alleviation, health, education, and public services increasingly being deposited in the hands of untested municipal and regional governments. Cities Transformed identifies a new class of policy maker emerging to take up the growing responsibilities. Drawing from a wide variety of data sources, many of them previously inaccessible, this essential text will become the benchmark for all involved in city-level research, policy, planning, and investment decisions. The National Research Council is a private, non-profit institution based in Washington, DC, providing services to the US government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The editors are members of the Council's Panel on Urban Population Dynamics.
Indonesia over the past two decades has embarked on a process of decentralization as part of a broader process of democratization, which followed earlier periods of centralized governance and authoritarian rule across the archipelago. The purpose of this book is to begin to explore the connections between governance and sustainable society in a wide variety of policy fields in Indonesia, and how reforming governance structures may contribute to societal benefits and the creation of a long-term sustainable society. This book bridges important theoretical debates related to governance and sustainable society and provides empirical research from Indonesia in important policy areas related to this debate. By placing research in different policy areas in a single volume, the link to the broader concepts of governance, decentralization, and societal outcomes is strengthened. The book builds on the recent interest that has focused on Indonesia and the continued development of democracy in the country. The chapters in the book show a rich variety of decentralized governance arrangements and capacity building at the local level in particular. Central standards (for example for social sustainability, anti-corruption arrangements, or for dealing with direct foreign investment), combined with local innovation (for example for municipal coordination of primary health care or metropolitan transport), are key to Indonesia as a country in a continuing process of transformation. We identify three key trends in the on-going process of decentralization and governance in Indonesia. First, we find that formal governance, the relation between the national and local government, is characterized by a system of ‘variable geometry multi-level governance’ depending on the policy area. The challenge ahead is strengthening accountability mechanisms to assure national standards while preserving and encouraging local innovation. Secondly, informal governance mechanisms are evolving to move from ‘hierarchical to network’ forms of governance. Here the challenge is to insure democratic input by citizens and civil society organizations. Finally, we identify a trend toward ‘shared value creation and sustainable cooperation.’ Indonesia is beginning to move from a rather singular policy focus on economic growth to a more complex and developing notion of policymaking for inclusive growth and the creation of a sustainable society for present and future generations. Here the challenge is sound implementation and to increase the effectiveness of governance mechanisms. There is also a noted diffusion of goals, to focus beyond the Jakarta metropolitan area to smaller regional cities, as urbanization continues and rural areas are changing. This book will be of interest for use in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses related to Southeast Asia in the fields of international relations, political science, public administration, economics, law, sociology, educa tion, public health, and the spatial sciences. It will also be of interest to policymakers and government officials at the national and local level in Southeast Asia and middle-income developing countries, officials and policymakers in institutions of regional governance such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and of global governance such as the United Nations and World Bank. It will also be of interest to civil society organizations and other actors focused on policy development and economic development, health, education, the environment, sustainable transport, etc. The book will also be of interest to business people interested in economic and governance issues, such as the management and governance of in-bound foreign investment, inclusive growth, and corporate governance. Finally, the book should be of interest to citizens in advanced, middle-income, and developing countries motivated to learn more about the links between governance and the creation of a sustainable society for current and future generations.
Indonesia was founded on the ideal of the “Sovereignty of the People”, which suggests the pre-eminence of people’s rights to access, use and control land to support their livelihoods. Yet, many questions remain unresolved. How can the state ensure access to land for agriculture and housing while also supporting land acquisition for investment in industry and infrastructure? What is to be done about indigenous rights? Do registration and titling provide solutions? Is the land reform agenda — legislated but never implemented — still relevant? How should the land questions affecting Indonesia’s disappearing forests be resolved? The contributors to this volume assess progress on these issues through case studies from across the archipelago: from large-scale land acquisitions in Papua, to asset ownership in the villages of Sulawesi and Java, to tenure conflicts associated with the oil palm and mining booms in Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Sumatra. What are the prospects for the “people’s sovereignty” in regard to land?
