ABSTRACT
Urban planning in Indonesia throughout the twentieth century has been shaped by the legal and institutional traditions derived from the late colonial experience and a variety of models contributed from the larger global community. Indigenous traditions of power and governance determined how the planning models translated into initiatives in its cities and regions. The centralised planning system that characterised the first five decades of independence under the Sukarno and Suharto regimes was consistent with the local culture of authority. By the late 1990s, pressures from donors and disenchantment with the costs of dictatorship fostered a move to decentralisation of planning functions and the emergence of more democratic decision-making. This placed new pressures on local political leaders to address long neglected needs in Indonesia’s rapidly growing cities. Long neglected priorities such as the right for all citizens to access clean water and proper sanitation, provision of improved housing for the masses, and more vigorous environmental stewardship emerged through emerging participatory mechanisms. Still, private development interests that had been so dominant in the New Order government continued to play a determining role in shaping cities throughout the early twentieth century. The chapter explores why the preparation of plans typically addressing the needs of the city environs for all its citizens, and often accompanied by laws and regulations to implement them, still resulted in uneven distribution of the benefits of development. It examines recent planning initiatives in the context of Indonesia’s recent commitment to incorporating the objectives of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals into plans to bring about more just and sustainable environments in its cities.
