Policy implications of regional autonomy for Indonesian cities

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Since 1999 when Indonesia initiated the world’s biggest experiment with democratic decentralization (or regional autonomy ) administrations as the primary unit of analysis without disaggregating these two distinct region types.

In this seminar I will assess the policy implications of decentralization for the city (kota) as the primary administrative unit of enquiry. Not only do urban regions encounter different sorts of challenges and opportunities to rural areas, but cities cannot be neatly contained within the artificial boundaries of autonomous jurisdictions as extended urban spaces typically spill over into neighbouring administrations. The partitioning of urban and peri-urban regions has in turn produced a breakdown in the once centralized city networks for managing public service delivery and development projects. Indonesian cities can no longer rely upon industrial urban peripheries for income, many of which are adapting to autonomy to emerge as urban growth poles in their own right. This situation has compelled city administrations to rethink their responsibilities and the range of opportunities available to them, which has wider policy implications for governance and urban planning at the national level.

Michelle Miller is a Research Fellow in the Asian Urbanisms Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.