People-driven urbanism: implications in the making of Indonesian urban character

Abstract

The history of urban planning and design of contemporaryIndonesian cities can be traced back to the colonial era. The colonialgovernment, notably the Dutch, had made continuous intervention in theplanning and design of major cities in today’s Indonesia, which haveundoubtedly influenced the character of these cities. While time betweenthe Dutch era and today spans over three centuries, the paradigm of urbandevelopment in Indonesia seems largely unchanged. It has beencharacterized by the built environment that exist as a result of peopledrivendevelopment (PDD), ranging from everyday businesses to thecountry-wide proliferation of informal settlements weakly controlled bythe state. This paper discusses how PDD have influenced the urbancharacter of Indonesian cities, which I call ‘People-Driven Urbanism’(PDU). The main question this paper intends to respond is “how doesPDD affect the urban character of Indonesian cities?’ Methods employedin this research is a mix of case study and auto-ethnography. The casestudy looks particularly on the city of Yogyakarta, using data collectedfrom previous teaching assignments on Architectural Design Studio andInformal Urbanism.