en
en

Deden
Rukmana

Professor and Director

"Researching urban planning and megacities in the Global South"

Master of City & Regional Planning Program

Department of Public Affairs and Planning

University of Texas at Arlington

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Growth of a Megacity: Planning Jakarta in the Post-Suburban Era

Jakarta, one of the largest metropolitan areas in Southeast Asia, has grown from 150,000 residents in the first half of the twentieth century to more than 31 million in 2024. This explosive growth has reshaped the Jakarta Metropolitan Area (JMA), also known as Jabodetabek, presenting complex challenges and highlighting the critical role of urban planning. This edited volume explores Jakarta’s evolving urban landscape through the lens of post-suburbanization. While the city exhibits traits of post-suburban development, its central areas continue to attract population and investment, suggesting a unique, early-stage form of post-suburban growth. Across the inner city and surrounding suburbs, physical, social, and economic transformations are underway—marked by uneven patterns of inclusion, displacement, and redevelopment.

The book adopts a multi-dimensional perspective, examining changes in residential, industrial, and commercial development, alongside impacts on employment, infrastructure, environmental degradation, and social dynamics such as segregation and gentrification. As the first comprehensive study of Jakarta’s post-suburbanization, this volume brings together twenty-two contributors, including academics, planners, urban designers, and architects, to assess planning practices and policy responses. Organized into four thematic sections—economic development, environmental challenges, housing and public space, and gentrification and displacement—it offers critical insights and forward-looking strategies for shaping the JMA over the next twenty years.

A vital contribution to urban planning literature in Indonesia, Growth of a Megacity provides a timely and accessible analysis for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners navigating Jakarta’s complex urban future.

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Routledge Handbook of Urban Indonesia 1st Edition

This handbook focuses on the practices, initiatives, and innovations of urban planning in response to the rapid urbanisation in Indonesian cities.

The book provides rigorous evidence of planning Indonesian cities of different sizes. Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, is increasingly urbanising. Through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals, chapters examine specific policies and projects and analyse 19 cities, ranging from a megacity of over ten million residents to metropolitan cities, large cities, medium cities, and small cities in Indonesia. The handbook provides a diverse view of urban conditions in the country. Discussing current trends and challenges in urban planning and development in Indonesia, it covers a wide range of topics organised into five main themes: Indonesian planning context; informality, insurgency, and social inclusion; design, spatial, and economic practices; creative and innovative practices; and urban sustainability and resilience.

Written by 64 established and emerging scholars from Indonesia and overseas, this handbook is an invaluable resource to academics working on Urban Studies, Development Studies, Asian and Southeast Studies as well as to policy-makers in Indonesia and in other cities of the Global South.

Recent Events

The Future of Urban Indonesia: Pathways to Inclusion, Resilience, and Innovation.

Invited speaker

Webinar hosted by the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Washington, DC. Virtual.

20 November 2025

Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): An Urban Planning Perspective.
Invited speaker
9th International Conference on Strategic and Global Studies. The University of Indonesia and Kyushu International University, Fukuoka
19-20 July 2025
Cited in New York Times
What's a President to Do When a Nation's Capital Is Sinking? Move it.
May 16, 2023
The New Urban Agenda: The guidance for urban planning practices in the next decades
Guest Lecture
University of Stavanger, Norway
May 11, 2023