C Demographic and Spatial Patterns of Indonesia’s Recent Urbanisation

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Demographic and Spatial Patterns of Indonesia’s Recent Urbanisation

Tommy Firman*

Department of Regional and City Planning, Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia

Urbanisation in developing countries is occur- ring at a lower level of per capita income and in a totally different global economic situation than that which prevailed when the cities of the developed world were growing most vigorously in the past. As Cohen (2004) argues, recent urbanisation in developing countries is characterised by an unprecedented scale of urban change, while the direction of urban change is more strongly affected by the global economy than ever before.

In many ways the traditional rural–urban distinction made by scholars is becoming redundant as a result of the emergence of new globalising processes (Cohen, 2004: 23).

In recent research, urbanisation in developing countries has been associated with globalisation in terms of the process of expansion and deep- ening of global markets for both commodities and services. The former has been facilitated by the rapid development of transportation and communication technologies, while the latter reflects trade liberalisation (Cho, 1997). The process has resulted in the rapid integration of various parts of the world, and most notably the linkage of large cities in a global financial system (Dicken, 1992; Cho, 1997; Beaverstock and Boardwell, 2000). The nature of global cities has meant that they function in relation to processes operating to sustain a cross-border, global network of cities which control strategic sites in the global economic system. The cities serve as centres for the control, coordination and servicing of global capital (Sassen, 1997b: 1–2), and in turn become poles that are central to the hierarchical organisation of labour and migration flows. As Castells (1989, 1996) argued, the fact is that the traditional perspective of seeing urban systems as a space of relative locations should be changed to one favouring the understanding of the space of flows that sustain these global locations.

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/psp.339

ABSTRACT

This study examines urbanisation patterns in Indonesia, using data from the National Population Census 2000. Urbanisation in Indonesia is still characterised by the high concentration of urban population in a few large cities, notably Jakarta Metropolitan Area (Jabotabek), which indicates an interurban disparity between Jabotabek and other cities, and between large and smaller cities. It might also reflect an integration of Jabotabek into the global economy. The populations on the outskirts of large cities are growing rapidly, while those in core areas have a very low rate of growth. The small towns and intermediate cities on the outer islands are experiencing higher population growth compared with those in Java, which might suggest that those towns and cities are playing a more significant role in regional development. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 8 June 2003; revised 15 December 2003; accepted 30 April 2004

Keywords:world cities; urbanisation;

Indonesia; population growth THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES OF URBANISATION IN

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

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ontemporary urban transitions in the developing countries are different from those that the developed world experienced a century ago (Gugler, 1996: 11).

* Correspondence to: T. Firman, Department of Regional and City Planning, Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia.

E-mail: [email protected]

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Global cities, however, seem in some respects to be disconnected from local economic activities.

This results in regional disparities and can some- times produce local geographies where global processes seem to produce little if any benefits at the local scale in terms of the impact on development for the local population. Moreover, as Ng and Hill (2003) argued, global cities may result in considerable economic wealth for those who manage global capital, but their ability to address and promote sustainable development for vul- nerable local populations seem questionable, as reflected by the presence of large poor populations living a precarious existence in many Asian metropolises, such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei and Shanghai (Findlay et al., 1998).

In spite of growing research interest in the effects of globalisation on urbanisation, empirical studies thus far have largely focused on the developed world (Friedman, 1986, 2001; Sassen, 1991, 1994, 2001; Shacar, 1994), while much less is known about this process in cities of the developing world (Yeung, 1996; Yeung and Lo, 1996; Firman, 1998; Gugler, 2002; Ng and Hill, 2003). Scholars argue that while transnational capital has increased the spatial concentration of population in Asia, this has resulted in urban growth rather than in deeper sociological processes associated with urbanisation in terms of population lifestyle (Lin, 1994; Cho, 1997; Zhu, 2000; Douglass, 2000; Webster, 2001). This in turn has favoured the concentration of economic activities, capital and people in large cities in the region.

Contemporary processes responsible for the urbanisation in South and Southeast Asia seem to have blurred the distinction between ‘rural’

and ‘urban’. To some extent, this mirrors what has taken place in Latin America (Aguilar and Ward, 2003; see also Brenan, 1999). Both agricultural and non-agricultural activities take place side by side in areas adjacent to the urban centres, while processes essential to sustaining urban life have been pushed far beyond the city’s administrative boundaries into what was once a rural economy. This phenomenon has been labelled

‘mega-urbanisation’ (Lin, 1994; McGee, 1995;

Jones, 2002).

To summarise, current urbanisation in the developing world involves the integration of large cities into the global economy, boosted by

capital accumulations at a global scale (McGee, 1995; Douglass, 2000; Findlay, 2001). Advances in transportation and communication technologies have greatly facilitated the flows of capital, people and information from foreign countries to the Southeast Asian countries, and has in turn stimulated the redistribution of the local population in relation to the transformation of these centres’ economies (Schwartz and Villirgar, 2004). As Douglass (2001: 237) has argued, globalisation has resulted in urban spatial restructuring in Pacific Asia involving spatial polarisation in a few urban centres, the formation of large mega-urban regions around the centres, and slow rates of urbanisation in inland regions, notably the densely agricultural regions away from urban centres. The purpose of this paper is therefore to test these ideas.

The remainder of this article is organised into four parts. The first part discusses the socio- economic and political factors responsible for recent urbanisation in Indonesia; the second part discusses the data and methods of analysis available to the author; the third part examines the development and spatial patterns of Indonesian urbanisation; and the fourth searches for conclu- sions from the study.

INDONESIA’S RECENT URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Indonesia has one of the largest archipelagoes in the world, with five major islands, namely Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua.

Its population reached 203.5 million in 2000, which makes the country the fourth most popu- lous in the world. The urban population grew from 32.8 million to 85.2 million between 1980 and 2000 (Table 1). The population distribution in Indonesia is extremely uneven, with about three- fifths of the population concentrated in Java, which comprises about 7% of the total land area.

It can be argued that until recently in most parts of the country, urbanisation and economic development have been fuelled dominantly by domestic and foreign investment in the big cities.

Until the end of 1990s, foreign investment in large cities, and notably the Jakarta Metropolitan Area, was dominated by Japan and newly indus- trialised countries, such as South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. The strategy of these

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countries was to relocate their industries to countries with lower labour costs (Douglass, 1997).

Developments in transportation and production technologies had largely facilitated the vertical and horizontal divisions of industrial production processes. These were driven by the so-called new international division of labour. This in turn became the force for integration of the large world cities (including Indonesia’s) into the global economic system (Firman, 1998, 1999;

Douglass, 2000). This summarises the international impact on urbanisation in Indonesia and other Asian countries that took place during the 1980s up to the mid-1990s (Forbes and Thrift, 1987; Fuchs and Pernia, 1987). However, large city development did not necessarily strengthen urban linkages. As a matter of fact, while large cities were growing rapidly, small towns in Java tended to stagnate (Gardiner, 1997b: 168).

By the mid-1990s, the cumulative share of Japan’s investments in Indonesia had already reached almost a sixth of total foreign investment in the country. This was followed by Hong Kong (11.9%), Taiwan (6.7%) and Singapore (5.3%) (Firman, 1997). It should be noted, however, that most foreign industries were ‘footloose’ in char- acter, and had very weak linkages to the local

economy. Foreign investment-led development took place not only in the industrial sector, but also in financial and other services. This was reflected in the growing number of foreign banks and other financial institutions operating in Jakarta and Surabaya.

Development in the industrial, financial and services sectors of the Jakarta Metropolitan Area (and the other big cities, such as Surabaya, Bandung, Medan, Palembang and Semarang) in turn encouraged developments in the property sector and especially the construction of luxuri- ous housing estates in new towns around the city’s periphery (Hogan and Houston, 2001).

It also led to the building of new hotels and shopping centres, and up until the mid-1990s, the property sector was a lucrative business in the large cities of Indonesia.

Economic activities were increasingly concentrated in large cities, due to deregulation policies launched by the Indonesian government from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s. The policies were intended to enhance performance efficiency and to promote export of non-oil commodities. They were designed to spur national economic growth. This is quite different from the import- substitution policy that had been followed in the Table 1. Percentage of population of Indonesia living in urban areas, 1980 and 2000.

Java Outer Islands Indonesia 1980

Total population (000s) 91,269.5 55,665.4 146,934.9

Urban population (000s) 22,929.4 9,916.4 32,845.8

Proportion of urban population 0.251 0.177 0.224

Share of urban population (%) 69.8 30.2 100.0

1990

Annual rate of population growth 1980–1990 (%) 1.65 2.47 1.97

Annual rate of urban population growth 1980–1990 (%) 5.28 5.95 5.37

2000

Annual rate of population growth, 1990–2000 (%) 1.11 1.56 1.35

Annual rate of urban population growth, 1990–2000 (%) 4.38 4.43 4.40

Source: CBS (1991, 1992, 2001a).

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1970s, which had chiefly involved the development of industrial products for domestic con- sumption. The key point about deregulation policies is that they spurred the development of the largest cities, especially those in Java, because these cities were better equipped with the facilities and infrastructure needed for international developments.

The processes described above were adversely affected by the Asian Crisis of the late 1990s. The economic activities of the largest cities, most notably the Jakarta Metropolitan Area, were hardest hit. The economic crisis resulted in a rapid increase in the number of unemployed. A big contraction in the economic growth of cities was recorded (Hill, 1999), and a great many workers returned to their villages of origin having lost their jobs in the cities (Wiradi, 1998;

Sandee, 1999). This situation is not only specific to large cities in Indonesia, but has also been reported in other countries in Southeast Asia, such as Thailand (Chatterjee, 1998; Gould and Smith, 1998) and Korea (Kim, 2001). The economic turmoil has obviously affected rural to urban migration, especially poverty migration.

The economic turmoil also hit rural areas, with people from these areas forced to find additional sources of income, although job opportunities decreased less dramatically than in the cities (Hugo, 2000).

The severe economic crisis contributed to the downfall of President Suharto’s regime, and in mid-1999 the Indonesian Parliament passed Laws 22/1999 and 25/1999 regarding regional autonomy and fiscal decentralisation. These two pieces of legislation were basically intended to avoid the break-up of Indonesia into several tiny countries. Other objectives included curbing the separatist sentiments of outlying regions of Indonesia and stopping the exploitation of provincial and local government by the central government. In the past, central government controlled the decision-making process, operating in a strongly top-down fashion, while local government was not able to make decisions on important policies and was left to implement centrally-made decisions (Crane, 1995). The new legislation was intended to empower local communities and to bring government closer to the people. Indeed, one could argue that the basic idea behind these two new laws was to shift the burden and responsibilities of governance to

local government and was not really about democratisation giving power to local government. Whatever the motives, it appears that Indonesia is entering a period of socio-political reform and decentralisation. The early policy transition has not, however, been easy, often being characterised by a chaotic socio-economic and political situation.

The new policies of regional autonomy and fiscal decentralisation could have significant impacts on urbanisation and urban development. Under these two laws, local government (i.e. district (Kabupaten) and Municipality (Kota) government) has had much greater discretion to manage local economic development, most notably in terms of natural resource utilisation, such as oil and timber resources. Likewise, regions with the potential for high income and property taxes (notably Jakarta) have had the opportunity to deploy a substantial share of this local income. Therefore, the natural resource-rich regions, as well as Jakarta Metropolitan Area, could experience rapid urbanisation in the near future as migrants move to take advantage of the expanding employment opportunities of these regions, and this could, in turn, affect the patterns of urbanisation.

DATA AND METHODS OF ANALYSIS

The present study relies heavily on data from the National Population Censuses of 1980, 1990 and 2000. Inevitably this limits the extent to which many of the processes discussed above can be identified, but nevertheless the numerical evi- dence that does exist presents important insights on contemporary urbanisation. Enumeration of the 2000 Census was problematic due to the political and economic crisis in the country (Hull, 2001). Some provinces in Indonesia experienced communal and separatist conflicts, notably Aceh Nanggro Darussalam, Maluku, West Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, and the border area between East Nusatenggara with Timor Leste, the latter being a newly independent country which was formerly an Indonesian province (East Timor).

These problems resulted in under-enumeration in the 2000 Census. Jones (2002) argued that under-enumeration may have been a greater problem in the 2000 Census than in that of 1990.

Official estimates of the scale of under- enumeration are in the order of 460,000 urban

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and 1.9 million rural permanent residents (CBS, 2001a: xxxix), whilst 570,000 urban and 1.7 million rural people categorised as ‘population of non-response’ are also suspected of being missing from the 2000 Census. In total, approximately 4.5 million persons, or 2.2% of the total population (most notably refugees in the conflict regions and others such as homeless people or gelandangan) are missing. Nevertheless, the results of the 2000 Census remain the best available data-set for analysis of the recent patterns of urbanisation in Indonesia, although caution must be employed when investigating those provinces suspected of having the greatest under-enumeration. However, the intercensal Population Survey of 2005 may help to corrobo- rate the 2000 Census findings.

The way in which ‘urban’ is defined varies from country to country. The conventional rural–urban dichotomy seems increasingly inad- equate due to the development of transportation networks (Cohen, 2004: 25), so that it is difficult to make international comparisons on the extent of urbanisation. As Cohen correctly points out, the potential confusion in the study of urbanisation is in the measurement of ‘urban’ itself. The Indonesian population censuses of 1980, 1990 and 2000 define a locality as ‘urban’ when it meets the three following requirements (CBS, 1988; Firman, 1992): (1) having a population density of 5000 people or more per square kilometre; (2) having 25% or less of households working in the agricultural sector; (3) having eight or more kinds of urban facilities. However, the urban–rural distinction in Indonesia, as in many other Asian countries, is blurred (McGee, 1994, 1995; McGee and Robinson, 1995), as some rural areas have urban characteristics, both physically and socio-economically (Firman and Dharmapatni, 1995; Hugo, 1996; Firman, 1997 and 2003; Gardiner, 1997a,b).

The Central Board of Statistics (CBS) uses a more technical scoring system (see Firman, 1992) to categorise a locality as being ‘rural’ or ‘urban’.

Obviously, such a system has its weaknesses (Rietveld, 1988: 75–6; Firman, 1992), since indicators for urban facilities are arbitrarily defined and do not consider the differences in the quality of facilities. More importantly, the blurred distinction between ‘urban localities’ and ‘rural localities’, especially in Java, have somehow reduced the relevance of the aforementioned criteria

(Hugo, 1996). Nevertheless, the classification system is still very useful in analysing urbanisation at the national level.

Another constraint in using census data for urbanisation studies involves the categorisation of data at the scale of the administrative unit, so that the expansion of urban areas across boundaries is not captured.

This study employs simple indicators for analysis, including the proportion of urban population, annual rate of total and urban population growth, percentage of employed persons by sector, and population growth in individual cities between 1980 and 2000. Using these indicators, this study aims to reveal the recent demographic and spatial patterns of urbanisation in Indonesia.

The primacy index (the ratio of the population of the largest city over the second largest) is a simple indicator commonly used to examine the distribution of urban population. However, this technique of analysis cannot be used for Indonesia due to the expansion of large cities into sectors which are defined as rural, notably those in Java (Firman, 2003). To cope with this problem, an alternative indicator will be employed, that is, the proportion of the urban population of Jakarta Metropolitan Area (Jabotabek) over the total urban population in Indonesia and in Java.

DEMOGRAPHIC DIMENSIONS

Indonesia’s urban population increased from 55.4 million to 85.2 million over the period 1990 to 2000 (Table 1). The level of urbanisation in Indonesia has increased from 5.8% in 1920 (Soegijoko and Bulkin, 1994) to around 10% by 1945 (Hugo, 1996), 22.3% by 1980, 30.9% by 1990 (Firman, 1997) and 42.0% by the year 2000 (Table 1). In other words, at present almost half of Indonesians live in urban areas.

Despite this rapid urbanisation, the proportion of the Indonesian population that lives in an urban area is still relatively low (Population Reference Bureau, 2002). It is more or less in line with that in China (Shen, 2002).

Indonesia’s urban population growth rate reached 5.37% per annum between 1980 and 1990, but declined to 4.40% per annum between 1990 and 2000. Meanwhile, the growth rate for the total population fell from 1.97% per annum between 1980 and 1990 to 1.35% per annum between 1990 and 2000 (Table 1).

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More than a third (35.2%) of urban population growth in Indonesia between 1980 to 1985 was due to natural increase, whilst the remaining 64.8% was due to migration and reclassification of administrative areas (ESCAP-UN, 1993:

11–16). Estimates of 37% for natural increase and 63% for migration and reclassification have been made for the period 1990 to 1995 (Firman, 1997).

As Table 1 shows, there was little geographical change in the importance of Java (approximately 70% of Indonesia’s population) at a time when its absolute population size mushroomed from 23 to 59 million (1980–2000). The total population of the outer Indonesian islands (excluding Java) has risen from 10 million to 26 million over the same time-span.

Gardiner (1997a: 125) attributed 30.3% of population growth in the Jakarta Metropolitan Area between 1980 and 1990 to reclassification from rural to urban zones, whilst for Surabaya Metropolitan Area the figure is 39.6% for the same time period. The figures are even higher for Medan and Bandung Metropolitan Areas at

40.5% and 43.2% respectively, reflecting administrative changes catching up with the spatial transformations in and around these urban centres (Gardiner, 1997a: 124).

The proportion of employed persons living in these cities was 38.7% of the total 35.8% in 2000 (Table 2), much higher than that in 1990 at 26.7%

(Hugo, 1996: 134). This reflects the increasing role of cities as a source of employment opportunities during the 1990s. The main source of urban employment was the service sector, accounting for almost 56% of all urban employment (Table 2). The figure rises yet further if service activities in the so-called informal sector are added. By contrast, employment in the agricultural sector among urban residents declined from 9.7% of total employment in 1990 to 4.7% in 2000 (Hugo, 1996: 137).

SPATIAL PATTERNS

If economic concentration of urban service functions is evident from Table 2, patterns of spatial concentration are more complex (Fig. 1). Large Table 2. Employment in urban and rural areas in Indonesia.

Sector Male Female Total %

Urban

Agriculture 3,124.9 1,347.1 3,472.0 4.68

Other primary sectors 1,251.2 454.31 705.5 4.76

Industries 3,130.1 1,896.8 5,026.9 14.03

Services 13,005.0 6,880.4 19,885.4 55.48

Other sectors 3,093.0 2,627.9 5,720.9 15.96

Not stated 14.8 13.6 28.4 0.74

Total 22,619.2 13,220.1 35,839.3 100.00

Rural

Agriculture 16,076.0 12,544.1 28,620.1 50.49

Other primary sectors 6,038.5 3,768.9 9,807.5 17.30

Industries 1,430.5 1,121.4 2,551.9 4.50

Services 6,802.3 4,050.7 10,853.0 19.14

Other sectors 1,951.7 2,856.6 4,808.3 8.48

Not stated 21.8 25.4 48.2 0.85

Total 32,321.9 24,367.2 56,689.1 100.00

Urban and rural

Agriculture 18,200.9 13,891.2 32,092.1 34.68

Other primary sectors 7,289.7 4.223.2 11,512.9 12.44

Industries 4,560.6 3,018.2 7,578.8 8.19

Services 19,807.3 10,931.1 30,738.4 33.22

Other sectors 5,094.7 5,484.5 10,529.2 11.38

Not stated 37.6 39.0 76.6 0.82

Total 54,941.1 37,587.4 92,528.5 100.00

Source: CBS (2001a, b).

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cities have been growing rapidly, as reflected in the increased number of millionaire cities. In 1950, only Jakarta had a population exceeding one million. By 1980, Surabaya, Bandung and Medan were also millionaire cities, while by 2000 the number of these cities had increased to eight.

What is perhaps more surprising is that the growth rate of millionaire cities is lower than the average national population growth rate of 1.35%

per year (Table 3), with the exception of Makasar (1.45%) and Palembang (2.30%). Palembang, capital of one of the oil-rich regions of Indonesia, might have been expected to grow very rapidly, but how can the low growth rates of other millionaire cities be explained? The answer would seem to lie mainly in suburbanisation processes which have seen the faster growth rates in the metropolitan areas adjacent to the largest cities (Fig. 1).

This is particularly true for areas adjacent to Kabupaten and Kota (cities surrounding Jakarta) (Table 4), Surabaya, Bandung and Medan (Jones, 2001, 2002). For example, the districts of Bekasi

and Tangerang, which are located on the outskirts of Jakarta city, had annual population growth rates of 4.70% between 1980 and 1990, and 4.13% between 1990 and 2000 (West Java Figure 1. Percentage of the population of Indonesia living in urban areas, 1980 and 2000.

Table 3. Population and annual population growth rate of million-plus cities in Indonesia, 1990–2000.

Population (000s)

Annual growth

City 1990 2000 rate (%)

Jakarta 8227.7 8356.5 0.16

Surabaya 2473.3 2578.1 0.43

Bandung 2058.1 2140.0 0.40

Medan 1730.8 1899.4 0.90

Palembang 1144.3 1441.5 2.30

Semarang 1249.2 1342.6 0.75

Tangerang – 1311.8 NA^a

Depok – 1146.0 NA^a

Makasar 944.7 1091.6 1.45

Source: CBS (2000).

aNewly established municipalities.

Note: Depok and Tangerang are located within Jakarta Metropolitan Area (Jabotabek).

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Office of Central Board of Statistics, 2001;

Gardiner, 1997b). This largely resulted from in- migration from other parts of the country including locations outside Java. It has been the areas adjacent to the millionaire cities that have been the main focus for industrial investment, especially around Jakarta. In addition to inter- regional migration from other parts of Indonesia, areas such as Bekasi and Bogor have received more than half a million inter-provincial migrants (1995 to 2000) from Jakarta city, the core of the Jakarta Metropolitan Area. Mamas et al.

(2001) argued that such migratory flows (from urban cores to the adjacent urban peripheries) represent a very important element of population change in several of Indonesia’s big cities.

However, it should be noted that the high population growth rates in areas adjacent to Jakarta cannot be wholly attributed to migration and are in part due to the reclassification of previously rural areas as urban in the 2000 Census.

Jakarta city experienced a turn-around from a net-positive to a net-negative five-year migration rate between 1980 and 2000 (Table 5). This sug- gests that some degree of counter-urbanisation is taking place, but whether this is more than the decentralisation process described above would require primary research.

Another feature of urbanisation of Jabotabek is the increase in the proportions of non-agricultural workers living in peripheral urban areas;

for example, Botabek (Bogor–Tangerang–Bekasi)

had 584,000 non-agricultural workers in 1971, but 2,360,000 by 1990 (Hugo, 1996). A study on the development of the urban fringe in Jabotabek (Browder et al., 1995) showed that many of the residents are people with middle and higher income levels who have moved from the core city area (i.e. Jakarta).

Other examples of population increases in peripheral urban zones include the district of Sidoarjo, situated in the periphery of Surabaya city, which had a population growth rate of almost 3.0% per annum between 1990 and 2000.

The district of Deli Serdang, adjacent to Medan city in the Province of North Sumatra, had a population growth rate of 2.1% per annum, whilst that of Medan itself was only 0.9% per annum. The district of Musi Banyuasin, border- ing Palembang city in the province of South Table 5. Five-year in- and out-migrants of Jakarta city, 1980–2000 (in thousands).

In/out-migrants 1980 1990 2000

In-migrants 746.9 819.6 702.2

Out-migrants 382.3 993.4 850.3

Net migrants 364.6 -173.8 -148.1

Source: Central Board of Statistics (2001b); Population Censuses 1980, 1990 and 2000.

Note: Five-year migrants are people who had moved to their provinces of residence from other provinces within the five years preceding the census (i.e. from June 1995 to August 2000).

Table 4. Urban population and total population of districts (Kabupaten) and municipalities (Kota) in Jakarta Metropolitan Area, 2000 (in thousands).

Area Urban population Total population % of urban population

City of Jakarta (DKI Jakarta) 8,347.1 8,347.1 100.0

District (Kabupaten)

Bogor 2,014.0 3,508.8 57.4

Bekasi 967.7 1,668.5 58.0

Tangerang 1,940.7 2,781.4 69.8

Municipality (Kota)

Bogor 746.9 750.8 99.5

Bekasi 1,622.2 1,663.8 97.5

Depok 1,120.9 1,143.4 98.0

Tangerang 1,325.8 1,325.8 100.0

Jakarta Metropolitan Area (Jabotabek) 18,085.3 20,438.8 88.5

Java 58,874.4 120,429.3 48.7

Indonesia 85,244.2 203,456.0 42.0

Source: Various Census 2000 Reports, Central Board of Statistics, Jakarta.

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Sumatra, had a population growth rate of 3.3%

per annum, whereas that of Palembang city itself was only 2.4%. These forms of growth imply that the process of mega-urbanisation (Lin, 1994;

McGee, 1995; Firman, 2003) is taking place in and around Indonesia’s largest cities.

Urban spatial development in Java has mainly taken the form of corridors connecting the large cities (Firman, 1992, 2003; Firman and Dharmapatni, 1995). The main urban corridors link Jakarta to Bandung; Cirebon to Semarang;

Yogyakarta to Semarang; and Surabaya to Malang. Hall and Pfeiffer (2000: 5) described the Jakarta and Surabaya urban corridor as consist- ing of scores of highly networked cities of different sizes. A notable feature is the increasing mixture of agricultural and industrial economic activities in these corridors, resulting in a blurring of the distinction between ‘rural’ and

‘urban’, both socio-economically and physically.

The fringes of Jabotabek have been integrated, functionally and spatially, into the economy of Jakarta city, and have almost no linkages with the Javanese rural economy. Due to rapid population growth outwith city cores, the population of Jakarta city as a proportion of Jabotabek declined from 54.6% to 43.2% between 1980 and 1990, and fell to 39.6% by 2000 (Firman, 2003). In Metropolitan Surabaya (Gerbangkertasusila), the population of Surabaya city (the core) relative to the population of the metropolitan area of Gerbangkertasusila declined from 34.0% to 31.8%

between 1990 and 2000. Similar processes are also taking place in other metropolitan areas in Java, such as Bandung and Semarang.

Our focus now turns to patterns of development in small and medium-sized towns (with a population between 100,000 and 1 million people). Figure 2 provides details of the geographical patterns of urban growth. Small and medium-sized cities have had relatively low growth rates in comparison to the national average rate of growth. Where moderate growth did occur (cities such as Bogor, Sukabumi and Salatiga) it was often as a result of the expansion of the administrative area. The populations of some towns (Yogyakarta, Surakarta, Kediri, Madiun and Magelang) actually fell between 1990 and 2000.

Hinderink and Titus (2002) and van der Wouden (1997) demonstrated that the traditional roles of small towns in Central Java (as centres

for collection and distribution of goods) have stagnated, with agricultural producers increasingly dealing directly with suppliers, tradesmen and wholesalers from large cities, thus bypassing small towns (Titus, 1993; Gardiner, 1997b). By contrast, small and medium urban centres in other parts of Indonesia (Fig. 2) are experiencing faster population growth than those of equiva- lent size in Java. It is interesting to note the extremely high population growth rates of Batam city in the Province of Riau (5.63%). This city is located in the trans-border growth triangle of

‘Sijori’ (Singapore–Johor–Riau), and has been developed as a centre of industry, services and tourism, taking advantage of its proximity to Singapore, one of the largest service and financial centres in the world. As a result Batam has experienced a large influx of migrants from other regions of Indonesia, especially Java. Likewise, the city of Pakanbaru in the Province of Riau (one of the richest oil-producing regions in Indonesia) experienced a high population growth rate of almost 4% per annum between 1990 and 2000, reflecting the expanding socio-economic activity of the province. In contrast, Ambon (the capital of Maluku Province) experienced a population decline of 3% per annum, reflecting the effects of communal conflict in the city and its environs, which produced an exodus of refugees from the city.

Overall, population growth in small and medium-sized cities has been much faster in other parts of Indonesia than in Java, suggesting that these cities play a more significant role as centres for economic activity, notably agriculture and natural resource exploitation, compared with those on Java, where smaller cities have stagnated relative to the more dominant roles of the largest urban centres.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

As Dyson (2001) has noted, social and economic development are intimately linked to demographic transition, but this in turn is in part responsible for urbanisation and a range of other social and economic changes. These complex linkages are changing rapidly in Indonesia, with its falling fertility rate and its expanding urban economy (employing nearly 40% of the active population in 2000, compared with just over a quarter a decade earlier).

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Now almost half of Indonesia’s population live in urban areas. As in most developing countries, urbanisation in Indonesia is characterised by a heavy concentration of the urban population in a few very large cities. More than 20% of the urban population live in Jakarta Metropolitan Area (Jabotabek), perhaps suggesting an inter-urban disparity between metropolitan areas and other cities and also between large and small cities.

This may reflect the ever-stronger integration of Indonesia’s larger cities (notably Jakarta Metropolitan Area) into the global economy (Firman, 1998, 1999, 2002). Some provinces outside Java have highly urbanised populations, resulting from economic changes stimulated by the exploitation of non-renewable resources. City growth in these areas may not follow the same long-term urban development paths (Gardiner,

1997b) since their future sustainability depends on the continued prosperity of, for example, oil extraction.

Urban spatial development in Java is in the form of belts which connect many of the large cities. The urban and rural areas of Java are increasingly blurred, reflecting increasingly intensive links between these two environ- ments. The outskirts of the largest cities are experiencing rapid population growth, whereas city cores are undergoing population stagnation and decline as part of the process of mega-urbanisation, a feature of many parts of Southeast Asia (McGee, 1991, 1995). This is also a feature of other developing countries such as Thailand, Mexico, Columbia and China (Brenan, 1999; Brennan and Galvin, 2001; Douglass, 2001;

Henderson, 2002).

Figure 2. Percentage growth of urban centres over 100,000 persons in Indonesia between 1990 and 2000.

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The small towns and intermediate cities of Indonesia’s outer islands have relatively high population growth rates when compared with those of Java, suggesting that these towns and cities are playing a more significant role as localised centres of socio-economic development.

Moreover, the New Regional Autonomy policy, as outlined in the 22/1999 and 25/1999 Legislative acts (which encourage decentralisation of decision-making), is expected in the near future to become a concrete political basis for the development of the small towns and intermediate cities of the outer islands.

The national economic development policies of the 1980s to mid-1990s focused on the export of non-oil products and greatly influenced urbanisation and urban development in Indonesia. The policies were not intended to interfere with city and regional development, but effectively pro- moted development of large cities, especially those in Java, by equipping them with support- ing facilities and infrastructure. However, the policies did not generate the linkages necessary to channel development to smaller urban centres.

The recent economic crisis has negatively affected urbanisation and urban development in Indonesia, most notably through rapid increases in unemployment levels in urban areas.

However, the impacts are not clearly reflected in the pattern of urbanisation between 1990 and 2000. One plausible reason may be that the economic crisis only took place at the end of the 1990s, so that the effects of a prolonged economic crisis on urbanisation might be better detected in the forthcoming inter-censal population survey of 2005.

The new policies on regional autonomy and fiscal decentralisation and the wave of democratisation in Indonesia could have a significant impact on urbanisation. However, it may be too premature to examine the impact of these policies on urbanisation at present, since the policies have only been implemented since 2001. Theoretically, the naturally resource-rich regions (such as East Kalimantan and Riau) and the Jakarta Metropolitan Zone could experience rapid urbanisation in the near future, through their tendency to provide more employment opportunities, increasing their attractiveness to migrants.

The spatial pattern of recent urbanisation in Indonesia clearly reflects regional disparity and urban bias in economic development policy

during the boom period of the early 1980s to the late 1990s and may also be interpreted in terms of the integration of Indonesia’s large cities, most notably Jabotabek, into the global economy (Firman, 1998, 1999). Until the end of the 1990s, economic development in Jabotabek was trig- gered by foreign and domestic investment, notably in the manufacturing, financial, services, trade and property sectors. In fact, the economy of Jabotabek is increasingly sensitive to the decision-making of transnational corporations (Firman, 1998: 241–2), and this situation is reflected in the developed fabric of the Jakarta–Bandung mega-urban regions (Firman and Dharmapatni, 1995).

This study has attempted to examine the spatial patterns of urbanisation in Indonesia by employing census data. However, the analysis has also attempted to assess urbanisation within the broader context of underlying socio- economic and political processes, and not simply as a demographic phenomenon. Admittedly, there are constraints in using census data for studies of this kind that relate to more than the changing definitions of what constitutes rural or urban areas. Nevertheless, the empirical basis defined by census data provides a useful starting point for further in-depth analysis through primary field research of the processes driving urbanisation.

Hopefully, this study has provided reflections upon the drivers of urbanisation that are relevant to other parts of the developing world, and not only to Indonesia (McGee and Robinson, 1995;

Gugler, 1996, 2002; Yeung and Lo, 1996; Webster, 2001; Douglass, 2000, 2001; Aguilar and Ward, 2003).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am very grateful to Jim Ford (Cartographer, Department of Geography, University of Dundee) for preparing the figures.

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