Theory and Practice of Urban Planning Today

Between Guiding The Urbanization and Anticipating The Globalization

Prof (hon.) Dr.-Ing. Jo Santoso

Member of Scientific Board of International Forum on Urbanism/
Head of Graduate Program in Urban Planning/Tarumanagara University

(Part of this paper is cited from my previous presentation which was composed as a Closing Remark of The 8th. Conference of
International Forum on Urbanism “True Smart and Green City”, Organized by Smart Green City Lab of Sungkyunkwan University, 22-24
June 2015, in Songdo Convensia, Incheon, South Korea)

Introduction
In this paper we will discuss 3 (three) issues, the first issue is on strategic questions related to the
condition of cities worldwide, the second is about the overall constraints we have to face in our
efforts to make our cities more sustainable, and the third is about what I call “the basic dilemma
of urban development” to day. All the three issues are discuss and finally summarized in a final
conclusion that we need a better understanding about the existing situation and problems of our
cities first before we are able to design appropriate solutions to overcome the urban challenges.

Strategic Questions
I think it is already become a general knowledge, that the process of urbanization is already
understand as an inevitable process. The increasing of urban population worldwide has to
continue and will. The other unstopable process behind the Urbanization is the process of
globalization, which has a powerful role in transforming existing cities with the goal to integrate
them to the world economic system. That’s why the question is following Rosemann now more
focus on “do we have the abilities to guide the processes in a sustainable way”? To anticipate
those strategic problems there are overall constraints i.e. in form of “contradicting interests
between industrialized countries and developing countries regarding the reduction of carbon
emission to limit the global warming.” The developed countries are mainly responsible because
they are consuming 80% of the world energy, and the impacts of the global warming are happen
more critical in less developing countries.

Other scholar Mark Swilling underlines that “in the new developed countries and in what we call
as global south in the next 30 years the urban area will increase from 200.000 to 600.000 Sqkm.
Even if we have the technology and the financial resources, we will have problems to get the
materials we need”, to construct the 400.000 Sqkm within 30 years. The other challenge is surely
how to organize the provision and the distribution of the resources to those peoples who have to
build their houses, and to develop the urban infrastructure and the urban services exactly in those
places where there are needed. For the time being the global south has not the organizational
capabilities to meet those needs. Can Smart City help the global south in this regard? The
application of Smart City is concentrating its efforts to close the gap between the producers and
the consumers in the city. Can the concept of Smart City provide us with approaches, methods,
strategies and good examples to enabling cities to anticipate the urban challenges”? How is about
the peoples who are not integrated in the market system? How about those peoples who cannot
afford to buy houses from the market? How about those cities who doesnot have the capacities to
provide its inhabitants with the resources they need to built their houses. What kind of help a ICT
system can offer those cities to overcome their problems, which are for sure not only providing
housing.

The Overall Constraints: Controversial Issues Two Different Kinds of Urban ha

The two different reasons the urbanization and the globalization are also responsible for almost all
upcoming of urban challenges, which should be anticipate by every city. The first controversial
issue which has to overcome by each city is the fact, that the two processes are mainly driven by
external factors and although both are happen in the same time, but it does not have the same

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goals and agendas. Although the two groups are never declare openly that there are against each
other but in the reality on the ground there are not working with each other and in there are
many contradictory issues between their agenda.
On one side the superior driver of globalization has the main goal to transform the structure of the
existing city and to integrate it as part of the global free-market. The main agendas are to
overcome the barriers of the penetration of the global economy and to secure its sustainable
economic growth. Such conceptions like smart and green cities, smart urban greeneries,
infrastructure & mobility, social integration and inclusiveness, are the tools to achieve the
agendas. On the other side the city has to overcome the challenges related to the process of the
urbanization. The main goals are to enabling the city to anticipate the urbanization and to develop
the city as livable human habitat. The main agendas are such as urban resiliency, local-specific
identity, compact cities, integration of working and living, cultural diversities, decentralization,
peoples participation and self-determination. All the concepts have one common target: To
develop the city as a place of human co-existence base on the existing socio-ecological condition.
With other words sustainability is not understand as sustainable economic growth but as a
balance between social-economic development and the bearing capacity of the ecological system.
In his famous lecture award of UN-Habitat in 2006, John Friedmann made the suggestion that the
urban development should no more directed from economic-growth oriented concept but should
be oriented on the growth of what he call “the wealth of cities” (Friedmann, J., The Wealth of
Cities: Towards an assets-based development of newly urbanizing regions).

The i
The Discontents of The Globalization of Cities
Contradiction nr.1: Private Corporation as main Driver?

In general there are contradictions between the real motivation of the main driver of such the
program like smart cities and the openly declare: What is the real motivation of Cisco, Siemens,
a.o. to support the smart city concept? Do we need to do more to get a deeper understanding
about the different agendas of the stakeholders involved especially the agenda of the private
sectors to avoid the degradation of our roles of planner and architects as securing agents of public
interest to implementation agencies of the multinational private corporations.

Other contradiction is between hope and reality ’Good Governance’. So much hope in the change
from corrupt to clean government but in the reality even a clean government cannot do anything
because some of the strategic decision already taken before and the restructuring process of the
city for example in the dominant role of private sector, could not be reversed. Some upgrading
programs were already implemented with the result that the area became attractive for the
private developer and after that a process of gentrification was taking place and the original
population was marginalized.adition nr.2: To meet the need of the market by participation of the
Citizen?

Smart city has the aim to enhance quality and performance of urban services, i.e. in engaging
more effectively and actively its citizens in particular the private sector. The positive reaction of
the “non-profit” private sectors i.e. in Indonesia is huge, motivated by the need to have a better
quality of urban services. Examples in Education sector and Health care have shown that the
involvement of the private sectors has on one side successfully increase the number of schools
and hospitals but in the same time has created 2 classes of society. To the first class belong
inhabitants who can effort to send their children to private school or to go to private hospital to
get a better health services. To the second class belongs the majority of the population, who have
to send their children to government school and to second class hospitals to get the health
services.

Contradiction Nr.3: Who control the contents of the digital information?

Who will have the benefits of the improvement of the urban flows through applications of
technologies & ICT? In this case improving urban flows means to overcome the distortions. In

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many cases the distortions are resulted through resistance of the old-traditional urban system
against the transformation, because the old system is still relevant for the majority of the
inhabitants. The improving urban flows should help the producers and service providers to meet
the demands of the market (read: the citizens of the city). But the demands are created and
directed through very strong influence from big corporation through their promotion programs.
Even the mass media is sometime helpless against the campaign of the corporation.

A long example can be the proof of these “manipulation” start with entertainment sector (no
chance for non-Hollywood films), continue with tourism sector (which destination to go, which
hotels to stay), and end with substitutions of mother milk through formula milk, fruits from
farmers in hinterland with products from modern fruits plantation or imported fruits. Beside the
global players some of the local producers are maybe able to catch up with the new free market
system. But most of the existing traditional small and middle size enterprises does not have the
chance to compete with the big corporation.

Contradiction Nr.4: Between Elaborating Individuality versus Human Co-existence

The ideology of (Global) capitalism is to elaborate the individual character of human being. City
should guarantee the individual human right, such as intellectual right and property right. In
regard to maximization the individual performance and to achieve higher efficiency in productive
activities or in using of resources included space, the urban life must be standardized and
regulated. The technical and the economic scale of design have the more dominant position than
the human scale. But to develop city as a place of human-coexistence we need another kind of
right, we need to guarantee a community right, not only in term of property right but right to
have space in the city where community can elaborate their interpretation of urban life. The
regulation should not only motivated to promote productive activities but also to support
cultural and social life in urban area. Also communication should not one-sided use to support
innovative process but also to increase the social solidarity between the peoples. In what he called
as ‘asset-based development’ Friedmann suggested that the productive activities should not
directed to create individual properties but to increase the wealth of cities as a communal assets.
ic Dilemma of Ur
The application of concept it creates not only positive impacts but in many cases also negative
impacts which are contradictive with the origin objectives. This happens partly because the
approaches are coming from the need “what should be done” to overcome the distortions in the
process of expansion of free market and global organized economic system. The approach is not
start from the potentials of the existing city. In this case city is understand not as a subject but as
of an object of superior (national, global) agenda. In application of upgrading program to increase
the living environment of in vulnerable or substandard urban area the government provided the
area with green spaces and amenities. Here urban environmental improvements, urban
greeneries, and smart growth projects are intertwined with processes of inequalities,
gentrification, exclusion (soft eviction).

The Adaptation

In order to increase the motivation of the inhabitants of illegal settlements to upgrade their
houses many city governments have the program of “titling”(land certification) with the result
that the land price in that area is increasing so rapid that finally the origin population were more
attracted to sell their land to the land speculator.

Basically there are at least two different positions on urban poverty: The first position insist that
the cities have to have enough economic growths and a better system of wealth distribution than
the urban poverty can be overcome. The first position believes that the city and national
government are playing a central role to overcome the urban poverty. In able to end the poverty
and to free the city from slums we need economic growth. A strong clean government is needed
to be able to distribute the urban resources in more equitable ways and upgrade the cities as
provider of social services. We need more or less an authoritarian regime.

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The second position understand that the urban poverty is the result of an unbalance structure of
power, and as long as all the important resources we need to create (economic) growth, i.e.
capital, high quality human resource and knowledge & technology are in the hand of few superior
countries, than urban poverty will be continue reproduce in the other parts of the world, which
doesn’t have those important resources. The second position says that the dimension of urban
property is that big so that no city even if their governments are clean and willing to give their
best efforts, they will not able to make the slums disappear from their cities. Because they simply
does not have the required resources, and they don’t have the economic and political power to
mobilize the resources they need.

The key to city without slum is in the hand of the peoples itself, in their capability to mobilize and
increase their human potentials. These human capitals can be elaborate if the people organized in
communities have the right to self-determination, because only these peoples are able to develop
appropriate solution in regards to their specific situation. The role of the city government is mainly
to enabling the peoples and to facilitate them to come to their right. In short, if they can self-
define what kind of urban way of life they want to develop they will provide themselves with the
local-specific knowledge to develop an urban system which enabling them to fight the poverty and
to have a better life.

Towards A Better understanding of city

City is older than nation, much older, because in fact city was borned in the same time with the
civilization: all civilization is the urban civilization (Soja). The urban way of life, the value system
was developed by the inhabitants to create city as a place of human coexistence with the
common goal to achieve a better life. Today we are facing the end of the concept city as a human
habitat, because in the global city the inhabitants are actually only object of the restructuring
process. The city was “hijacked” from its inhabitants and now became an object of expanding
global market.

The agenda of the global market economy is in many cases contrary with the interest of the
inhabitants. Some of peoples believe that peoples participation (participative democracy not
representative democracy) is the key to overcome this dilemma. Can we embrace the
globalization and in the same time develop the intrinsic characters of each city. Can we apply the
universal technology and in the same time promoting the actualization of local knowledge? Can
we develop a city with these goals?

Bandung the 17th of September 2015

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