Success in Indonesia! An Advocacy towards Better Planning

by Devisari Tunas, 20.06.2019
Training session in UNHAS Makassar (photo credit: Future Cities Laboratory)

With growing urban complexity, the Indonesian government has been developing strategies to improve the quality of local spatial planning. However, until now, spatial planning decisions have been largely based on perceived needs, instead of based in evidence and data.

In the past two years, the Singapore-ETH Centre’s Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) has been co-designing and piloting a planning-support tool in four Indonesian cities: Bandung, Semarang, Palembang, and Makassar. With the support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Swiss Secretariat of Economic Affairs (SECO), the FCL is working with the local Indonesian government to strengthen its local planning capability.

The planning-support tool, known as ‘ur-scape’, was developed by the Urban-Rural Systems group in the FCL to improve the planning process by leveraging technology for more evidence-based decision-making. The tool visualises diverse data sets by integrating different layers of data to help planners answer questions such as:

• Which areas need to be prioritised in terms of water provision?
• Which areas are the most vulnerable to flooding in relation to density and drainage condition?
• Which locations are the most suitable for future housing allocation?

Such questions help planners to identify “sweet spots” and “stress points” within a city, which help them to allocate appropriate land uses, as well as plan for infrastructure and public amenity provisions.
Handing over ur-scape to Ridwan Kamil the former mayor of Bandung (photo credit: Future Cities Laboratory)
Piloting the tool in four cities presented a challenging yet an exciting journey for me and my team. No two cities are the same. One city may struggle with flooding, while the other with traffic or slums. Furthermore, the point of entry, the implementing agencies, level of enthusiasm, and labour capacities differ from city to city. In each city, we needed to consider local priorities, governance setup, stakeholders, planning processes, and the data landscape in order to devise specific plans and customise the tool accordingly. In short, we co-designed the tool together with the city.

We soon learned that piloting ur-scape was not only about testing the software and providing technical training to the locals but also an advocacy towards more responsible and responsive planning among the local stakeholders.

We learned that we needed local champions within the municipal government that believed in the benefits of the initiative. Our champions helped to convince local stakeholders to support the tool’s implementation and eventually they will help to sustain it. Once we gained their support, we needed consistent and persistent engagement to maintain a working relationship, which required a lot of time and effort for our team.

Working with the right local partners to execute the project was key to the success of the project, as it would have been difficult to carry the project through as a foreign organisation. Our partners played an important role in identifying local priorities, stakeholders, and facilitating closer engagement with the local government. We were fortunate to have good partners in each city. They came, typically, from local universities and start-ups.
Finally, we also made a point of establishing a network of local community of practice, such as the city planning association, schools, and NGOs who supported our mission. While developing such community took extra effort and time, we found it essential for the continuity of the practice, further development of the tool, and eventually, supporting the local government towards better planning.
Training session in UNDIP Semarang (photo credit: Future Cities Laboratory)
Training session in UNDIP Semarang (photo credit: Future Cities Laboratory)
Training session with Palembang Municipal staff (photo credit: Future Cities Laboratory)
Communicating ur-scape to planning stakeholders (photo credit: Future Cities Laboratory)
Installing urscape in Bandung Command Centre (photo credit: Future Cities Laboratory)
Prof. Cairns presenting urscape to Indonesian Director of Spatial Planning (photo credit: Future Future Cities Laboratory)
Project Coordinator Rosita Samsudin briefing the municipal government in Palembang (photo credit: Future Cities Laboratory)
Teaching students the importance of evidence-based planning in UNHAS Makassar (photo credit: Future Cities Laboratory)
Training session in Palembang 2 (photo credit: Future Cities Laboratory)

About the author

Dr. Devisari Tunas is the co-leader of ADB and SECO funded “Strengthening Planning Capacity in Four Cities in Indonesia”. She was trained as an architect and in urban planning at KU Leuven and TU Delft. She is currently the scenario research leader for Archipelago Cities in Future Cities Laboratory, Singapore-ETH Centre, and the principle investigator of “Translating Smart Cities and Urban Governance” project (Intra-CREATE Project).