Urban development in a decentralized Indonesia: Two success stories?

Abstract

The year 2011 marked the tenth anniversary of the implementation of Indonesia's regional autonomy laws. This paper considers implications of more than a decade of decentralized governance for urban development in Indonesia. After a brief historical overview and consideration of the rationale for political and administrative decentralization in that national context, we examine a range of critical perspectives on policy outcomes. Both media coverage and academic analyses have overwhelmingly cast decentralized governance as it has been implemented in Indonesia in a negative light. As a corrective to this, we have sought to identify positive outcomes and possibilities associated with Indonesia'..