"This comprehensive collection draws issues and materials from a whole range of Indonesian cities – from the micro to the mega – making it a definitive one-volume source on the urban conditions of the largest archipelago in the world. It takes on the urgent task of defining the diverse urban conditions of contemporary Indonesia and challenges in planning context. It gathers an extraordinary cast of contributors from Indonesia and international urban scholars to present a panoramic view of historical, theoretical and empirical accounts of Indonesian cities, with implications for the study of urbanization and urban planning the world over. I congratulate Sonia Roitman and Deden Rukmana for bringing to us an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the dynamics of urban change in Indonesia and beyond."-Abidin Kusno, York University, Canada"Writing from cities large and small, from the academy and beyond, and across the Indonesian archipelago, the studies in this book go beyond a review of urban planning in Indonesia; they provide novel insights into the contemporary Southern urban condition. Most importantly, the book decenters professional urban planning by highlighting the multiple ways that grassroots movements, NGOs and ordinary urban residents are struggling for and contributing to the creation of more just and sustainable cities." -Helga Leitner, UCLA, United States of AmericaThis book is authoritative and representative. It doesn’t only help us see how urbanization works in Indonesia but also shows to the world how Indonesia sees urbanization works. From informality to creativity, from history to sustainability, the book doesn’t miss an aspect of how Indonesia uniquely contributes to the global understanding of urbanization. -Delik Hudalah, Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia"I would make this volume essential reading for every urban student on the planet. The world is completing its one-time phase-shift from ~0% urbanisation to approaching 100%, a transition made over just 0.15% of human history, and it is time to relocate the dominant narrative of this process from west to east. This handbook presents intelligent commentary and case-studies of all the truly important planning challenges now facing the majority of the world’s urban peoples. Informality, environmental degradation, disaster-planning, inequality and growth, the distribution of governance powers between centre and local, urban renewal, heritage, basic infrastructure, and more. The Chinese experiment has led the way in shifting focus from the old urban world. It is high time that Southeast Asia’s massive successes in urban-led poverty reduction, economic and social advancement, and governmental modernisation were told. What better country to deliver this than the World’s 4th most populous? This book will help reshape this century’s planning debates."-Chris Webster, Hong Kong University"To the world of academic urbanists beyond Southeast Asia, Indonesia is known largely through studies of its metropolitan centre, Jakarta, and surrounding desakota landscapes. The main exceptions to this metrocentricity in recent decades concern provincial cities that have attracted attention either through having been stricken by natural disaster, or as sites of "best practice" in the era of regional autonomy. But the Indonesian archipelago encompasses a diverse array of towns, cities and urbanisms. Roitman and Rukmana have assembled a long-overdue volume that begins to do justice to this urban diversity. They bring critical postcolonial planning perspectives to bear on 19 cities, including several that have never featured in the Anglophone urban studies literature, and remained "off the map" of urban planning discussions. Even more significantly, this skilfully-curated handbook compels and enables us to revisit planning theory and practice from urbanizing Indonesia."-Tim Bunnell, National University of Singapore
