Spaces & Flows: Ninth International Conference on Urban and ExtraUrban Studies

Abstract

Accelerating economic growth in Indonesia has led to rapid growth in urbanization and motorization that empirically engenders an unsustainable development. It is believed that integrated spatial and transport planning process plays an important role to develop more sustainable transport development. Nevertheless, it is less considered in the planning practice in Indonesia. Therefore, knowledge transfer between Indonesia and the best practice in a developed country may facilitate to foster the understanding of how to achieve a more sustainable development. This paper investigates the possibility of knowledge transfer from Germany’s strategies in promoting sustainable spatial and transport planning to Indonesian strategic planning in the current situation. Germany has been chosen as the best practice of developed country because, despite its rapid growth of motorization, this country has been successful in creating a sustainability of the transportation system through its integrated planning system. The analysis examines the spatial and transport planning systems and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of those systems in both countries. This study highlights some lessons in particular, that seems likely to be necessary for the improvement of spatial and transport planning process in Indonesia: reciprocal planning and strategies coordination between all government levels and related institutions, formal appraisal method to determine the transport infrastructure development priorities; improvement of public participation in preparing the spatial and transport plans; and changing the urban development paradigm from car-oriented development to transit-oriented development. Eventually, this study promotes valuable measures based on insight from Germany’s experiences for a better planning practice not only for Indonesia but also for other developing, emerging, and perhaps developed countries.