In the past three decades, private real estate projects have proliferated across the Jakarta metropolitan region, with new towns in the outskirts of the city, superblocks in the city center, and land reclamations on the northern coast. This dissertation examines the roles of private real estate developers and government planning agencies in the transformation of Jakarta through real estate development, and how this development reshaped not only urban space, but also urban governance. I argue that national planning institutions in Indonesia promoted the rise of a capitalist real estate sector in Jakarta, but doing so, they tied urban planning and development inexorably to private growth in spatially discrete enclaves. The government promoted private real estate to grow the economy and also to improve the city’s infrastructure and urban space. Planning agencies relied on the private real estate industry to provide public goods—to improve the urban environment, to provide public space, and to add infrastructures like electricity, water, roads, and even a seawall to address flooding. However, private development also led to a fragmented urban system, the proliferation of elite enclaves and disjointed infrastructure, a city of islands. This research spans two eras, from 1988 to 1998, the final decade of Suharto’s authoritarian government, and the subsequent democratic era, from the 2000s to the present. The private real estate sector first emerged in the late 1980s under the authoritarian government of Suharto, when the government liberalized the economy and promoted the rapid growth of an urban land market. Development slowed during the Asian Financial Crisis, but it began again in the mid-2000s and boomed throughout the following decade. In spite of the reforms associated with democratization and anti-corruption reform, private real estate development continues to be a complicated problem for the city and national governments. National planning agencies have attempted to construct a coordinated and transparent development planning system, particularly through a mechanism that requires development firms to contribute specific elements to the city’s infrastructure projects in exchange for development rights. However, planning agencies still struggle to coordinate across a wide range of agencies at multiple scales of government, and also to reconcile the goals of growth with transparent regulation in a way that serves the public. Despite a growing economy and improvements in the city’s infrastructure, private real estate development continues to exacerbate the city’s island geography.
