| Abstract | Owing to overpopulation in the agricultural sectors and difficulties in developing new l and for agricultural development purposes, the urban sectors in the island of Java could play more important roles and functions in the future in order to accommodate people living on the island. ever, the island is facing two main problems of urban development. first is an unbalanced growth between the large and the small cities. How
The small cities cannot perform their roles and functions effectively, since The
the large cities dominate the performance of urban functions in the island. The large cities are growing considerably faster than the smaller ones, as the urban economic activities and facilities are concentrated in the large
cities, and the cities tend to be "parasitic" and "negative" to Javanese regional development as a whole, or even to national development. The other is the problems faced by the large cities, such as urban unemployment, housing shortage, deterioration of physical urban environment, lack of urban services, traffic congestion, etc. These problems are primarily due to high population increase in the cities, most of which is caused by a
massive population influx from rural areas and small cities into the cities.
In order to cope with these problems, the government has launched several programmes, such as Kampong (slums ) improvement programmes, closed city regulation metropolitan development schemes, etc. However, in the
long run, the programmes seem to be futile, since they are not formulated in the context of a comprehensive policy for urban development on the island
as a whole.
The main objective of this study is to formulate on urban development policy for the is land, which could be guideline for urban development in
the future. In addition, this study also tries to make a review and evaluation of the policies which have been adopted so far by the government, in order to attack the problems of urban development in the island, and subsequently to recommend several courses of action to be taken, on t he basis of the review and evaluation.
In this respect, there are two basic studies which are performed. The first one is the study of patterns, processes and consequences of urbanization in Java, and the second one is the study of latent dimensions of urban areas in Java. On the basis of those studies, a regional policy for urban development in the is land of Java is formulated.
The policy basically emphasizes a decentralization of urban economic activities and facilities and government services from the large to the smaller cities, with the main purpose of activating the roles and functions of the cities with a population of between 20,000 and 250,000, so that the
development of urban areas in the island can be spatially and economically integrated. It is primarily based on the results of analysis showing that most of the cities are classified as the slowly growing cities, as they
cannot form their roles and functions effectively.
As well as showing that there are two basic dimensions of urban areas in Java, namely urban economic activities and facilities and governmental
services, the result of factor analysis also suggests that the cities . located in quadrants 2 and 3 formed on the basis of factor I (urban economic
activities and facilities) and factor II (governmental services) across should get higher priority for development as these cities have the lowest degree in those dimensions. Finally, the analysis of economic structure of urban areas in the island leads to the conclusion that in order to activate the roles and
functions of the cities, those with a population of between 50,000 and 250,000 should be developed with a main function as manufacturing centres,
whereas the cities with a population of between 20,000 and 50,000 should be
developed with a main function as market (services) centres playing a role as the link between rural areas and the middle cities and the large cities,
as all the cities could be performing those functions efficiently and effectively.
In addition, it should also be noted that the large cities
will perform their function as centres of advanced tertiary services. |