Sustaining from the remains

Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

Aryani Sari Rahmanti . s0205783 H0203a . Project Management and Development . Johan Van Reeth . Bruno De Meulder MaHS . MaUSP . EMU . Autumn 2011 . ASRO . KU Leuven

Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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Abstract

Formerly established as the capital of Javanese monarchy and gradually evolving as a tertiary city in Central Java, Surakarta (also widely known as Solo) possesses a fierce image for its historical and cultural characteristics. However, at the same time, the city encounters crucial urban challenges of socio-economic welfare inequality, depraving built environment, rapid urbanization, and an identity crisis, particularly after the rise of neoliberalism age in the late 1980s. Unprepared with the worsened circumstances, particularly after the 1998 devastating city riot, no concrete action from an urban development agenda was undertaken until the revitalization urban project was carried out in 2005 with focus on urban remains spatial character regenerations, local economic recovery, and protection of its cultural identity. From the beginning of the initiation phase, the project was performed upon participations between multilevel institutions and actors retracing the local aspects of cultural, historic, and economic legacy as the real assets that the city inherits.

With an aim of sustaining Surakarta within the present and future urbanization dynamics, the community based urban revitalization project within the city historic districts, ‘Surakarta in the Past is Surakarta in the Future’, was inaugurated. The paper addresses the significance, development, and management of an urban project in response to the contextual challenges and potentials, demonstrated by a case study of community based urban revitalization project within the historic quarters and civic spaces of Surakarta. Relevant literature overview and contextual background are provided in the first two parts of the paper to construct a coherent understanding toward the contemporary urban challenges in Indonesian cities and the necessity of (strategic) urban project(s) development. The second part of the paper explains the background of the project with a complete investigation on the project’s background, initiatives, consultation and realization, management, monitoring, and immediate impacts. Notions of recommendations and conclusive remarks are presented as the last part of the paper.

Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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Content

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Abstract

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Introduction

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Portraying Surakarta: A Cultural Community

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The Trapezium Revitalization Urban Project: Identity, Economy, and Cultural Restoration

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3.1

Signals of Social and Economy Challenges

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3.2

Reflecting from the national tragedy and public initiatives emergence

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3.3

Former Foundational Development Frameworks and Policies

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3.4

Planning to Post Project with Consultative Mechanisms

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Rethinking the Projects

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Concluding Remarks

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Bibliography

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Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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Introduction

When viewed from a macro scale, the development approaches, strategies, practices, and management of urban projects after the late 1940s (post war) in the developing countries is understood to diverse over times accordingly to the contexts, different conception of the role of the cities, and the associated types of state and market (Burgess, Carmona, 2001). The rise of neoliberalism period in 1980s 1, indicated with the rapid technological development in transportation, communication, and computerization in a global scale, demands rapid acceleration for the globalization processes (Burgess, Carmona, 2001). In an urban scale perspective, the impacts of neoliberalism can be observed as the absolute demand of the urban areas to function efficiently and productively. Therefore, the policy in urban planning and governance implements a decentralized system with more involvement from planning institutions and participation. In terms of economy, neoliberalism as well exposes a market driven economy approach and developments, giving maximum access to the private sectors to play more roles in urban economy and development. The conceptual development of architecture and urban planning or design during this period is prioritized to the profitable projects to facilitate the homogenized global consumer culture (Burgess, Carmona, 2001).

In Indonesian major cities, the neoliberalism movement has been giving conflicting major social and spatial implications to the cities. The first threat is the augmentation of the imbalanced social welfare due to the investment dominance from the private sectors. The second challenge is the abandonment of the inner city of the historic areas as they are perceived as urban artifacts without a capacity to be substantially incorporated

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The paper starts with global and contextual introduction since neoliberalism era, as Indonesia reached its economy and political

stability since beginning of the1980s. Particularly in the major cities, this stability was followed by significant spatial developments.

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within the development framework. The third challenge is the loss of the genuine identity of the cities due to this inner city marginalization and homogenic development fashion. As most of Indonesian cities are not prepared to anticipate these challenges, the question of how the cities can sustain with all of the socioeconomy and spatial complications has been remaining as the main task to unravel in contemporary urbanization issues.

This is starting the point where the role a strategic urban project is essential. In the development of the city, [strategic] urban projects should play the main role as an action to change something and (re)organizes discontinuities. Strategic projects have lasting effects that alleviate urban needs, deal with problematic and are collectively experienced and evaluated. A project realizes things, small and large, concretely (De Meulder et al, 2004). An urban project must be developed under considerations of its capacity to change its urban reality fundamentally and durably, touching the most crucial issue and essentiality of the city’s characteristics.

Secondly, the project is a mediator. It has the capacity to bridge the involved multi actors and actions. The spatial role of the urban projects is to stem the gaps and anomalies within the built environment, whether they are missing, decaying, missing, divided urban functions and the coexistence of contradictory or opposing elements. Thirdly, a strategic urban project involves the feasibility, visibility, and innovation. The meaning of a feasible project is associated with intermediate scale, the suitability with the existing policy, and the affordability to optimally develop the capacity and potentials of a city. Innovation of a strategic urban project reflects to the creativity to avoid the grey area of round consultation and participation process. Furthermore, an urban project displays its ability to change the perception and to uplift the image of the city. It is an indicator of future development, a retrieval of the real identity of the city (De Meulder et al, 2004).

As one of the tertiary cities in Indonesia, the economy and social tensions in Surakarta were also biased by the national and global scale situations and changes. Flourished as the center of Javanese civilization and the Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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capital of the great monarchial Mataram kingdom, Surakarta counteracts the challenge to survive with its degrading spatial and socio economy conditions and the identity confusion since the late 1990s. It was not until six years ago, after the riot in the city followed by National Revolution in 1998, did the city start to re-envision its future by incorporating social and economy sectors instead of the physical development alone. Returning to the former and original identity as a city with cultural and historical treasures, the city started a project of community based urban revitalization in the historic areas where most of the problems were collectively found.

Parts of the big project that are run under the major project are taken as project exemplars: the city’s historical axis reorganization, slums relocation from the public open spaces, and reactivation of the old home industry villages, which weighed to the needs of the community, promoting a different approach to encourage effective participations from multi actors, regular evaluations, and ‘learning by doing’ realization, are considered to be the foremost interesting grounds on how the project is viewed from development and management perspectives.

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Portraying Surakarta: A Cultural Community

Located in the heart of Java Island, Surakarta was originated from an agricultural colony amongst the lush geological settings of Bengawan River basin and low plateau between two volcanoes which ground is expanding as an urbanized territory (Fig. 1). As the tertiary city in Central Java province, the city homes approximately 600,400 inhabitants distributed within its five districts; with an overall area of 44 sqkm 2. As

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Statistical source: www.bps.go.id, last consulted on 25 January 2011

Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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Surakarta is strategically positioned within the major regional trajectories of vehicle and rail infrastructures, the city becomes one of rural community migration destinations and has started to be rapidly densified.

Through times, Surakarta is found as a city to possess the richness of Javanese culture due to the lasting history as the capital of Mataram, a powerful ancient Javanese kingdom in the late 17th C. The inheritance of Javanese tradition is still vividly reflected through daily social life and sacred rituals of local inhabitants. In addition to the societal culture, the material traces of pre-colonial and colonial architecture remain still in the city’s built environment. Surakarta palace complex, the oldest monarchial core of the city constructed based on north-south cosmological axis and the west-east linear street once used as a secret runaway alleyway before its function was converted to a shopping street, enduringly resides for more than two centuries as a precolonial urban piece although they were urged to receive activities and physical transformation. The second palace of Pura Mangkunegara, when Surakarta was lead by two local powers as a result of the colonization politic implementation by the Dutch in the 18th C, had survived in the north part of the city although with existing within deprived environment condition. Linking the two palaces is the west-east major city axis renowned as Slamet Riyadi Street, which was built by the Dutch as a border separating the two kingdoms. The Vastenburg colonial fortress, which is situated between the palaces and was formerly constructed as Dutch political base to control the hostile attitudes between the two nepotistic powers, exists as abandoned ruins. These historic areas of the pre-colonial and colonial scraps, the cosmological axis, political border, and three nuclei, which are visible as a trapezium geometry, has been visibly lingering and referred as the structural skeleton of present Surakarta city which entire region envelopes almost precisely as the earlier area in the colonial age (Fig. 1).

In the beginning and along the west-east main axis Slamet Riyadi Street are the palaces gardens accessible to public and open public spaces often used as open air theaters for folk art performances. As the cultural Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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identity was the strong image of the city, Surakarta benefits from the tourism and service as economic resources. The city was as well profited from its branded product ‘batik’, the Javanese traditional cloths using manual waxing-dying techniques. Owing to its complex production process, Batik was exquisitely made and popular amongst the high class society and the home business of batik tremendously thrived around 1870s.

The batik villages were important urban characteristics of Surakarta but, regrettably, many of them were massively inactive as neglected urban patch caused by the low market demand and high competition from

Fig. 1 Region of Surakarta city Various source, redrawn by author a Keraton Surakarta b Pura Mangkunegara c Vastenburg Fort d Laweyan batik village

another fashion garments.

e Slamet Riyadi Street f Surakarta National Monument

Bengawan river

e f d

b c a

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The Trapezium Revitalization Urban Project: the Identity, Economy, and Cultural Restoration

3.1

Signals of Social and Economy Challenges

The real challenge of Surakarta began in the late of 1980s when the global economy situation drastically swayed the national and local policy to turn to a different direction of economy development by prioritizing market oriented development and private business sector, which put Surakarta to be in the crossroads of identityconfusion between cultural or trading city (Susilo, 2005). The spatial impact of the economy globalization was manifested through the unplanned and chaotic development, public spaces privatization, and the neglection of the city’s urban heritage as they were perceived as ‘unproductive’ urban remnants without significant profit return. The aggravation of this situation was marked with the private investment dominance that gave rise to the social gap revealed with the creation of poor urban communities in the city. As a strategy to survive, this majority but marginalized community established their own alternative informal economy and built illegal settlements within the area of historic districts. The economy and social crisis was in the worst phase when the city riot happened prior to the National Revolution in 19983, destructing vastly the area within the main axis of Surakarta.

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Reflecting on the national tragedy and public initiatives emergence

With its physical and socio-economy problems, the portrayal of Surakarta in the future with its complexity of augmented welfare gap, dominance of market oriented development, misplaced identity, and the degrading spatial quality had remained as the city’s main challenge. Reacting to this condition, during the political 3

Starting from 1997, Indonesia has been hit by Asian financial crisis which also exposed the incredible corruption of the former political

regime (Suharto). The economy instability and the wealth imbalance had caused riots happening from major to tertiary levels of cities in Indonesia, including Surakarta. The revolution demands optimal democracy, transparent governance, and equity or balance of social welfare.

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situation stabilization, a group of local historians, anthropologists, and academic representatives gathered to form a voluntary association to instigate an investigation toward physical and socio-economy urban challenges in Surakarta, especially related the destructive riot incident in 1998 mostly targeted on the commercial buildings and the city hall of Surakarta within the historic areas. Accordingly to the Surakarta Heritage Society, the demonstration and city chaos incident was a radical expression of the inhabitants for their fear that Surakarta as their place of belonging was taken over from them. Furthermore, the riot was a medium for the marginalized community to state their disagreement over the market driven policy development as they were politically limited in the participation and democracy system (Susilo, 2005). Therefore, with the three background of restoring Surakarta’s original identity as the home of Javanese culture and history, compensating the private sectoral developments with local public or community investments, and repairing the damaged and decaying historic areas, they realized that the future Surakarta could only be sustained by returning to its genuine asset which is the strong traditional culture and the history richness. Understanding that Surakarta needed an urgent action, representatives of the association arranged a consultation with local authority institution, City Development Planning Board (Bappeko), to communicate their aspirations which carried a positive response to further examine Surakarta’s social and built environments, delivering an inventory of local aspects identification to seek the potentials that would give considerable roles to improve social and physical condition in Surakarta.

3.3

Former Foundational Development Frameworks and Policies

Prior to the revitalization project realization, development framework was actually had been formulated by the previous governance regimes, but without materialization. The vision of Surakarta as the ‘city of culture’, supported by main programs and activities of trade, service, education, tourism, and sports, was acknowledged in 2003 by the government authorities by the issuance of Organizational Urban Development

Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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Framework (POLDAS) and Local Urban Development Program (PROPERDA), with legal basis on the Municipality Regulation (Perda) (Fig. 2), which objectives as follow, - renewal of partnership and the stakeholder participation in development - quality improvement of the local human resources - regional economic sectors empowerment, and - policy and regulation reconsideration (Perda Surakarta or Surakarta Municipality Regulation, 2003).

The Local Development Framework (POLDAS 2003-2008) was the fundamental development guideline of Surakarta city which primary development strategy was to preserve Javanese culture as tourism assets (Municipality Regulation, Perda Surakarta No.6/2003). The first development policy of POLDAS 2003-2008 was narrowed as an implementation

document,

Local

Urban

Development

Program

(PROPERDA), with more focus to emphasize programs of culture and tourism with following proposals, - increasing the cultural and conservation appreciation - local tourism promotional program - facility and infrastructure improvement within the touristic places (Municipality Regulation, Perda Surakarta No.12/2003)

In addition, all of the policies and urban development frameworks issued in 2003 were based on the long term spatial planning program of General City Spatial Plan (RUTRK) 1993-2013, focusing two themes of,

Fig. 2 Organizational frameworks for development policies Source: Agustiananda, 2005

1. Urban physical development program aiming at following issues, - spatial restructuring of the city Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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- city identity restatement as the center of Central Javanese culture - relocating the illegal settlements or spatial usage in the city’s strategic areas by reinvestigating the land use, and, 2. Culture and tourism promotion by operating and give activities/ programs in the historic or new built environments.

Under the RURTK 1993-2013, different institutions were involved to make inventarization research of Surakarta’s urban heritage by measuring the historic buildings and sites in Surakarta, - First joint research between Central Java Regional Planning Board (Bappeda) and UNDIP (Surakarta Diponegoro University) for local heritage and cultural property delivered an inventory report and conservation recommendation in 1989 - Second joint research in 1995 between Bappeda and UNS (University of Sebelas Maret Surakarta) for an inventory report on heritage sites of Surakarta.

The inventory research attempts approached with different analysis methodologies were consented by the higher level of conservation and preservation Laws and Regulation of Cultural Heritage Policy MO 238/1931 and National Law of cultural property UU No.5/1992.

However, the National Revolution 1998 brought about stagnated condition in the city due to the transitional phase of Indonesian political regimes, governance system re-establishment from centralization to decentralization, and recovery attempts of the economy condition. Furthermore, the General City Spatial Plan (RUTRK) could not be undertaken due to the incomprehensive and unsystematic coordination among the local authority bodies themselves. Seven years later, under the governance of the new mayor, Joko Widodo, the

Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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first realization of the revitalization plan of the economic improvement, public open spaces, and historic districts was inaugurated in the city, with the slogan ‘Surakarta in the future is Surakarta in the past’.

3.4

Planning to Realization with consultative mechanisms

Planned as a medium term project, the revitalization project started in 2005 has been performing in stages until present. Unlike urban planning and development in the other Indonesian cities, Surakarta revitalization project encourages participations and consultation mechanisms from between the local authorities, consultant, related organizations, and the local people (Fig.3), from initiation, planning, realization, and post project evaluation stages. The ‘masterplan’ is flexible and adjustable with the needs of the local communities, which is another strength that the project has.

After the initiation from the local voluntary association to the City Planning Board (Bappeko), the local authority arranged socialization and consultation with the local people. Several representative societies (such as the Laweyan batik community, Street Vendor Association Asparindo, etc) were naturally established by local people. Dialogues between the planning authorities and the societies called for NGOs and GTZ as consultant to bridge the two parties. The first voluntary association formerly initiating the revitalization project was monitoring the public dialogues and the city mayor was directly involved in each process of project initiation to evaluation phases (Fig. 3).

The involvement from five different parties constantly performing for the project realization for the past five years was as well integrating the project financing, which in this case was divided between six stakeholders: National Development Budget and Finance (APBN), Regional/Provincial Development Budget and Finance (APBD), Municipal/ City Development Budget and Financing (APBK), private sectors, the local people themselves (self-supporting basis), and foreign loans or grants.

Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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The urban project is dealing with three main issues in Surakarta: physical, social, and cultural revitalization.

According to the research and public discussions, the main problem in Surakarta city was the increasing numbers of illegal street vendors or street markets in the urban heritage areas, the informal settlements in the

Fig. 3 Development process from initiation to evaluation or post production stages

public open spaces (the palace gardens), mushrooming commercial buildings close the historical buildings (the palaces), and the interest decrease on the local or traditional markets or industries. The first step of the project was the open spaces, followed by economic revitalization.

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The revitalization project was conducted in different strategic sites within the historic areas. The following three examples of the local projects as parts of the entire project agenda illustrate how they are organized and managed (Fig. 4).

Surakarta City Walk: Street and Pedestrian Path Reorganization

Slamet Riyadi Street was an important axis of the city where most of the historical and cultural buildings and open spaces are attached to. This 25 m 4 lanes street functions as both local and regional access and point of entrance to the city.

2 1

Before the urban revitalization project was commenced in 2005, the street was a lively

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public corridor already, but had lost its quality due to unplanned and individual commercial projects, unorganized car parking, the increasing accumulation

of

the

street vendors

2

which

occupied the slow vehicles lanes and pedestrian paths. The street as well suffered from traffic congestion form the movement of the vehicles and the regional trains. Some areas and

Fig. 4 Examples of local projects of Surakarta Revitalization project 1 2 3

Surakarta City Walk in Slamet Riyadi Street Pasar Kliwon Local Market Relocation Laweyan Batik Village

Various source redrawn by author Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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buildings along the street were dreadfully destructed during the 1998 city riot. The project was planned to be 5 km long by transforming one of the street slow lane next to the railway to a pedestrian path, where the street vendors would be relocated. Following the general procedure of public hearing and consultation, the project was firstly implemented in one segment of the street as a testing study. After found to be successful, with evaluation and public hearing, the project continued in the whole length of Slamet Riyadi Street. After the completion of the project, evaluation was maintained and the project was monitored. To keep the project area animated, complementary programs engaging people involvement were added, such as Car Free Day every Sunday morning, Night Street Life every weekend, or annual Solo Batik Carnival 4 (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5 The revitalization of pedestrian and street reorganization which realized gradually (above) Slamet Riyadi Street after parking, street vendors, and pedestrian circulation reorganization (below) Source: Agustinanda, 2009; Susilo, 2007

Former street condition

Present street condition for Surakarta City Walk for street life culture: street was narrowed for street vendors relocation of, parking, and pedestrian path

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Batik carnival is an annual festival taking place in Slamet Riyadi street since 2006. The carnival heavily recovered the production of the batik in the batik home industry villages and, thus, the Slamet Riyadi City walk has fused with the other local project to simultaneously support the big revitalization prject.

Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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Public Open Space Retrieval and Local Market Relocation

Immediately after the economic crises and national reformation in 1998, the numbers of illegal settlements and street vendors were drastically multiplied within the city. Around Surakarta National Monument area were urban poor community settled illegally within their vendors of second handed items. Before the relocation project was started, together with the voluntary association, NGOs, and GIZ, the authority carefully held a consistent meeting with the representatives of the local societies and local people to socialize and to communicate the relocation plan in order to return this area as a public domain. After the agreement over the negotiation, the illegal vendors were relocated to a new market building owned by the government, next to an empty site that was reserved as a social housing area should the welfare of the community improved. Before the relocation was commenced, the local authority had extended the infrastructure and transportation network to link the new market area with the city center axis (Slamet Riyadi Street) and introduced the new market site through forceful public advertisements. To relocate the settlements, instead of radically demolished the old settlements and forced the people to move to the new area, the local authority used cultural method when approaching

Fig. 6 Location of the National Monument park (above) which was occupied with illegal vendors and settlements Images before and after the project execution (left below) Source: Agustinanda, 2009; Susilo, 2007

the local people. The relocation process was carried out ritual processions and street parade (Fig. 6).

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Reinvigorating Batik Home Industries in Laweyan Village

Situated in the west side – end point of the colonial axis, Laweyan village has already been existed since 15th C as a village with trading and mercantile activities for cloths and yarn. Flourished with traditional Javanese architecture and unique housing-industrial typology, Laweyan was found as a distinguished village of a rational morphology and richness of spatial experience. This 24ha village was classified as one of Surakarta’s urban heritage and was one of the strategic revitalization projects of the city. Through participative processes between Laweyan Village Community established in 2004, authority’s representatives, consultants, NGOs, and local association, revitalization in Laweyan was started with tourism background, by restructuring the built urban fabrics and open spaces, followed by the reactivation of the manual batik production activities. Likewise the project in Slamet Riyadi Street, revitalization project in Laweyan was tested in one block with a profound evaluation until the project was feasible enough to be conducted in the whole region of the village. However, the local authority

Fig. 7 Laweyan Batik Village which is being upgraded gradually (above)

was not only responsible for regeneration of the built environment itself, but also in charge to stimulate

Images from the village after the project realization (left below))

the local economy and human capital growth by taking care of the product marketing (Fig. 7).

Source: Agustinanda, 2009; Susilo, 2007

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Rethinking the Project(s):

During its implementation for the past five years, the Surakarta revitalization project(s) has been pointed out as character reference for the other cities, on account of the real problematic and potentials identification, actual involvement of the local authorities, consistent involvement of multi actors on participations, constant evaluation during implementation, and its feasibility.

The Importance to address the contextual aspects Local aspect is believed to be one of the intriguing points on how the project was managed. As Surakarta inhabitants have been trying to preserve their cultural spirit over times, the confusion and misleading of the former urban development had set off a mass of critiques from the local people to revisit and juxtapose the main potentials and problems in the city. The principles in rebuilding Surakarta are therefore rediscovered and the focus of the next urban development can be directed. The local aspects were borrowed as well the fundamental basis of an effectual innovation planning approach and project implementation.

Multi actors involvements Since the country decentralization system was implemented in 1999, the level of planning in the city or municipal level has been shifted to be crucially performed by the third tier between the city mayor and City Planning Board (Bappeko). The Surakarta revitalization project has proven the active involvement of Joko Widodo as the mayor of Surakarta from the decision making process to projects monitoring. The transparent leadership and initiatives of the city mayor, together with the other local authorities, to partake himself in each process and stage by introducing new and contextual approach to urban planning and governance was the most crucial part of an urban development management. However, the public authority institution themselves will not able to achieve the aims of an urban development if it is not supported by the action of the city Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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inhabitants. The case of Surakarta explains how the local initiatives, participation, and consultations gave contribution to the urban policy formulation, development program, and project management, although the planning was still following the ‘top down’ policy as each decision is made by the local authority level, but with more public dialogues and socialization portions.

Affordability The revitalization project in Surakarta was meant to be a medium to long term project and therefore, instead of aiming a concrete final outcome, time and process are highly appreciated to handle the project gradually with concurrent and regular evaluation accordingly to the local social and economy scales of priority. The project comprises ‘smaller’ local projects that are allocated in several targeted areas within the city. Each of these projects was dealing with specific issues and problematical themes. They run independently and simultaneously under the major city revitalization agenda of ‘Surakarta in the future is Surakarta in the Past’.

The strength of the revitalization project as well can be agreed on the scale of the city itself. Being a tertiary city and covering an area which structure is almost the equivalent to its former urban region, the project seems to be effectively manageable in Surakarta city. Therefore, just within five years after the first sub project was started, Surakarta city was able to carry out and reach some of the development objectives, which give rise to the improvement of its built environment meaning and local economic condition.

Agreement with National and Regional Spatial Development Agendas The urban project was supported by the policy and development framework from the national regional level, particularly recent development concern that as well should address the issue of social transformation.

Moreover, the revitalization project of rebuilding the historic areas, that has been employing back the local

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economy power to be able to compete with the ‘goal’ economy, is an indicator to the attainment of National Millennium Development Goal of combating the poverty numbers in the cities of developing countries.

However, considering that Surakarta revitalization is the first major project for the city after the 1998 political catastrophe and the period of performance is quite recent, difficulties during implementation process were encountered and unavoidable, especially the problems that were generated in the past governance.

Before the 1998 government reformation, a large amount of public properties were marketed or sold to the

investors. In the revitalization project of Surakarta, this case happened in the Vastenburg fort which

Fig. 8 Vastenburg Fort ownership was sold to private sector. Below is the proposed project which has been argued and postponed due to its controversy

development disputes have been argued for more than 20 years after the property was successfully bought by

Source:

a private company (Fig. 8) during the pre reformation era.

www.flickr.com (left) and

private sectors. As a result, the direction of city development was unclear due to the steering of the private

Agustinanda, 2009 (below)

As the revitalization of urban project was touching the economy and settlements of the urban poor community, small conflict or public protests were predictable. Resettlement and relocation of illegal settlements have been a very sensitive issue for the marginalized people as the former practices were usually radical and without compromise. The Surakarta revitalization project so far has proven that public consultation and hearing was the key to socialize the project, although misleading perception or miscommunication resulting in demonstrations and conflicts were also happening. However, during the recent years, Surakarta local authority was trying to improve the communication methods by organizing as well training or educatiional sessions.

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The completion of the project as well means the start of the maintenance challenge, for example the declining of social activities and public interest in Slamet Riyadi street vendors and pedestrian corridor after its completion in 2009. A project management does not stop after the accomplishment stage, but it needs further strategy needs to sustain the project significance. A memory strategy was implemented in the Slamet Riyadi street to be added with complementary programs such as cultural and art performances, attractions, or events can be Therefore, the durability of the projects are indirectly maintained and preserved.

Since the project relies on the leadership from the city mayor, there is hesitation if the project will be effectively managed after new leadership of city mayor, remembering that the realization of revitalization program was just started five years ago due to bureaucracy transitions after political regime shifts in 1998, decentralization policy in 1999/ 2004, and three different periods of city mayor governance, although the development plan was rather included within General City Spatial Plan (RURTK) 1993-2013.

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Concluding Remarks

The tie between globalization trend, market driven development, and urban project practices has always been perceived to be unconstructive toward the cities identities, social welfare equity improvement, and local economy growth in the cities of developing countries. Surakarta seemed to deal with the same situations until the revitalization project within the city’s historic areas focusing on the physical, economy, and culture development was realized. The revitalization project of Surakarta is greatly valued owing to the initiatives built on the actual contextual issues and potentials of the city. The different and innovative approach from planning to project implementation stages using the local aspects of tradition and culture, multi actors’ participations and involvements, is an input toward the common traditional urban development practices in Indonesia which are intransparent, uncommunicative, and unbalanced. The intermediate/local projects carried out autonomously Sustaining from the Urban Remains: A Case Study of Community Based Urban Revitalization Project in the Historic Districts and Civic Spaces of Surakarta, Indonesia

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and in parallel in several strategic areas within the historic districts of the city performed as a complete mechanism, which is one of the strategies to manage and to progressively carry out the entire project.

Throughout project(s) development, execution, and post accomplishment stage, regular evaluation which purpose is to maintain and improve the qualitative immediate and long term impacts of all each project is another essential stage, in order that the project(s) will directly arrive at the main objectives. The revitalization of historic districts and civic places in Surakarta is one of constructive urban planning and development related paradigms that we all are able learn from.

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