In this guest post, Dr Galuh Syahbana Indraprahasta, a former USF International Fellow, describes the results of his research ‘Reimagining Nusantara: a reflexivity between fact and fictional expectation’, for which he spent three months working at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore (ARI-NUS) under the mentorship of Prof Tim Bunnell.
The relocation of Indonesia’s capital city to a new site on the island of Borneo, now formally named Nusantara Capital City or ‘Nusantara’ for short, has sparked national and global attention from diverse audiences, including policymakers, scholars, businesses, and ordinary citizens. Announced by former President Joko Widodo on the eve of the 2019 Independence Day celebrations, this largest megaproject of modern-day Indonesia to date continues to be the subject of debate. While some parties have expressed optimism about the project, others have raised critical concerns amid its multiple controversies, viewing it as part of Widodo’s individual political legacy.
In line with worldmaking practices from around the globe, Nusantara’s megaproject can be cast as an endeavour to build an imagined perfect new world, with the city serving as its symbolic and physical manifestation, or what might be termed by some as utopian urban planning. This notion involves designing an urban environment based on the vision of an ideal society, which emerges as a radical counter-response to major societal crises, including industrial pollution, housing shortages, and climate change. This approach offers a clean-slate alternative to the chaotic, real-world urbanisation, which characterises much of the world. Since the conception of Ebenezer Howard’s ‘garden city’, a variety of conceptions of the city of the future have emerged and been materialised, intertwined with the evolving challenges encountered in each era. The production of Nusantara is inextricably linked to responding to the challenges of the present era, which are characterised by, most notably, pressing climate and environmental crises, rapid technological advancement, and fierce global economic competition. This is clearly reflected in Nusantara’s vision of becoming a sustainable, smart, inclusive, and globally competitive city that embodies Indonesia’s (future) national identity. The central theme of my research endeavour has been the entanglement of the urban-making process and urban futurity.
During my three-month fellowship at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore (ARI-NUS) in 2026, I not only re-explored the primary and secondary data that I had gathered from 2024 to 2025, but I also had the opportunity to involve in the Capitals of the Future research project, with Prof Daniel Goh serving as the Principal Investigator of the project team. Having commenced in 2023, this research project has sought to understand the interaction between imaginations of the future, discourses of urban planning, and pathways of urban development. Its main objective is to examine and compare three urban sites in Southeast Asia: Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara; Malaysia’s administrative centre, Putrajaya; and Singapore’s business and cultural hubs, Marina Bay, Jurong Industrial Estate, and Jurong Lake District. My involvement with this group enriched the existing data and opened up alternative avenues for studying Nusantara. Meanwhile, discussions with various individuals within and outside the ARI-NUS also helped me develop critical reflections on the manner in which Nusantara is, and ought to be, interrogated.
Nusantara covers a vast expanse of land, measuring approximately 252 thousand hectares, which is equivalent to approximately 3.8 times the size of Jakarta. The designated new capital is divided into three main areas: the core government area (KIPP), the capital city area (KIKN), and the capital city development area (KPIKN). Pushed mainly by Widodo’s ambition to officially inaugurate Nusantara as the new capital by the end of his term of office in 2024, the area where Nusantara is situated has undergone massive physical transformation post-COVID under the politics of speed. The development undertaken between 2022 and 2026 has been principally focused within the KIPP, in conjunction with the development of the necessary infrastructures to facilitate the operationalisation of government activities and a number of fundamental services located within this area. This includes the construction of toll road networks that connect the KIPP to the neighbouring cities of Balikpapan and Samarinda.
In my research, I examine the broader urbanisation process beyond the KIPP and Nusantara—or what the Indonesian government refers to as the ‘Tri-City Superhub’. The superhub mainly comprises Nusantara, Balikpapan, and Samarinda. I have observed that urban studies relating to Nusantara predominantly focus on the developments and dynamics occurring within the KIPP. As part of the manifestation of a broader development vision that extends beyond the administrative boundaries of Nusantara, the Tri-City Superhub has been proposed as a means of developing a new ‘urban growth machine’ in Eastern Indonesia. The development of this new urban agglomeration, or city-region, is expected to reduce the disparity between Western and Eastern Indonesia through the establishment of several new growth centres.
The term ‘city-region’ is often used to describe large urban areas, which are known by various lexicons such as ‘mega-urban region’, ‘megaregion’, and ‘global city-region’, among others. This phenomenon reflects the urbanisation process expanding beyond the administrative boundaries of a single city, which is commonly facilitated by the presence of connectivity infrastructure. Although this phenomenon has existed for a long time—at first under the notion of Patrick Geddes’ ‘conurbation’ and later under Jean Gottmann’s ‘megalopolis’—research on city-regions has recently taken a new direction, primarily viewing them as a key spatial expression of increasing economic globalisation. City-regions can also be viewed as an imagined spatial form that governments seek to realise. In this context, city-regions are considered the optimal spatial scale for fostering economic competitiveness, where the benefits of agglomeration can be realised to their fullest potential. Consequently, a range of city-region development initiatives are being undertaken across multiple countries, with the most prominent studies being conducted in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, and China.
The Indonesian government is also pursuing this vision of creating (economic) space on an (assumed) ideal scale in the era of heightened global competition through the Tri-City Superhub. However, as has been discussed in several previous studies, planning city-regions is not a coherent project. City-regionalism is viewed as a process of dialectical contestation, with the vision for the future of the Tri-City Superhub being heavily influenced by the central government’s efforts to establish the superhub as a new global growth centre. This is reflected in the planning documents and public communications. Nevertheless, the relationship between the central and local governments with regard to the future of this city-region remains fragmented. The central government envisages a seamless spatial division of labour, with Nusantara positioned at the core of this emerging growth centre. Meanwhile, the development plans of Balikpapan and Banjarmasin have yet to be aligned with the city-region framework, as well as the vision of a future city characterised by ambitious green-related and technological targets. The same principle is applicable to the governance of this city-region. The governance of these regions is often a cause for concern due to the fragmentation between local and central governments, as well as between local governments themselves. This latter issue is best exemplified by the experience of several existing metropolitan areas in Java.
Taking a city-region lens to examining the broader urbanisation of Nusantara offers a fresh perspective and empirical insights, especially since Nusantara and its surrounding areas are still in the early stages of development. This is, of course, quite different from the analyses of long-established city-regions presented in numerous other studies. Moreover, adopting a relational approach to urban studies and urban geography facilitates a more profound comprehension of the multifaceted tensions inherent in the realisation of the Tri-City Superhub’s vision for the future and its development strategy.