The Malled-kampung as Emerging Urban Element in Indonesian Cities: Public spaces and people practice in the traditional district with shopping mall in Surabaya

Abstract

The construction of large shopping malls in existing urban neighbourhood has profoundly transformed the lives of local communities, socially, economically and environmentally. The displacement of their central public spaces and urban amenities to the quasi-public space of these malls has created relevant challenges to their sustainable development. In Surabaya, the second largest Indonesian city, this phenomenon has affected the livelihood of communities of traditional central city neighbourhoods – the urban kampungs. The hypothesis of this thesis is that, under peculiar socio-spatial circumstances, this urban phenomenon has produced a novel urban element: the ‘malled kampung’. This element is an assemblage of two antagonist components, the mall and the kampung, which converts conflicts into productive alliances by establishing incremental collaborative processes. It enhances community resilience, countering the disruptions typically caused by these consumption enclosures. Aiming to shed light on the spatial system that underpins the productive capacity emerged from this combination, this study uses the instruments of the urban assemblage theory to understand and disentangle the complex urban processes behind the formation of the new urban element. Three fundamental principles of the assemblage theory, heterogeneity, relationality and wholeness, are used to set a case study research that examines representative kampungs in Surabaya. The empirical part of this study adopts the ‘crucial case study’ method to identify and investigate representative cases that closely fit the assemblage concept, and focuses on the areas that best represent their spatial production – the transition zones between the mall and its neighbourhood. For the analysis of data, this study employs an inductive approach that searches for socio-spatial patterns among observations of phenomena and elaborates data on ‘citizens’ everyday practices from semi-structured interviews with different groups of users. A multiscale approach is applied to assess assemblages of different size and complexity, ranging from macro level – the jalur perdagangan / street trade cluster, to micro level – the gerobak / portable vending stall. This study confirmed the research hypothesis of the formation of a particular mall/kampung combination — the spatial proximity of shopping mall and its adjacent urban kampung — as relevant urban assemblage of ‘malled kampung’. Findings provide evidence of how this assemblage institutes multiple and intertwined collaborative processes between the actors of the two main elements, the mall and the kampung, integrating both local and translocal communities iii (including formal and informal workers and residents as well as regular and casual visitors) whose networks are hinged in this locale. Findings also unveil how this sort of spatial production results from open, incremental, multi-stakeholder and informal, yet stable and well-organised social practices. This thesis posits this assemblage type as an important model for the sustainable development of cities. It shows the resilience of local communities that after the disruption caused by the development of substantive perturbing, exogenous and disjoint commercial elements within their territories not only bounced back but, to some extents, bounced forward. Their responding practices exemplify a model that can contributes to stabilise, improve cohesion, empower and develop capacity of disadvantaged communities in rapidly developing cities. Therefore, the thesis proposes that the concept of ‘Malled Kampung’ informs the formulation of a new approach to urban regeneration of traditional settlements that considers major commercial developments as an opportunity to improve the wellbeing of local communities, build their capacity, improve their relational networks and support coalitions of their member to advocate for their Right to the city.