It seems President Joko Widodo has started a new trend: after Jakarta, Bandung may be next to relinquish its title as a capital city (albeit provincially).
Yesterday, West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil announced to the media that the provincial government is mulling relocating its administrative center from Bandung, just days after President Jokowi announced the location for the country’s new capital city.
Bandung, a city of 2.4 million, is one of Indonesia’s biggest cities but it does not share many of the environmental and overcrowding problems that plague Jakarta, which were major factors in the central government’s decision to relocate the country’s capital city.
But Governor Ridwan Kamil said Bandung, like Jakarta, suffers from its large size.
“Basically, physically speaking Bandung is like Jakarta. It’s no longer fit to serve as an administrative center,” he told reporters in Bandung yesterday, as quoted by Kompas.
“Government offices are separated [by big distances], and that’s not productive.”
The governor, a former architect who served as Bandung’s mayor from 2013-2018, said the relocation plan was first discussed last week during a meeting to deliberate the province’s guidelines for urban development in spatial planning (RTRW). He said studies will start to be conducted six months from now, and did not give an estimate as to when the capital relocation might commence.
That said, Governor Ridwan Kamil has already narrowed down potential new capital cities to three locations, namely Tegalluar in Bandung regency, Walini in West Bandung regency, and the Rebana Triangle, an under-development new economic zone comprising of Cirebon city, Majalengka regency, and the Patimban Sea Port.
PDI-P, the party of President Jokowi, questioned the perceived urgency of relocating West Java’s capital and warned Ridwan Kamil not to go ahead with the plan just to mimic the relocation of the nation’s capital.
