Local Spatially Dependent Driving Forces of Urban Expansion in an Emerging Asian Megacity: The Case of Greater Jakarta (Jabodetabek)

Urban expansion and urbanization have been continuing to grow rapidly, especially in Asian megacities. Greater Jakarta (Jabodetabek) has emerged as the world’s second largest urban area, with a population of 28 million in 2010, where urban expansion has a significant impact on the local as well as the global environment. Efforts to control urban expansion must start from a clear understanding of its various driving forces at a local, regional, and global level. Studies of the interdependencies between these driving forces in the local spatial relationships in emerging Asian megacities remain limited. This study explores the driving forces of urban expansion in Jabodetabek by considering local spatial dependency and analyzes the spatial characteristics of this urbanized area as well as identifies spatial variations in the relationship between urban expansion and its driving forces by using Geographically Weighted Regression. The presented findings show that the driving forces affecting urban expansion in the Jabodetabek region vary spatially. Owing to the influence of the global and regional economies on Jabodetabek, we find that the demographic, infrastructural, and natural elements driving forces significantly affect urban expansion in this region according to location. Outside the core of this megacity, urban expansion in most areas is significantly affected by local demographic as well as infrastructural driving forces. Jakarta city, as the core of the Jabodetabek megacity, is becoming independent of these local driving forces, however, since it is now more characterized as a global city and thus tending to have more linkages with the world market.