Urban Greening for New Capital Cities. A Meta Review

Walter Timo de Vries

doi:10.3389/frsc.2021.670807

Abstract

In light of the discussions on relocating the capital city of Indonesia to a new location in Kalimantan, and create a new green capital city (referred to as IKN), the purpose of this meta-review paper is learn from experiences from other relocations of capital cities and creations of green cities in the world. Specific emphasis is hereby given to urban greening and gentrification. This article applies a meta-analytical approach by connecting the basic tenets of the 8R framework of responsible land management to assess the pros and cons of a selected set of capital city relocations and green cities. From the comparison, it is possible to generate general recommendations for Indonesia's new green capital city. The comparison reveals that each of the selected cases falls short in one or more aspects of the 8R framework. In all cases, constructing green capitals requires a mixed and integrated land use planning, a transparent regulatory framework toward land use control, extensive consultation with both local, national and international stakeholders, and participation with local residents. Only under these conditions, one can ensure ownership, respect and trust in the decision. The quandaries highlight the complexity of capital city relocation and green city creation. The originality lies in the specific land management framework perspective and discursive analysis of documented discourses on constructing new capital and green cities. This provides new options for devising and extending regulatory guidelines and for assigning responsibilities for such new mega-endeavors. Given the conceptual and discursive character of the paper, a limitation of the approach may be that there are no specific empirical data collected, yet several recommendations for further research include expanding the boundary work between the land management, the spatial planning and governance domains.

Highlights

History shows that capital cities play an important role in the image, representation and identity of a country (Lazar, 2005)
This research should support the further choices in the design and implementation of the relocation of the Indonesian capital city, referred to as IKN (Ibu Kota Negara)
We hypothesize that previous examples contain a certain degree of similarity, which can derive recommendations for future capital and green city designs

Summary

INTRODUCTION

History shows that capital cities play an important role in the image, representation and identity of a country (Lazar, 2005). The comparison of these examples relied on both the theoretical concepts combined with practical and professional choices made in different locations The goal of this comparison is to derive recommendations for future designs and assessments of capital and green cities. The resulting assessment framework aims at analyzing and classifying differences among cities and to derive practical recommendations for improvement This 8R framework uses 8 aspects which qualify land interventions, evaluating whether these are responsive, robust, respected, recognizable, resilient, reliable, reflexive, and retraceable. Appropriateness of results, changes Visibility and proof of results, changes prevention of technical and social conflicts, and planning of early mitigation measures

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT