3 - Dutch Colonial Urban Spaces in Postcolonial Indonesian Cities

In different cities throughout Indonesia, particularly young people are frequenting Dutch colonial urban spaces, whether individual buildings or vast public spaces. They stroll along the local government-initiated pedestrianized streets in Kota Tua, the historical inner city of Jakarta, hang out at former post offices which have been redeveloped into multifunctional gathering places in Medan or Surabaya, or have fashionable photoshoots in front of crumbling façades in Kota Lama, Semarang to fill their social media accounts. These developments may seem remarkable in view of the colonial history of these spaces, but the question is whether this is a concern at all for these young consumers. When trying to analyze the (re-)appropriation of these urban spaces by young Indonesians, various factors need to be considered, from the role of history education in schools (McGregor, 2007), the possibility of colonial nostalgia (Sastramidjaja, 2014), urban renewal for tourism purposes (Steinberg, 2008) as well as a sense of longing for a human-scale, accessible urban environment in the midst of urban jungles made of asphalt, concrete and traffic jams (Yapp, 2020). This paper will discuss first conclusions based on an online survey that was launched via a major Indonesian media platform between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. This survey represents the first major data collection for a research project which aims to get a better understanding of the ways in which young Indonesians (18-35 years old) use and perceive urban remainders of the Dutch colonial period in Indonesia.