Contextual Practices in City Infrastructure Planning in the US and Indonesia

Abstract

This dissertation contains an international examination of infrastructure planning in context, which applies new institutional economics and transaction costs theory for comparative international study, collecting exemplary social infrastructure practices across the global north and south, and contrasting economic zones development and the discretionary approach to urban planning, with respect to the make or buy decision and to the project outcomes. This dissertation gathers three studies. The first examines the role of urban and regional planning in the provision of social infrastructure in different economies. The second study discusses the role of the state in the contextual understanding of economic zones as alternatives to traditional urban and infrastructure planning. Specifically, the study compares, in terms of a make or buy decision, the rationale for Seattle's institutional arrangements for public water supply and Batam's economic zone authority's choice to privatize the water supply system. The third study links the findings in the second study with more detailed assessments of the cost of the two arrangements at the project level, with a discussion on the transaction costs outcomes of simple water supply projects. Together, the three studies provide planners with an approach for contextualizing the gap in urban planning studies across countries in the global north or south by grounding planning based on comparative practices in city and infrastructure planning, which corresponds with variations of institutional environment.