The History of Surabaya City Development

Surabaya have it's own rapid progress of the city development. Asa capital city of East Java, this city is being a homebase by many office, factory, and many people to live. The historical change in urbanization since the historical change in summarized as follows.

In the beginning of the 19th century, the Dutch built Fort Kalimas at the estuary of the river Kalimas, and subsequently the city of Surabaya spread from north to south. In the middle of 19th century, a European Community was formed in the area lying between the river Pegirian and Jalan Indrapura, as the result of Dutch business interest.

Around the original city centre lived the different ethnic groups. The Dutch occupied the southern part of Jalan Niaga, the Chinese lived and carried on their business within the Old CBD (Central Business Distrcit), the Arabian community concentrated in the north east close to the trading harbor, while the native Indonesians lived immediately to the north of the Old CBD.

By the turn of the century, the city of Surabaya had a population of only 100,000. At this time, the Surabaya port was being constructed at Tanjung Perak, and trading and commercial activities expanded rapidly. By 1920, the population reached approximately 200,000.

The urban area then began to expand to the south towards Wonokromo. The general trend of urban growth was influenced strongly by a steam tram service which was initially designed to carry workers from south of the port in the north. Urban growth continued to expand from north to south, but was obviously delayed during the period of occupation and post-war disputes. The population in 1950 was about 450,000.

In the early 1960s , a new aspect of urbanization appeared. It was the expansion towards the east and west along the major roads, thus adding to the north-south corridor. A census indicated a population of approximately 1,000,000 in 1961.

After that, in 1976, the urban growth continued towards Gunung Sari hill in the west called the Darmo Satelite Town which was previously unattractive for urban development due to the water supply limitations. At the same time, the city master plan year 2000 was developed, with a structured plan approach mainly for controlling the land use. By the end of 1990, about 600 ha in the west area was almost ready for the medium and high income housing. This was driven by intensive resettlement movement, shifting from the city centre to make way for private-commercial redevelopment.

Because of the lack of potential infrastucture in the western areas, development only began early in 1980. In contrast, the eastern areas were developed by several private real estate companies. By constructing wide main access roads to the city, and installing connections to the citys water supply system, these areas of development grew faster compared to the western part. Presently, almost all assigned areas in the Master Plan 2000 produced in 1978 have now already been built up to the eastern tidal embankment limit 2.

Source: petra.ac.id