Three sustainability advantages of urban densification in a concentric urban form: evidence from Bandung City, Indonesia

Abstract

Amid limited land resource in Bandung city, pressure on the needs of lands continuously exists. Urban densification may create high density spaces and minimizes trip length by exploiting vertical growth. In contrary, sprawling city expands horizontally and creates low density spaces. Sprawling cities in most cases are motorized transport dependent cities. The study was carried out by analyzing the present form of Bandung City. Bandung City in Indonesia, a pronounced concentric-cum-sprawling city of a developing country, was selected as study area. The analysis covers three most determinative environment-related issues that lead to sustainability advantages of the city, since appropriately addressing the issues would likely contribute to sustainability of the city. These three issues are transport energy, flood, and groundwater depletion. Analysis on transport energy consumption in three urban development forms was carried out. The study result reveals that urban densification may lead to lower transport energy consumption as reflected in the mixed use areas compared to the other two urban development forms. The study also confirms that urban densification enables groundwater depletion to be minimized amid significant abstraction in the city and at the same time reducing flooding problems.