Social Transformation in the Northern Coastal Cities of Java: a Comparative Study in Cirebon and Gresik

Java, the most densely populated island of insular Southeast Asia—the Indonesian archipelago—is a well known historical site for its embracing of world civilisations: Indic, Sinic and Western. The important commodities produced in this region, cloves and pepper among many other spices, attracted the contemporary global powers of the seventeenth century (the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and the British) to conquer and eventually partition the region as their far eastern colonies. From this global commercial competition, cities in Java, particularly its northern coastal cities, developed into significant trading ports as well as military posts. The failures of local rulers in Java to defend their territories from the European powers resulted in the long period of colonisation that left strong historical legacies that continue until today. The contemporary social transformations in the cities along the northern coast of Java is, however, still generally under researched and since independence there have been many urban and spatial changes in the area, which have not been always beneficial to the people living there. Problems, such as poverty, crime and environmental degradation seem to be increasing side by side with the process of urbanisation and infrastructure development.