Beyond City Branding: The Emergence of Soft Infrastructure in Digital Transformation towards Urban Planning Research Roadmap Reformulation

Abstract

Beyond city branding shows the emergence of digital transformation for urban planning, which not only symbolizes the advancement of the use of technology as branding for cities in Indonesia but also as a structured effort to improve the achievement of sustainable development by using technology that is suitable for the growth and development phase of diverse cities in Indonesia. It began with data for development is usually highly dependent on official data from the government. In the digital transformation era, there will be opportunities to provide alternative data by utilizing existing technology to expand citizen communication channels, including social media, which needs to be equipped with requirements to be used as a data source for urban planning. Digital transformation for urban planning should be able to answer the challenges of the context of urban planning in Indonesia with the keywords urban problem, urban growth, planning, and sustainable development, including in choosing the appropriate theme of urban planning of the digital transformation era, which will be highlighted using advance technology. In the case of popular city planning concepts to be adapted like a smart city that tends to be as city branding, it is supposed to be justified, structured, and implemented by considering the planning system, urban governance system, as well as regional autonomy policy in responding to the challenges of urban planning in the era of digital transformation in Indonesia. Here appears the role of soft infrastructure where factors beyond the technical engineering side play an important role, namely human factors, social systems, the competitive side of the private sector, and governance.