Urban Transformation in a Globalising World, Innovations and Local Leadership: The Case of Denpasar, Bali

Located in the heart of the so-called ‘paradise island’ Bali, a medium-sized city, Denpasar is facing unprecedented transformation. As the capital city of Bali Province, which is the highest contributor for tourism sectors in Indonesia, it has experienced rapid economic and population growth. Coupled with pressures from global forces in the tourism industry, Denpasar could perceive both negative impacts as well as challenges due to the urban transformation. This paper concerns how a city deals with the unprecedented urban transformation and globalisation, a city in the developing world such as Denpasar can survive and achieve some progress. It aims to document and assess, in particular, local government’s innovations and leadership in ensuring the sustainability of the city. It is a descriptive and exploratory, based on field works, interviews, FGDs, and the available secondary data. This paper has successfully explored that Denpasar has launched many innovations to deal with current problems and to ensure its sustainability. Aside from that, it argues that innovations and local leadership are keys for the city to be able to respond to an unprecedented urban transformation and a changing world, as the answer for lacking the empirical experiences of local context for advancing urban sustainability.