Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Emergence of Creative Cities in Indonesia: Comparative Studies from Pekalongan, Yogyakarta, and Surakarta During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract As a global platform, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have reinforced country’s institutional capacity to meet the international standard compliance. Creative city concept is one among those linking the SDGs targeting agenda to the local development policy. This study investigates if the implementation of creative city concept may succeed the fulfilment of SDGs targets. We selected three cities in Indonesia for comparative study: Pekalongan, Yogyakarta, and Surakarta. Our observation completed during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. We combined targeted questionnaire to academics, business, community, and government (ABCG) stakeholders with content analysis of the government publications and regulations. The result shows that Pekalongan City Government has managed well in actualising creative city concept from the policymaking to program implementation. The Yogyakarta City Government seems inconvenience in specifying targeted creative industry to promote local economy. For the Surakarta case, the targeted creative industry has little support in the local development policy. Lack of institutional capacity and trained staffs might be the main reasons for slow implementation of these ideas into local government context. Consequently, creative city concept and SDGs agenda are more favoured as a short- to medium-term project rather than a long-lasting city development vision.