1 Privately Owned Public Space as a Solution to the Future Urban Space Cynthia Puspitasari * 1 1 Lecturer, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Pancasila Abstract The never-ending development placed in urban structure resulted in the commercialization of urban spaces. Nowadays, it has concerned to be a big issue, considering the need of communal spaces for human in the future. Could the impact of development by the private sector is still giving the rest of the space for urban communities in the future? Is the land accessible for public will still existed? or diminished? To ensure the existence of the public space remains for future generations, it is necessary to do a control to preserve the existing public spaces, but also to force the current and future development to contribute to the enhancement space for public uses. Incentive Zoning is a method that can be used as a development control undertaken by the private sectors, with building intensity bonuses. Its policy encourages the developer to provide the space where can be accessed by the public. In US, this method is often done in terms of Privately Owned Public Space (POPS). In this paper, POPS implementation will be analysed using observational research technique. The result is expected to give a solution for the improvement of POPS and encourages the increasing of public open spaces quantity in Jakarta. Keywords: public space; urban; incentive zoning; POPS 1. Introduction What is it that your own? How do you know what is yours? How do you protect what is yours from assertation by others, including the government, that what is yours is theirs? Is what is yours, what you own, the same as what your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents cosidered their ownership rights? And if what you own is not the same as what prior generations owned, why has this changes, and most importantly how is it likely to change into the future? (Jacobs, 2004) 2 . Human needs for shared spaces becomes indisputable fact. Shared space is a place that is accessible to the public at no charge. This space often referred as public space. Currently, urban conditions have demonstrated the existence of a public spaces are getting limited. If the current conditions have shown a minimal amount of public space, and how about the conditions in the future? Are the amount of public spaces will increase? Will future generations can enjoy the public spaces in the city? Public space is a space where everyone has access to use it. According to Stephen Carr in his article titled Public Space, the main characteristics of public spaces are: open, easily reached by the public to do community activities and do not always have a green element, the form can be malls, plazas and playgrounds (Carr, 1992) 3 . In many big cities in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta as the capital city, public spaces are still facing some problems such as flooding and air pollution. One of the reason is the lack of green open space. It makes even worried that during the last 25 years, Jakarta has lost 85% of its green space (walhi.or.id, 28 Juli 2011) 4 . When the city began losing its green open space, it will have an impact on environmental issues in the city. A healthy city is a city of green, lots of trees. Whereas, less healthy city is a city where green space is getting reduced due to the construction of buildings continue to increase. Jane Jacobs (1961) through her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, quotes that the more successfully a city mingles everyday diversity of uses and users in its everyday streets, the more successfully, casually (and economically) its people thereby enliven and support well-located parks that can thus give back grace and delight to their neighborhoods instead of vacuity 5 . The statement is clear that the success of the city is determined by the high society activities conducted in public spaces. This is clear that public spaces are important for the life and sustaninability of a city. Abidin Kusno (2009) in his article titled Ruang Publik, Identitas dan Memori Kolektif: Jakarta Pasca-Suharto, said that public space in the city is very important to build community togetherness, as it gives a place for our fellow citizens to interact and knitting historical moments that can be remembered together. The statement is clear that the memory or * Contact Author: Cynthia Puspitasari, Lecturer Universitas Pancasila Jalan Srengseng Sawah, Jagakarsa, Jakarta Selatan Tel: +6281214422244 Fax: +62217270128 e-mail: cynthia.puspitasari@gmail.com