Urbanization has become a global phenomenon that affects the food system. Some studies revealed that urbanization increases income/capita, thus transforming food consumption from cereals to animal products, vegetables, and fruits. Urbanization, particularly in developing countries, not only produces economic benefits but also various issues that might lessen peoples’ capacity to afford food. This study aims to analyze the impact of urbanization on food consumption, food composition, as well as farming performance. Series of consumption data since 1976 and statistical descriptive approaches were employed. The results showed a trend of declining the share of food expenditures, especially in urban areas, which is commonly regarded as a sign of increasing prosperity. Surprisingly, food composition remained stable, dominated by rice, due to lower-income and higher non-food expenditures of urban inhabitants mainly for housing, transportation, water and energy. The stagnancy of food composition provides less incentive for farmers; thus, farming is dominated by low-revenue paddy fields, uneducated laborers, and older farmers. Based on these findings, some recommendations can be suggested: (1) incorporating food composition and farming performance into food security policies, instead of merely focusing on the compliance of food supply and demand, (2) linking food issues with non-food issues, especially with urban planning, housing development, and transportation management to increase the income capacity of the society to purchase a greater variety of food, and (3) developing food diversification served by urban food vendors to support the benefits of the farming business.

Urban expansion and urbanization have been continuing to grow rapidly, especially in Asian megacities. Greater Jakarta (Jabodetabek) has emerged as the world’s second largest urban area, with a population of 28 million in 2010, where urban expansion has a significant impact on the local as well as the global environment. Efforts to control urban expansion must start from a clear understanding of its various driving forces at a local, regional, and global level. Studies of the interdependencies between these driving forces in the local spatial relationships in emerging Asian megacities remain limited. This study explores the driving forces of urban expansion in Jabodetabek by considering local spatial dependency and analyzes the spatial characteristics of this urbanized area as well as identifies spatial variations in the relationship between urban expansion and its driving forces by using Geographically Weighted Regression. The presented findings show that the driving forces affecting urban expansion in the Jabodetabek region vary spatially. Owing to the influence of the global and regional economies on Jabodetabek, we find that the demographic, infrastructural, and natural elements driving forces significantly affect urban expansion in this region according to location. Outside the core of this megacity, urban expansion in most areas is significantly affected by local demographic as well as infrastructural driving forces. Jakarta city, as the core of the Jabodetabek megacity, is becoming independent of these local driving forces, however, since it is now more characterized as a global city and thus tending to have more linkages with the world market.