The United Nations estimates that by 2050, about 70% of the world's population, including Indonesia, will live in urban areas. Urbanization is a major cause of urban population growth. High urbanization will cause problems such as social problems, housing, employment, welfare, infrastructure, security and environmental issues. To overcome these problems, a good urban management system is required. This study aims to examine the challenges of urban management in Indonesia. The study was carried out by descriptive method of urban management systems in several major cities in Indonesia. The survey was conducted by interview method, observation and documentation study. The results of the study are various challenges in the city management system such as the quality of city plans, organization, human resources, financing, community participation and development control issues. Improvements of urban management is needed to overcome these problems. Keywords-urban management; planning; development I. INTRODUCTION Urbanization is the most dominant phenomenon in all developing countries [1]. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, about 70% of the world's population will live in urban areas. In 2015 almost half of Indonesia's population lived in cities [2]. This amount is expected to rise to 67 percent in 2035. According to Sri Mulyani "Indonesia's population growth in urban areas is among the highest (in the world) at 4.1 percent," The population growth rate is higher than India 3.1 percent and China 3.8 percent [3]. The World Bank estimates that urbanization in Indonesia reaches 70% by 2030 [4]. According to the World Bank, urbanization in Indonesia has a new pattern. At present, the moving population tends to stay away from big cities like Jakarta and target secondary cities, such as Yogyakarta, Cirebon, Pekalongan, and so on. Secondary cities are usually inhabited by around 500,000 to 3 million people. Urbanization generally causes problems in urban areas such as slums, employment, traffic congestion, solid waste, clean water, housing, sanitation, education, health, pollution and the environment. Slum settlement problems are faced by almost all major cities in Indonesia. According to the Ministry of Public Works [5]. Slum Settlement Area Reaches 38,000 Hectares, the most abundant slum area in Java. Population density in Java is the cause of many slums on the island. Traffic congestion is a common problem in big cities. According to Tamim these problems generally arise in cities with a population of more than 2 million, such as in the cities of Jakarta,