["Area, Volume 58, Issue 3, September 2026. ", "\nABSTRACT\nIn April 2024, the Indonesian government officially declared Jakarta a global city. Although scholars have noted that Jakarta's connectedness to the global system and the aspiration to transform Jakarta into a global city are not new, the lexicon was not yet substantively marshalled in Jakarta's policies and plans. Beyond shedding light on a relatively unique case in which the global city discourse has always been available but only tapped into later, I argue that this study can be used to highlight the usefulness of rethinking ‘global city’ as a category of practice, especially when the analytical adequacy of ‘global city’ has been put into question. Although not entirely new, attending to the global city as a category of practice arguably offers a ‘refreshed’ complementary vantage point for global city research, allowing us to be more sensitive to the politics that drive the emergence of global city aspirations, while also being reflexive about the analytical categories we use to understand social phenomena. Deploying such a framework, the article argues for three interrelated points. First, the plan to relocate the Indonesian capital city offered the ‘right’ timing, in which the ruling elite's legitimacy needs, the timeline pressure, government official interests and the availability of the global city lexicon coalesced, forming a specific conjuncture where the global city discourse could emerge. Second, the phrase global city is capacious enough to accommodate different interpretations, from ruling elites and the state‐sanctioned imperative of development to citizens' aspirations who see the global city as the ultimate form of progressive city. Third, early indications suggest there are problems with the plan and with how actors may understand the concept of a global city. Nonetheless, given the changing politics surrounding Jakarta and the new capital city, the outcomes of the global city plan remain uncertain.\n"]