Building a New Jakarta
CHING, FRANK
STEP-BY-STEP DEVELOPMENT Building a New Jakarta by frank ching Jakarta Sparkling new hotels, banks, department stores and high-rise commercial buildings line Jalan Thamrin, Jakarta's main...
...Despite the undoubted value of the program, though, the question remains: Are conditions actually getting better or are the authorities straining just to keep them from getting worse...
...We have improved health facilities...
...We regained public confidence...
...We were looking for the right way to improve their living conditions," says Darrundono, one of Jakarta's leading planners, who like many of his compatriots has only one name...
...We wanted to create a physical climate that would induce a better economic climate," recalls Sofjan Jusuf, chief of the control division of the Regional Development Planning Board...
...In 1979, when all the slums have been upgraded, it hopes to begin a second round of improvements, continuing in this manner in cycles until all the quarters meet minimal standards...
...others built shacks around the city center...
...We discourage them from coming to the capital by requiring that they have employment and accommodation here," Widodo says...
...Its modest goals called for constructing roads and permanent walks, public water taps and latrines, drainage ditches to prevent flooding, and primary schools and health clinics...
...The program emphasizes construction of walkways rather than standard vehicular roads, for these are best suited to the needs of kampong residents...
...In assessing the accomplishments of KIP to date, officials note that it has had unanticipated beneficial effects...
...Very few have electricity, running water or toilet facilities...
...Slum improvement is a temporary answer to a bad situation...
...The plight of the kampong dwellers had been clearly demonstrated by a survey showing that about 20 per cent of these families had monthly incomes of less than $17, 50 per cent earned between $17-$48, and, the remainder made only up to about $145...
...And, with the new schools, children won't have to travel far...
...By 1980, 52 per cent of kampong homes should have piped water, and at that time officials may begin to provide them with electricity as well...
...Nevertheless, in the mid-'60s the authorities embarked on a three-year rehabilitation program in the capital...
...Health facilities are credited with cutting the mortality rate and increasing the birth rate, though clinics are now providing family-planning information...
...General Urip Widodo, vice governor of Jakarta, acknowledging that the capital's main problem is the continuing growth of its population, notes that the city has been declared closed to newcomers...
...But residents who stand to benefit from the altered village patterns have been voluntarily chipping in to help resettle the displaced families, an indication of KIP's appeal...
...Yet many people had no alternative but to use the drainage canals for bathing and laundering...
...Through creation of facilities on the outskirts, it is hoped that migration will be reduced...
...The fact is, Jakarta is the capital and it is proper to develop it more, while not neglecting other areas...
...Those who do not have jobs or places to stay are returned to their villages...
...They are still not a nice place to live in...
...A survey in 1973 showed, too, that productivity by workers from improved areas had risen because absences caused by illness were reduced...
...A visit to several upgraded areas confirms this view...
...The new roads, footpaths and drainage ditches greatly facilitate the movement of people and goods, while reducing the danger of floods...
...We're not trying to accomplish big things overnight...
...By including satellite towns in the city's administration, we can synchronize the development of all areas in an integrated way...
...To further complicate matters, the more conditions are improved in the capital, the more people will be attracted to it from the countryside...
...It seems to be a vicious circle.' General Widodo says...
...Now we will introduce a system and improve quality, not quantity...
...They also often make improvements to their own homes...
...A program designed to encourage families to leave the city has met with little success...
...In addition, over half the city's inhabitants relied on ground-water wells that were often contaminated...
...The city's entire 1967 budget only amounted to $206,000—hardly enough for one low-cost housing project—and payment of taxes was a rarity...
...Everything we're trying to do is very basic," David says...
...The local government could not afford to build as in Hong Kong or Singapore...
...between 1971-75 only about 1,200 families moved from Jakarta to the outer islands...
...Initial efforts toward this end were launched in 1969 when Jakarta's municipal government began the Kampong Improvement Program (KIP), under Indonesia's first Five Year Plan...
...Only transients use them...
...Their tiny houses, jammed together, are fragile combinations of bricks, cement, cardboard, and metal sheeting...
...They began to pay taxes again...
...But the decree is not strictly enforced and people keep arriving—albeit perhaps in smaller numbers...
...Even on clear days the sunlight never penetrates the damp alleyways, rarely more than two feet wide...
...The seeming opulence truly dazzles—until you wander onto one of the narrow, winding footpaths that crisscross the kam-pongs, or urban villages, where 60 per cent of this capital's nearly 6 million inhabitants live in squalor...
...By 1974, KIP had succeeded in upgrading about 10 per cent of the city's blighted area, or close to 6,000 acres, at a cost of $2,630 per acre...
...With the economy finally moving, attention turned to Jakarta's slums...
...Encouraged by the achievement, municipal authorities drew up proposals to tackle the remaining slum sections over a 10-year period...
...To keep expenditures down, no compensation is paid for homes that are demolished or reduced in size to make way for new footpaths...
...Now we are concerned about nutrition...
...The water supply became a particularly critical problem, since Jakarta had no municipal sewerage system...
...People began to realize that the government could do something good...
...In the first program, we responded to needs haphazardly...
...Actions have already been taken to spread industry outside of Jakarta, and this has been done consciously...
...Another way of tackling this is through a plan to enlarge Jakarta...
...The second phase of the multi-million dollar project, begun in April and scheduled to run for three years, will place more emphasis on health...
...Municipal services, designed to serve a maximum of 600,000 residents, deteriorated at an alarming rate...
...At this point the World Bank stepped in with offers to finance the project and suggested it could be completed in five years...
...Newly installed public taps, Darrundono points out, have also helped the financial circumstances of kampong families...
...But this problem can be met through the spreading of development to other areas...
...In the meantime, the government is going on with its kampong program...
...But the benefits are direct...
...But there is hope now in the kam-pongs that life will soon be more tolerable...
...Not until President Suharto and his associates took control, following the abortive pro-Communist coup of 1965 that brought an abrupt halt to Sukarno's extravagant posturing, did the situation in Indonesia start to change...
...We will supplement diets through provision of vitamins...
...Frank Ching, a past contributor, is on the staff of Asia Magazine...
...As in many developing countries, however, official planners were severely hampered by a shortage of funds...
...In the past we only built clinics," David explains...
...They prefer a canal or ditch away from home, where passers-by do not know them...
...The government of President Achmed Sukarno, seeking to foster a sense of national identity and win recognition as leader of the nonaligned Third World, engaged in a host of grandiose undertakings that not only ignored but seriously impeded the country's economic development...
...Yet most homes still lack running water, electricity and flush toilets...
...To the north, the 400-foot Freedom Monument, topped by a gold-plated flame, dominates Mer-deka Square, symbol of Indonesian independence...
...But they are still in bad shape...
...They are running hard to stay where they are,' concludes David...
...by 1960 it was 2.8 million...
...Ironically, the problems that are being confronted today in the Indonesian capital had their origins in the heady early years of independence, won from the Dutch colonialists in 1949 after a four-year revolution...
...By 1950 the population had jumped to 1.3 million...
...Moreover, the public latrines are not popular...
...STEP-BY-STEP DEVELOPMENT Building a New Jakarta by frank ching Jakarta Sparkling new hotels, banks, department stores and high-rise commercial buildings line Jalan Thamrin, Jakarta's main street...
...The national administration began to focus on economic development, encouraging Jakarta's municipal government to make a concerted attack on the capital's depressing problems...
...Many of the newcomers were taken in by relatives...
...In the decade from 1961-71, the yearly increase was 4.6 per cent?.1 per cent from natural growth and 2.5 per cent from migration...
...In all, some 1.2 million urban villagers, roughly 25 per cent of the city's population, benefited directly...
...Jakarta is a big village,' a municipal worker said on a tour of the kampongs...
...We are making it a big city, but it takes time...
...During the opening two-year phase that ended last March 31, 4,900 acres were developed...
...A downpour turns the paths into rivers of mud, forcing residents to pick their way cautiously along the walls of the makeshift structures...
...The philosophy is to introduce a very minimal amount of improvement?water, decent means of transportation and waste disposal to prevent epidemics...
...Government family-planning efforts aimed a reducing the rate of natural population growth in Jakarta from its present 2.7 per cent to one per cent by 1980, have not had much effect either...
...We decided instead to improve their infrastructure—the physical and social conditions...
...When we compare these kampongs with the old ones, there is a marked improvement," says Rogelio G. David, a World Bank consultant...
...Those whose homes had plumbing flushed wastes into septic tanks or, more frequently, into open ditches by the roadside...
...The tenants themselves become proud of their place of residence and keep the streets cleaner...
...We realized we did not have the resources to rebuild the kampongs...
...David feels the villagers are embarrassed to be seen entering or leaving the new facilities by their neighbors...
...We improved the flow of goods and of people by assigning priority to road construetion, a better bus system, public markets, and harbor development...
...Previously they had to spend $2.50 or more a month to buy water from vendors—which in many instances amounted to one fifth of their income...
...Whenever you improve a kampong, there is a spillover into housing," David observes...
...Meanwhile, although Jakarta was one of the poorer cities in Asia, hundreds of thousands of people flooded into it from the surrounding countryside, attracted by its still relatively higher standard of living and the hope of finding jobs...
Vol. 59 • June 1976 • No. 13
