Jakarta's informality aides the poor<\/p>\n
By Marco Kusumawijaya<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): You may laugh at this, but it is true: Jakartans
\nare forbidden by law to play in any public spaces except for
\nthose determined by the governor.<\/p>\n
So far, strangely enough, no one has inquired about the list
\nof approved public spaces. Mind you, also forbidden is a habit
\nthat Indonesians have become so accustomed too, namely,
\ncollecting donations from among colleagues in an office for
\nsomeone who is getting married or has a relative that just died,
\nunless, that is, the governor's approval has been obtained.<\/p>\n
It is also a must, by law, for Jakartans to walk only on the
\nsidewalks where streets have been provided with these. When you
\nhave a traditional massage in your office, you must not forget to
\nask if the masseur has a permit from the governor, because it is
\nexpressly forbidden to practice any form of traditional medicine
\nwithout it.<\/p>\n
These bizarre rulings are all contained in the amusing Jakarta
\nBylaw No. 11 of 1988 on public order. This is the same law that
\nforbids street vendors from plying their wares and becak
\n(pedicabs) from operating on our streets. It consists of 33
\narticles of which 22 start with "It is forbidden to...". It is
\nthis law that provides the basis for the annual "operation" by
\nthe city's public order department to evict street vendors, so
\nthat for years they have been unable to organize themselves for
\nlack of certainty about their continued existence.<\/p>\n
This, in turn, has led to them having a bad image, and being
\naccused of messing up the city and disturbing public order. This
\nis the law that provides the legal basis for the "maintenance of
\npublic order" budget that has recently been the subject of claim
\nand counterclaim by the police and the city's public order
\ndepartment. What a shame!<\/p>\n
For Wardah Hafiz's Urban Poor Consortium and dozens of
\norganizations representing street vendors, it has been the cause
\nof a perpetual struggle with the city's public order department.<\/p>\n
But the law does not only concern the poor. For one, by a
\nreasonable estimate at least 70 percent of office workers along
\nJl. Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman depend on the vendors for their
\nlunches.<\/p>\n
For another, looking at the articles it contains, the law is
\nin fact a totalitarian, unilateral condemnation of all informal
\nactivity in the city. It is born out of a twisted idea about
\n"urban development" and "modern" urban life.<\/p>\n
Behind the scenes<\/p>\n
The year 1988 marked the height of the repressive New Order
\nregime. It marked the launch of economic liberalization. The
\nmission of the then-governor Wiyogo Atmodarminto, a former
\nIndonesian ambassador to Tokyo, was to attract investors.
\nJakarta, therefore, had to look "clean" and "formal". Everything
\n"informal" was deemed untidy and had to be erased. But, as we
\nfrequently see today, it has only increased the number of
\nconflicts because it represents nothing more than a mindless
\neffort to impossibly sterilize the appearance of the city. It
\nattempted to place every aspect of public life under the control
\nof the local authority.<\/p>\n
In this time of crisis, more conflicts may be expected to
\noccur. For, obviously, the number of self-employed,
\nentrepreneurial street vendors will rise in direct proportion to
\nthe (formal) unemployment rate. So, there will also be more
\npreman (street thugs), hooligans, and desperate low-paid civil
\nservants.<\/p>\n
With political uncertainty and little hope in the economic
\narena for at least the next five to 10 years ahead, informality
\ncan be turned into an asset and enable many poor Jakartans and
\nIndonesians in other cities to survive. Jakarta and its
\nsurrounding districts are, for example, witnessing the growth of
\nhealthy urban agriculture all over the place.<\/p>\n
By contrast, however, the new Jakarta master plan governing
\nthe capital's development up to 2010 has reduced the 'formal'
\nallocation of land for urban agriculture to less than 200
\nhectares located in one location only -- near the airport -- as
\ncompared to thousands of similar places in the old master plan.<\/p>\n
This is despite the fact that urban agriculture is saving
\nthousands of poor families from going hungry and forging
\ncollaboration between different socioeconomic classes -- middle-
\nincome owners of vacant urban plots and low-income urban kampong
\ndwellers.<\/p>\n
Urban agriculture also provides Jakarta with reasonable
\nquality food without costly and polluting, long-distance
\nmotorized transport. It also improves microclimates and the soil
\nstructure of the vacant land. Agricultural areas at the urban
\nfringes can be designed as greenbelts to avoid uncontrolled urban
\nsprawl. It can be combined with recreational as well as some
\nnature conservation functions such as water retention and flood
\nbuffer zones.<\/p>\n
Mixed land use increases infrastructure efficiency, while also
\nproviding the cheapest mode of combining productive and housing
\nactivities for the urban poor (and, actually, for everybody
\nelse), as long as environmental health is heeded.<\/p>\n
Historically, this is how cities have always been. That's how
\nit should be. It is the twisted idea of the "modern", radical
\nseparation of working and living that has ruined the concept. It
\nis now a good time to shift the paradigm because of today's
\nadditional conditionality: the need to survive the crisis.<\/p>\n
This indeed provides a good reason -- a better one than the
\nlobbying of some land-hungry businessmen -- to propose a revision
\nof the spatial plan.<\/p>\n
Rejection of informality has been the enemy of the urban poor
\nfor the last 30 years. An international workshop titled Coping
\nwith Informality and Illegality in Human Settlements in
\nDeveloping Cities was held from May 23 to May 26, 2001, in
\nLeuven, Belgium, as a milestone marking the end of the old
\nparadigm and the start of one that sees informality as a space
\nfor accommodating the complexity of a sustainable popular
\neconomy, and as a necessary source of healthy plurality in urban
\nlife.<\/p>\n
For three decades the previous paradigm has failed, and
\nproduced an ever-increasing frequency of conflict, which is
\nbecoming too expensive and unbearable for Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Anticipating more difficult times to come ahead, it is very
\nreasonable, and actually urgent, for Indonesian cities to
\nconsider policies which are more inclusive of informality.<\/p>\n
Revisions of urban development plans, including land-use
\nplans, need, at the very least, to be effected. This must be
\ncoupled with a more pro-poor mass transport system. The United
\nNations Covenant on Social Economic Rights -- unfortunately not
\nyet ratified by Indonesia -- demands that housing be located
\nwhere access to employment is easy.<\/p>\n
For the poor and their informal economy, it also very obvious
\nthat their survival depends on proximity to the more formal
\neconomies of the middle and upper classes. Therefore, isolating
\nthem from the latter will deal the deathblow to them. Malls and
\nwhite-collar workplaces need to provide space to accommodate
\nthem.<\/p>\n
Middle- and upper-income housing estates are also the natural
\nsources of employment and livelihood for them. Proximity and
\naccess as between the different income groups should be designed
\nto make symbiosis possible.<\/p>\n
Simultaneously, the local authority might, perhaps, turn its
\nattention to other forms of informality that proliferate among
\nthe rich. If public order officers were to just look around, they
\nwould quickly spot kitchens and front porches extended beyond the
\nallowed building lines, or driveways extending out into public
\nrights-of-way, houses being illegally used for all sort of
\nbusinesses, garbage being dumped in public spaces, including
\ntoll-road tickets discarded five meters after the exit gate.<\/p>\n
After all, can we really say that the notorious practices of
\ncorruption, collusion and nepotism are not the product of an
\n"informal" attitude among the members of the elite in managing
\npublic affairs?<\/p>\n
--The writer is an architect and urbanist based in Jakarta<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/jakartas-informality-aides-the-poor-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }