Blessed are the earth and sustainable cities

By Marco Kusumawijaya

JAKARTA (JP): Destruction of the relationship between cities and the earth has been prophesied in many apocalyptic science- fiction movies: cities are isolated from the earth (or some other planet in the galaxy) because the planet has become too dangerous for habitation due to acid rain, energy storms, toxic waste, disorienting deserts, and so on.

This relationship is not unlike that in the middle-ages: cities fortified by a rampart were safe and civilized, unfortified dangerous and savage. And the earth is to blame, whereas it is only bearing the harms caused on it by the preceding generations.

Hopefully it will never happen. Every year the head of the universal catholic church, the Pope, prays for the earth and its cities -- pro urbi et orbi -- as a reminder of the sacred relationship between the two. The city is a human creation, it is culture; the earth is God's creation, it is nature. Thus the relationship between the city and the earth is also one between humans and their creator.

Humans are definitely a major factor contributing to the degradation of nature in modern times. Annual GDP per capita in Europe has increased from about US$1,000 in 1750 (when Adam Smith introduced the market economy theory) to about $17,500 in 2000. During this period, the majority of humans moved to cities or urbanized themselves in terms of consumption patterns.

In developed countries, the urban population was as high as 75 percent (France) and 97 percent (Belgium) in 1997. In Indonesia, the urban population has been increasing dramatically from 22 percent in 1980 to 37 percent in 1997. This is why cities are important in saving the earth: its majority of humans live in them.

Two key messages

In Indonesia, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are only 0.3 cubic tons per capita. This is compared to America's 0.625 cubic tons per capita. Two sectors which are major sources of GHG emissions are directly related to urban development. They are energy and transport, and forestry and land use change. The highest contributions from the urban transport sub-sector come from the USA and Australia, two countries with the largest scale of suburbanization.

In Indonesia, contributions to the country's total GHG emissions from the energy and transport sector rose from 13 percent in 1990 to 25 percent in 1994; while during the same period forestry and land use change contributions climbed from 48 percent to 63 percent (data from B. Bagiani, ed., Confronting Climate Change, National Environment Trust & Pelangi Foundation, Washington, 2000).

This fast growth reflects the extensive urban development, logging and palm-oil industry development during that period and continuing up until the beginning of the economic crisis in 1997.

It presents two critical arguments for a paradigm shift in urban planning.

First, cities must be planned as compact units. The conversion from natural land use to urban or suburban development must be minimal. New land development, in the form of land clearing, must be avoided.

Monofunctional land developments, in the form of large-scale housing suburbs and commercial or industrial super blocks, never satisfies the basic right of people to housing.

Indeed, more often than not, these developments have exercised gross speculation, causing an over-supply that has contributed to the economic crisis. What needs to be achieved is a persistent increase in the capacity of existing urban spaces through two basic methods: the improvement and, in some cases, addition of available infrastructures and facilities; and a land use mix of residential and non-residential functions to the maximum degree within the limits of environmental health.

Second, public transport systems in cities must receive top priority. They must be made available in the most energy efficient, environmentally friendly and socially equitable way. More roads for private cars are not a sustainable option. It is true that road surface per capita in Indonesia is relatively low, but the density of roads in urban areas is high. It is for this reason that land appropriation for building more roads is becoming increasingly impossible and has caused significant social problems.

One alternative is to convert as many roads as possible into well-managed public transport thoroughfares: with rail or bus- based systems, as has been the case in the city of Curitiba in Brazil.

It must be ensured that it is economically viable to gradually readjust urban land use patterns. This is required to eventually achieve a workable integration between public transport routing and the spatial plans of cities. Two obvious objectives are: to maintain trip demand at a minimum level; and to make sure that the public transport system will be used by the majority of the urban population.

Ring roads

Therefore, just to illustrate, Yogyakarta must more effectively control its ring road program. It is sad that two ring road segments, at its southern and eastern peripheries, have arbitrarily cut through the landscape and communities. As a result, fragmented suburban architectures emerge. The compact and bicycle-friendly nature, which has been a distinct attraction of Yogyakarta, has been disturbed.

Solo (Surakarta) must also restrain its ring road plans. It must concentrate, instead, on revitalizing its existing intra- urban rail network, and promptly reuse it as the basis for a socially equitable, efficient and environmentally friendly public transport system.

Solo might be the only city in Indonesia endowed with a rail network that is practically capable of serving the whole urban area. Thank God it is still a compact city. To reuse this rail network is almost a moral obligation for the city!

And Jakarta? In addition to many other things, Jakarta needs to reestablish a relationship between its population and nature: mountains and the sea. The beaches need to be made accessible to the public for free. Mountains should remain unspoiled, not urbanized. Only then can the metropolises continuously remember their relationship with, and responsibility to, nature, the cosmos and eventually God.

They should reject the current reclamation plan of the metropolitan coastal areas. Most of the reclaimed land will be turned into private properties or public deceptions -- you have to pay to gain access! It will also have an environmental impact, the consequences of which are not completely predictable, on existing natural heritage, including the precious and sensitive mangroves.

Jakarta must instead concentrate its scarce resources on rehabilitating existing coastal environments, protecting them and reinstating access to them for the population.

World-class architectural heritage, such as colonial Jakarta Kota, is long overdue for environmental and infrastructure improvements necessary to make it thrive again. It is there, the waterfront! Why create something new with unresolved risks unnecessarily?

Reclaiming land is not at all a sustainable answer to the metropolis' middle and lower class housing problem. It will simply create more dispersed coastal suburbs, contrary to the principle of an environmentally sound, compact city. To really solve the problem, the city should do the reverse: look inward, integrate its spatial and transport plan, and stop speculation by both the private sector and local authorities through arbitrary under-the-table land use changes!