Blessed are the earth and sustainable cities

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!