Control the growth of cities, Soeharto warns
Control the growth of cities, Soeharto warns
JAKARTA (JP): The growth of cities needed serious attention to
prevent more problems, President Soeharto said yesterday.
Although urban areas are expected contribute up to 80 percent
of Indonesia's national income, the expansion has created several
problems such as diminishing agricultural areas and the emergence
of city slums, he said.
This is why "there is no alternative but to pay serious
attention so that the growth of cities is under control,"
Soeharto said.
He was opening an international conference titled "The Future
of Asian Cities" at the Presidential Palace.
City growth was not related only to "urban hardware" or its
facilities but also to its "...cultural plans to enhance the
dignity and standing of life of urban societies," Soeharto said.
As Asia became one of the world's economic centers it would be
difficult to manage the world's cities by individual countries,
he said.
"An intergovernmental cooperation" would be needed to manage
these cities, the President said.
The conference was attended by about 400 experts from more
than 20 countries and will run until Dec.5. It is jointly
organized by the New York-based organization, The Asia Society,
and the Jakarta-based Center for Information and Development
Studies, CIDES.
Most Indonesians, or 155 million people, will be living in
cities in 2019, Soeharto said.
By 2019 there will be 15 new urban areas with populations of
more than 1 million. Four of them will be megacities with more
than 10 million people each, he said.
Mega-cities here "will be globally linked to the provincial,
regional, Asian and even world economic systems," the President
said.
Cities will play "an even greater pivotal role," in the midst
of higher competitiveness in the global market, he said.
Nicholas Platt, The Asia Society's president, said the
conference's focus was the "challenges and opportunities" to the
world created by the shift from rural to urban living in Asia.
By the early 21st century Asia will house 4.2 billion people.
By the year 2010, 30 cities in Asia will have populations of more
than five million each.
These changes "will shape Asia's urban development for decades
to come," Platt said.
Participants included urban planners, developers, bank
representatives, architects and activists.
Platt said Indonesia was an appropriate place for the
conference "because of its compelling past, its booming present,
and its prospects for a bright and dynamic future."
"Few governments have done more to improve the life of poor
residents living in kampongs in cities than that of Indonesia,"
Platt said, citing the successful Kampong Improvement Project.
(anr)