Downside to increase in boardinghouses

By Primastuti Handayani and Sri Wahyuni

JAKARTA (JP): Boarding houses are not just about making a profit.

Complex sociological sketches of real life are played out under their roofs by a motley stockpile of humanity, many from different social and educational backgrounds.

Inevitably, their presence impinges on the surrounding community.

Sociologist Paulus Wirotomo of the University of Indonesia talked to The Jakarta Post about the potential sociological downside to the business' rapid expansion.

Question: What is the sociological impact of the boarding house business on customs of the surrounding community?

Answer: In big cities, the boarding house business (renting single rooms to single people) has been a tradition for ages. There are always single people moving to big cities either for a job, business or study. It's an inseparable part of development, as small towns turn into industrial cities.

An obvious reason is the development of labor-intensive industries which use simple technology. They demand a huge number of laborers, most of whom have low education. Therefore, they attract many villagers to cities to get jobs, while other people also come to support the growing number of newcomers by selling food, or through other businesses.

As a result, the demand for rented rooms is increasing and people living near industrial sites see this as a chance to do business. They may rent out their rooms to the workers of nearby industrial firms.

The areas will soon become crowded with young people involved in similar types of works. The danger is that such a homogeneous community could eventually create what is called a "youth town".

Q: These dangers?

A: Well, because of its huge amount, this newly formed type of community has the capability to create a new "norm" of its own. They may turn the existing social norms upside down. They become very permissive, and exhibit social behaviors the indigenous local society cannot tolerate.

As you see, these are mostly young workers who just graduated from their junior or senior high schools. They leave their villages without having been maturely socialized into their village customs.

They are marginal in the sense that they live in a suburb but are not able to enjoy its facilities. They do not know the city's culture, and at the same time they haven't fully understood their own culture. Thus, they are neither city people nor villagers.

Living in this situation without any parental guidance allows them to easily develop a permissive attitude. They become very free. Unmarried men and women live together in one room in a boarding house, and no one cares. They feel they do not belong to the community. They become a loose community. They think they will live there temporarily anyway. So, why should they bother.

Q: Do these youth towns already exist in Indonesia?

A: Well, we can say so. Some industrial estates -- namely in the West Java towns of Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi, known as Botabek, and the suburbs of Surabaya, East Java -- are examples.

Industrial companies in Indonesia do not have the tradition of providing dormitories with strict regulations for their laborers. They let their workers live together in the nearby communities.

Q: Are there more negative than positive impacts of boarding houses on the surrounding community?

A: One obvious benefit is that the community earns more money by renting their houses, although there are also many urban people jumping into the business nowadays.

It's indeed a social symptom which needs our attention as we are becoming an industrial country.

Q: Is there any bigger impact of the business?

A: One thing is for sure. These young people are very vulnerable to many things. For example, they often engage in deviant sexual behavior. There will be many premarital pregnancy cases and incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. They are very permissive, but they can also be very aggressive at one time and sometimes even violent.

To prevent this from happening, it is the companies' responsibility to socialize and educate them to be civilized workers. They cannot just claim they pay the workers and that's all. An industry is a culture. It can educate people to be modern. It can teach them about health, discipline, science, etc.

Q: Do you think our industrial companies have done this?

A: I don't think so. See, our industries are mostly still labor intensive which apply simple technology. People working there have no clear career development. There is no significant improvement for them although they may have been working there for many years.

This feeling of having no clear career development will prevent them from thinking about their future.

That's why I say it is sociologically dangerous if most of our factories are using simple technology and need a large number of low-educated workers.

It would be better if such factories are built in rural areas. By so doing, they won't create the so-called youth town because the workers will come from nearby villagers. There won't be many migrants in cities.

Q: We've talked about blue collar workers' boarding houses. What about those of white collar employees and students'?

A: They, in the long run, will also have the same impact. They will create these youth towns, although they may consist of relatively richer and more educated people. Running a single- person household, however, is much riskier than running a family. Single people, as I said, do not have social bonds and responsibility to the community.

Q: What's the difference between the two types?

A: The different is that students and white collar employees are not marginal because they have better education and usually are not villagers. Still, they are groups of young people who are capable of creating more permissive and aggressive behavior. In other countries, such a community has even created what is called a counter culture, like the hippies in the United States.

Q: How do you define a counter culture?

A: Well, it's a culture whose purpose is to be always against the establishment in the community. People of such a culture always do things counter to what the community does.

Q: How can we prevent this, as the existence of boarding houses seems inevitable?

A: Of course, boarding houses are still needed. Single persons will prefer to live in boarding houses rather than their own houses.

Sometimes, boarding houses turn into apartments, like in the United States. This will even be more difficult to control and will eventually turn the place into a nest for promiscuous sexual relationships.

Such a thing won't happen in a community with a heterogeneous social structure, in which each person has his/her own role that everyone can control one another.

Q: Do you think Indonesia is near to developing a counter culture?

A: I do. I think that within 10 years we will be experiencing this culture.

Q: Is there nothing we can do?

A: It's because we don't really care about that. Our cities never have an established development concept.

Q: Should the Amdal (analysis on the environmental impact of an industry) include this type of sociological aspect?

A: Yes, definitely. In Indonesia, people tend not to think about it. There's no encouragement for industrial companies. In a short time, we will soon witness these negative symptoms.

Look at Yogyakarta. It's very messy now. Many parents are worried about sending their children there and letting them live in boarding houses.

Batam Island in Riau is another example. It's very extreme there. It's because the development of the island is not well planned. No comprehensive arrangement has been made for the development. They just let everything take its course naturally.

Q: Some boarding houses are guarded by their owners who also live there...

A: But, well, only if they apply society's norms will they be well respected. The supporting control from the local community will be a benefit.

In this case, a regulation is needed to avoid social crisis. This should be applied not only by the government, but also by the whole community. So, enforcement would be a very important part of the program.

For example, the University of Indonesia, in cooperation with the city administration in Depok, south of Jakarta, has established a community laboratory to evaluate social impact from rapid development of a city.