Enjoy Jakarta?

Enjoy Jakarta?

Historian Ridwan Saidi claimed the anniversary of Jakarta did
not fall on June 22. The native Jakartan said the date now
commonly accepted as the day Jakarta was founded was actually the
date when Fatahillah, or Faletehan, attacked Jakarta on the
orders of king Cirebon in the early 16th century.

With respect to history, what Jakartans really need is not the
date on which the city was founded. Residents need to see that
the administration is doing something to make Jakarta a more
livable city.

The anniversary of the capital is marked each year with an
event called the Jakarta Fair. Unfortunately, this expensive fair
has become little more than a mask to hide the failure of
successive administrations to make Jakarta a better city for its
residents.

Abraham Lincoln once said, "I am a slow walker, but I never
walk back." Those involved in managing Jakarta are more than slow
walkers; they seem to be reluctant to walk at all.

The result is that from year to year, residents can see little
if any progress in all aspects of public service.

In terms of democracy, Jakarta, which is generally held up as
an example and the barometer for other cities in the country, has
made absolutely no progress. As a province, Jakarta, which has
six municipalities, does not have a single legislative body at
the municipal level. The absence of such local legislative bodies
has made it impossible for residents to elect their mayors
directly. The governor wields the power to appoint mayors, who
will naturally feel that their loyalty and responsibility lies
more with the governor than with residents.

Public services remain another area of concern. A recent
survey by the Indonesian Institute for Civil Society, in
cooperation with the European Union and the Partnership for
Governance Reform in Indonesia, found that the level of public
service in the city depended on how much residents could pay. The
majority of survey respondents, interviewed in 80 subdistricts
throughout the capital, said the response of officials to their
needs depended on how much money they could give the officials.
No one has denied the results of the survey.

Residents' demands for improved employment opportunities,
security, public transportation and flood and pollution control
have received little more than lip service from the
administration.

The administration seems to be helpless to deal with rising
unemployment. The answer is not to build more shopping malls,
which mainly creates jobs for poorly educated construction
workers and shopkeepers.

Crime remains a major concern in the city. The large number of
illegal gambling establishments in Jakarta raises serious
questions about law enforcement here. Every large rainstorm
leaves residents worried about flooding, a sign of the
administration's failure to establish an effective flood control
system.

Jakarta, with at least 2.5 million private cars, 3.8 million
motorcycles and 255,000 public transportation vehicles on the
roads, is the world's third most polluted city after Bangkok and
Mexico City. As the skies grow dirtier and dirtier, residents are
left to wonder about officials' commitment to cleaning up the
air.

The only effort of note to improve public transportation is
the administration's introduction of the busway, which continues
to attract more passengers. TransJakarta buses have become the
only alternative for those who want to spend less time getting to
and from work. However, because it covers such a limited area,
the "success" of the busway does not reflect any true success in
moving people around the capital. What the densely populated city
really needs is a mass rapid transit (MRT) system.

On the streets, poor traffic enforcement encourages motorists
to violate traffic regulations, endangering themselves and
everyone else on the roads. Motorcyclists behave like ghosts,
floating through traffic lights as if they did not even exist.

Jakarta cannot overcome the enormous challenges it faces
without help from the neighboring provinces of West Java and
Banten. The garbage dump dispute between Jakarta and West Java is
a recent example of this need to work together.

With migrants continuing to pour into Jakarta, unchecked
urbanization is often cited as a major factor in many of the
capital's woes. The only remedy is regional autonomy, which
empowers provinces to create jobs for their residents. It is
hoped that more job opportunities in other provinces will stop
people from pouring into Jakarta looking for work. From this it
is clear that "mending" Jakarta is a national issue.

Given the complexity of the problems, it would be natural for
people to assume that Jakarta will only grow worse; or, at the
very least, that no significant improvements will be seen. Every
plan to make Jakarta a more livable city seems to die on the
vine. And the older Jakarta gets, the worse and more complex its
problems.

Therefore, as we mark the 478th anniversary of Jakarta,
Governor Sutiyoso should take heed of something Charles Dickens
wrote in A Tale of Two Cities: "I am like one who died young, all
my life might have been."