Finding a solution to Jakarta's lack of adequate housing

Finding a solution to Jakarta's lack of adequate housing

From a center of intensive agricultural activity, Jakarta graduated to manufacturing and is redefining itself as the financial and commercial capital of Indonesia.

For decades, city planners have been involved in housing programs to cope with the growth of urban populations while kampong improvement activities are in full swing to improve conditions in existing areas.

To accommodate the growing number of people belonging to the international community, Jakarta has expanded immensely, especially toward the south, to provide expensive housing for all those looking for a home away from home.

However, much of the city remains a patchwork of different kampongs that are veritable villages within the big village of Jakarta, a home to many Indonesians who migrated from the rural areas of Java as well as other parts of the archipelago.

Jakarta's kampongs have in recent times multiplied into self-contained urban villages with names that reflect the origins of the residents; for example, Kampong Bali, Kampong Makassar and Kampong Melayu. These kampongs are generally overcrowded, noisy and consist of extremely modest dwellings that are placed extremely close to each other.

But across a narrow lane, just a stone's throw away from a congested kampong, are vast areas of greenery and naked land where villas, which often accommodate a single family, usually stand.

Despite such glaring disparity, Jakarta has avoided the bulldozing of most kampongs unlike other developing countries.

Instead, a kampong improvement program exists, and although it takes its time to implement changes, it has made life somewhat easier for many in the city's worst slums.

The idea is to use the support of residents to clean up life in a kampong instead of getting the population to relocate to new homes.

Meanwhile, the city is also being converted into a megalopolis called Jabotabek, an acronym of Jakarta, Bogor in the south, Tangerang in the west and Bekasi in the east, which are to be included in the capital.

Jabotabek is planned as an immense city of more than 7,500 square kilometers, which will absorb the adjoining population centers.

It is hoped that the plan will relieve the pressure on the central core, where 90 percent of the population is now living, by reducing the concentration of people to 63 percent by 2005.

Through various incentive schemes, new industrial and residential projects are being relegated to Jabotabek's peripheral areas.

Traffic pressure is expected to ease this way and expansion only to the south of Jakarta will also be halted in the long run.

It is hoped that new residential areas will become as popular as the southern spheres of Kemang and Pondok Indah and industries and office complexes will also choose to station themselves in the eastern and western parts of the capital city.

Despite the belief that the construction of high-rise apartments is not the only solution for low-income housing problems as people here traditionally like living close to the ground, the city does have an ambitious plan to provide more and more low-cost housing of very simple accommodation to the sprawling mass of slum dwellers.

Rumah Susun, the high-rise housing complex in Pejompongan, may not be a palace but it is considered a haven by many residents of former slums.

For 30 years Darmy had lived by the intercity railway line along with hundreds of rural immigrants who had no access to toilets or running water.

Now she lives in a tiled room fitted with electricity.

In the early 1990s this slum area was burned down and three residential blocks, each nine stories tall with 30 apartments on every floor, were constructed.

Each of the 21-square-meter accommodations with a balcony, kitchen, attached toilet and bathroom was sold for Rp 12 million.

For those like Darmy, who were brought up in tin shanties, to wake up each morning at Rumah Susun is indeed a new dawn.

However, Andri Sutandinata, a property development expert told The Jakarta Post that if a glut in a certain kind of housing is to be prevented than developers should first find out what customers want before committing to mass construction.

Andri is against forcing an imported lifestyle on residents here who may not be able to afford all the luxuries available at certain serviced apartments here.

The lesson learned from the economic crisis is that the property market must indulge in less speculation in the future.

"We must start to build homes for real customers and not investors," warned Andri. (Mehru Jaffer)