Infrastructure development won't solve Jakarta's problems

By Vincent Lingga

World renown architect and city planner Desmond Muirhead shared his ideas about the greater Jakarta area development in a recent interview with The Jakarta Post.

JAKARTA (JP): The high rate of urbanization that is far outpacing the development of infrastructure is not unique to Jakarta whose 255.2 square mile (650 square km) area is now populated by around 8.5 million people.

Traffic congestion, housing shortages and environmental pollution are in fact endemic to almost all cities in developing countries.

"But the problems cannot be solved by large-scale development of infrastructure alone," says Desmond Muirhead who has planned and designed numerous real estate projects all over the world, including the Lippo Village near Tangerang in West Java.

Muirhead, who is also recognized worldwide as a leading golf- course designer, says the city's problems should be attacked by simultaneously improving the public transport system, restricting the flow of private cars to congestion areas and by enhancing the development of multiple urban centers.

Highlights of the interview are as follows:

Question: As an experienced city planner and architect, how do you see Jakarta?

Answer: I am generally impressed with Jakarta. It has broad streets. But its great virtue as a city is its people who are surely some of the most friendly, charming, natural, most-relaxed people in the world. After all, cities are about meeting new people, choice of different jobs, social interaction.

We should enhance this quality and not destroy it. But at the current rate of urbanization you are going to have problems. Therefore, Jakarta should put increasing emphasis on planning and urban design now. You should plan for 25 years and not for 25 months.

Cities today are in competition with each other internationally for industry, trade, information, tourism and unless there is very good planning and traffic control Jakarta will lose out to other cities who have better control of their destinies. Thus the poor in Jakarta could become much poorer and the rich will have less attractive lives.

You may have noticed that traffic congestion in Jakarta has been worsening, causing large wastes of productive time and fuel, and air pollution. What measures of traffic engineering and management do you think the city administration should take?

First of all, I think the growth in the traffic volume should be reduced in the short term through a mixture of measures. Motorists will suffer a little but anything is better than gridlock. Restricting lane traffic in congestion prone areas for private cars with more than one passenger is one method. Imposing economic charges for parking could be tried. Exclusive bus lanes are useful. Congestion charging is another method. Closing some central area streets to vehicular traffic at peak periods merits consideration.

All these measures will be able to alleviate but not cure congestion. You need a fully-coordinated traffic management system, integrating public and private-sector transportation.

Hence, the city government should plan a mass rapid transit system and suburban rail service.

Simply moving complexes of housings to the outskirts will only move congestion from one area to another.

But the problem is that Jakarta, like most other cities in developing countries, is largely characterized by a central business district which has the highest accessibility of the city area. And as the city grows, more workers tend to live farther from their work, thereby lengthening and increasing daily trips.

I think what is happening here is very much similar to those in major cities in the developed countries. In the United States, for example, automobiles prompted a great exodus from the cities to the suburbs in the 1950s. In the 1960s, the shops and department stores followed as the people got tired of congested traffic driving downtown to go shopping. Beginning in the 1970s, jobs followed the people into the suburbs.

The question is why Jakarta should wait for such a natural evolution and go through the same mistakes? Why not plan the process right now to manage the evolution in an orderly manner. Modern telecommunications and information technology now available could help accelerate the process.

I think Jakarta needs to enhance the development of satellite cities or multiple urban centers to reduce overcrowding in the city proper. This concept covers the movement not only of housing and shopping facilities but jobs as well. That is precisely what we are developing in the Lippo Village, integrating employment, residences and all public facilities and services in a self- contained urban center.

The Lippo Village near Tangerang, West Java, is being developed into a 500-hectare richly landscaped town complete with all public facilities and services for a fully integrated community life.

Designed to be a town for more than 50,000 people, the Lippo Village already boasts the country's largest international school and will, by its completion within the next few years, have Indonesia's largest shopping mall, an international hospital, a country club for 5,000 members, a 204-room international hotel and several office blocks, condominiums and thousands of individual houses.

How do you think the development of satellite cities could be accelerated?

Hopefully, more private investors will be interested in developing such satellite cities around Jakarta. What the government should do is develop public transport networks to ensure mutual accessibility to the various urban centers.

Hence, the promotion of new satellite cities with adequate accessibility to attract part of the activities crowding into the central business district in Jakarta requires the building of infrastructure, including transport facilities, to radiate from the new nodal points.

But a note of caution is in order here. Zoning regulations will not encourage the development of satellite cities. The process should be left to the supply-demand forces.

However, the development of satellite cities should also be supported by a more adequate siting of the airport. An airport, for example, should be planned together with the development of new multiple urban centers. Such a huge city as Jakarta actually needs more than one airport. But if the resources are not available for building a satellite airport within the medium term period of time, you should at least have a rail transport system to the existing airport.

Window A: You need a fully-coordinated traffic management system, integrating public and private-sector transportation.

Window B: The government should develop public transport networks to ensure mutual accessibility to the various urban centers.