Jakarta atlas maker Holtorf goes digital

Jakarta atlas maker Holtorf goes digital

Marco Kusumawijaya, Contributor, Jakarta

Gunther W. Holtorf, the maker of Jakarta Street Atlas and Names
Index, recently arrived back in Jakarta with an interactive CD-
ROM version of the map.

Users can search for places by clicking one of the 30 buttons
-- which represent 30 special groups or categories -- and then
typing in the place's name.

"Street Name" is just one category. Others include: Apartment,
Embassy, School, University, Estate, Hotel, Kelurahan
(subdistrict), Housing Complex, Market Place, Shopping Mall, Toll
Gate, Bus Terminal, Hospital, Map Number, Post-code and even
Flyover/Underpass.

As with street names, users can search for new as well as old
names, as long as the latter are still being used. One good
example is the street where The Jakarta Post office lies. It has
been changed to Jl. Gelora X; but you can also type in Palmerah
Selatan, the old name. Unfortunately this CD-ROM is not
applicable to Mac computers.

Holtorf actually started computer-assisted processing with the
12th edition of the map issued last year, resulting in the first
map in the world in which all the streets are completely
digitized into vectors.

The map has accurate latitudes and longitudes. Budapest's
skillful cartographers mostly do this work, as they are "very
good, although not very fast". (In 1977 when Holtorf started,
they were also very cheap).

The interactive CDS-ROM's accompany re-prints of the 12th
edition atlases, with each pair to be sold at the original price
of the first prints last year Rp 199,000 (about US$23). The CD-
ROM, but not the re-prints, contains some 9,000 corrections made
by March 2003. Holtorf claims that neither in Europe, nor Asia,
this format of map exists -- as far as he knows.

The 30 select categories reflect conditions specific to
Jakarta and are designed to fulfill what Holtorf describes as
Jakarta folks's peculiar need to search for neighborhoods or
places, as opposed to street names. It includes 1,300 real
estates.

So if you are looking for a house in a housing estate, you can
search the location by entering either the street or the estate
name. You cannot type in your street number just yet. Considering
that numbers are not always consecutive along Jakarta streets
this would be far too much to expect old Holtorf to provide.

For example, there are five number 5's on Jl. Fatmawati. And
on Jl. Sumenep in Menteng no.26 replaced the original number of a
house upon the request of the occupant who believes 26 is his
lucky number.

The map is devised to accommodate the navigational needs of
motorists. As such, it is actually no longer a "Falk" map.

The Falk system was developed in Europe in 1946, based on the
specific condition of European cities: many walked or used public
transport, while land-use was stabile. Two colors are
predominantly used as background: pink (from the color of roofs)
to signify built areas, and green to signify un-built areas.

Basically the whole map's background is colored solid. Street
names are blurred by such a background. Main streets are colored
yellow and exaggerated in width, misleading users.

Holtorf's map is predominantly white in background, giving
maximum contrast to street names and other texts in black. Other
colors are still used, but selectively and mostly in transparent
washes. He uses pink only to signify dense kampongs, for example.

Maximum clarity and contrast are important for motorists, the
intended users of Holtorf's map. They need to notice information
at a glance. It shows u-turns, one-way streets and their
hierarchy. Overlaps between pages are generous and grids are
smaller to speed up or make searches more accurate. Three sets of
"key maps" are provided at three scales: 1: 330,000 for the whole
of Jabotabek (Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang, Bekasi) and
surroundings; 1: 150,000 for Jakarta and surroundings; and
1:75,000 for large parts of them. The detailed pages are on a
larger scale of 1: 12,500, as compared with the previous edition
at 1:15,000.

Jakarta and its surroundings does seem to require a clear and
accurate map -- more than just a Falk's -- because its organic
form has grown haphazardly over a long period, very much like
Japanese and European cities.

In the USA, said Holtorf, there is no tradition of complicated
and detailed map making. Its cities have inherited gridiron
patterns from their colonial past and are not as confusing.
Jakarta is difficult for a map maker to view as a whole due to
the rapid level of growth, characterized by a lack of planning.

Slowly but surely, the public imagination of Jakarta has
surpassed its administrative boundaries. Suburbanization has
blurred the fringe areas between the mother city and its
surrounding planets (Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi) into a
vague continuum.

Developed infrastructures have made the whole region the de
facto socio-cultural and economic space of the next generation.
They must be free to move and connect efficiently within and
outside the continuum shortened as Jabotabek.

Planning professionals and authorities are mostly lagging
behind in treating the region as a continuum -- arguing about
jurisdictions and reluctant to take joint action regarding
important cross-boundary issues, such as the environment and
transportation.

Whereas a map of Jabotabek serves as just the opposite:
confirming the factual physical, socio-cultural and economic
continuum and helping its users to move within it efficiently. It
is also changing the mentality of the metropolitan citizens. For
a very long time, Indonesians used to live by an expression Malu
bertanya sesat di jalan (if you are too shy to ask, you get
lost). Now they do not need to ask, to use the "mouth compass",
they can just look at the map!

Holtorf's 12th edition map has indeed expanded to cover not
only Jabotabek, but also Karawang (to the end of the toll road at
Cikampek) and Cipanas (part of Cianjur district). The map maker
promises that the 13th edition will also cover Sukabumi, Cianjur,
Purwakarta, Cikampek, Padalarang and the western parts of
Bandung, more or less covering the factual, ever expanding living
space of Jakarta's middle class".

Jasinga -- a part of Bogor district closer to Jakarta than
some "other places", will not be covered precisely because it is
"not a place that is often visited by Jakarta folk". Holtorf has
a clear deliberate bias toward Jakarta.

Holtorf also recognizes the popular perception of areas by
framing each area in one page, according to how they are
generally perceived to be bordered. He puts the area's popular
name in the middle of the page. Therefore we have the whole of
"Kebayoran Baru" on page 54, most of Menteng on page 35, and
Cinere on page 84.

What is special about Holtorf's atlas is, in the last
instance, the amount of information contained in it. With very
few books written about the contemporary condition of Jakarta,
this atlas is such a book -- only presented in an atlas format.

Street names are but 30 percent of the book's content and
value. It provides a base for future map-makers of Jakarta. It
sells quality information, collected through a tenacious working
ethos. Perhaps that's why others produce a lesser quality map
than Holtorf's and not many cities have similar maps.

However, his map is not very useful for users of public
transportation, excluding taxis. One may indeed hope to see
Holtorf's monumental work overlaid with information about public
transport -- if this is possible, considering its changing
routes and irregular services. Neither is the map satisfying for
those looking for a beautiful image of Jakarta's Metropolis. But,
better than that, it is an honest view of the city.