Jakarta laden with ecological woes

By Edith Hartanto

JAKARTA (JP): Jakarta is facing challenges to dealing with its environmental and habitat problems mainly because of its high density population coupled with public ignorance of the government's environmental programs.

This was once revealed by Governor Surjadi Soedirdja, who officially ends his term today -- the world habitat day.

This year's world habitat day is being celebrated with the theme "Future Cities".

"The issues of population, poverty and environment in Jakarta are inseparable. The city has more than nine million inhabitants and is growing by approximately 2.4 percent per annum," he said.

"Significant growth in the city's manufacturing and service sectors has served as a magnet for people in search of a better living from other cities. Around 300,000 villagers enter Jakarta every year, thereby burdening the city and causing problems in implementing the city's development plan, especially on human settlement," Surjadi said.

Has Jakarta followed the right path in developing its human settlement? Has it become an environmentally friendly city, where all the basic needs of its residents are fulfilled? Has it reduced pollution and created a healthy, free, creative and just community?

"No matter how hard the municipality has tried to develop the city, the results of its development plans are always negated by the migration problems, which can never be solved properly," Bun Yamin Ramto, a city studies expert, said Saturday.

With the enormous migration flow from other cities, Jakarta never gets a chance to develop itself as a service city.

"The municipality is busy settling the problems caused by the huge population," said Bun Yamin, a former vice governor of Jakarta.

"Jakarta's human settlement is very complex. Many areas of Greater Jakarta, which also include Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi, were converted into so-called satellite cities to accommodate housing needs, but eventually they will pose a big burden on Jakarta because they are not self-sufficient," he explained.

He said people only used the satellite cities to sleep in. During the day they work in Jakarta.

"At the beginning people praised the idea of moving homes to the suburbs, away from the hectic capital. But now, people face traffic problems and heavy congestion because they commute everyday. This consumes much of their energy," Bun Yamin said.

The stresses of commuting had prompted a flow of people moving back into the capital, he said. "This tendency was anticipated by the municipality with its apartments program, due to the limited availability of land."

But the apartments program, especially the construction of cheap apartments, will not work if it is not linked to job opportunities in the area. "The ideal concept is a community settlement in which people live and earn a living in the same spot, so they don't have to go anywhere," he said.

Bun Yamin said it was important for the administration to maintain properties and let people rent them.

"The administration can offer attractive subsidies to entice people to live in apartments. And they have to start a building maintenance program from the beginning," he said.

Four factors ensure a decent human settlement: accessibility, utilities, facilities and joviality.

"These aspects, especially the joviality aspect, seem to be forgotten in the development of settlements in Jakarta," he said.

The mushrooming condominiums and cheap apartments should provide more room for green areas. "Green areas can be converted into amusement parks or sports fields, where people have space to relax and reduce stress," the 61-year-old expert said.

"Ideally, if there are 1,000 people living in one tower, there should be at least 1,000 square meters of open areas for them to relax in," he said.

He was concerned about the lack of people with authority, the arduous bureaucracy, and conflicts of interest with the central government. "The municipality always has serious problems in funding and planning," he said.

Mass rapid transportation is essential but plans for this never got off the ground. "When I was deputy governor, the Mass Rapid Transportation (MRT) had been proposed. The contractors said if they started the project in 1985, it would take seven years to complete. But the proposal was turned down without clear reason by the central government. Now, it is delayed again due to the monetary crisis," he said.

"An MRT is a must, especially for a city that has over five million people," he said.

Jakarta had missed out on many important programs, he said.

One of those was an anti-pollution program.

"Twenty years ago we decided that every vehicle must be fitted with a filter to reduce air pollution. But we haven't even got a by-law on emission testing," he said.

He also objected to the city's reclamation project which has blocked the flow of 13 rivers in Jakarta. "I agree that reclamation is needed to restore North Jakarta Bay. But don't block river flows. It will certainly cause flooding," he said.

Paulus Wirutomo, a sociologist from University of Indonesia, who is involved in developing the city's strategic planning, said the human settlement issue constituted endless work.

"The administration has developed three alternatives -- slum eradication, kampong rehabilitation and a combination of the two -- to create better settlements for Jakartans.

"The eradication of the slum areas converts former plots into cheap apartments. The kampong rehabilitation program improves the quality of the environment without evicting residents, while the combination plan is to build apartments based on the social class of the prospective inhabitants," he said.

Apartments can be useful for people who have a formal job and fixed income. "But it is hard for people who work in the informal sector. It's cheaper for them to live in slums than to live in apartments where they have to pay all the expenses and services."

Informal sector workers play a vital role in the city, as garbage collectors and street vendors.

"They are really needed by Jakarta. So if they are evicted, they can't survive.

"The only possible way is to let them live in their community. By converting the slums into a more healthy environment with roads, drainage systems and water pipelines, the kampong would not be a slum anymore then," he said.

Paulus said it was important to have an integrated plan for developing Greater Jakarta.

"If the growth of satellite cities becomes uncontrollable, it will be hard for Jakarta to upgrade its performance as a service city. If the municipality is consistent and quick in responding to the problem, Jakarta will develop faster," he said.