Jakartans are wasting time and energy
JAKARTA (JP): Inhabitants of Jakarta waste time and energy in traffic jams, in polluted areas and just trying to get a clear telephone line.
Life is expensive, people are tense, expectations are high, and the public services and infrastructure are ill-suited.
"Jakartans expect roads to be smooth and free of congestion; when trying to make a telephone call they expect to make immediate contact," said Ruslan Diwiryo, the secretary-general of the ministry of public works.
Speakers at a one-day national seminar on urban infrastructure discussed the challenges of making infrastructure use more efficient.
Minister Radinal Moochtar said infrastructure development must increasingly focus on the groups it intends to serve, and the function of the particular city in which it is located.
"Cities must increasingly function as efficient centers of services and industry to be able to compete in the global market," Radinal said.
The challenge will become greater as more people move to the city. It is estimated 52 percent of the population, or 145 million people, will live in cities in the near future.
Radinal said there will be 14 cities with populations of more than one million. Greater Jakarta is currently home to around 15 million people.
The talks were held by the Ministry's Analysis Center for the Development of Public Works and the United Nations Center for Regional Development.
Organizers said they aimed to record the aspirations of the public and private sector regarding infrastructure development. The talks were also part of preparations for an international expert panel on urban infrastructure development to be held here on June 21 and June 22.
Johan Silas, an architect from Surabaya, East Java, said urban infrastructure development can no longer ignore a city's characteristics and human factor.
With electronic communications growth causing the need for less space, "what is more important for humans is no longer performance, but products," he said.
"The form and role of large cities like Jakarta will fade and become less dominant," he added. Massive urbanization is outdated and leads to pollution and tension.
Johan said Jakarta's kampong improvement programs are ineffective because residents are forced to move out by misguided road building projects.
"The wide roads built for cars attract the middle class," he said, making land prices soar, living costs increase, and then the better-off buy up surrounding land.
These developments show "a poor understanding" of the program recognized in 1992 by the World Bank as beneficial, Johan told The Jakarta Post. (anr)