No longer 'Paris of Java'

No longer 'Paris of Java'

Until the early 1950s the city of Bandung was known as the
"Paris of Java". It was partly in recognition of this fact that
the government decided to hold the historic first Asian-African
conference there in 1955.

Later Bandung became known as Kota Bunga, the City of Flowers,
and more recently as Kota Sampah, or the City of Garbage. Now it
seems that the most fitting nickname for the provincial capital
of West Java located in the cool Priangan highlands would be
"City of Chaos".

Over the decades Bandung has developed and expanded rapidly,
first in an orderly and a well-controlled fashion, and then in a
very wild manner that has made many parts of the city barely
recognizable to those who have known this city from the pre-war
years.

Like most other Indonesian cities Bandung faces an acute
problem with urbanization, although perhaps not as seriously as
the nation's capital, Jakarta. The difference, perhaps, lies in
the limited opportunities which Bandung can offer to the incoming
rural job seekers who want to try to make ends meet there.

The town of Lembang and the road leading to the towns higher
up in the mountains, which used to be lined by plantations, good
hotels and cozy restaurants, are no longer visible from Bandung
down below. And the road is now lined by small, ugly buildings
thrown up by newcomers.

But Bandung's problems apparently originate not only from its
citizens, but also from the bureaucracy. That city's
administration seems very generous in allowing developers to
build houses anywhere they see fit, and those parts of the city
that were green and should have been kept green have now been
ravaged for the sake of nondescript residential facilities. North
Bandung has been the most helpless victim of this policy. State
Minister of Agrarian Affairs Soni Harsono's complaint about the
excess of house building in this part of the city could be taken
as an indication of the urgency of addressing the problem without
further delay.

Bandung's plight is clear even to visitors to this once
beautiful city. Still delighting in its old reputation, Bandung
seems to have continued attracting tourists. New modern hotels
are going up, spurring the growth of other industries, such as
shoe and garment manufacturing.

This growth, however, seems to collide head on with the
mentality of some people and with their unreadiness to accept
visitors, both foreign and domestic. Many visitors who arrive by
public means of transportation, especially trains, are
disappointed. No sooner than they set foot on Bandung soil, they
start frowning at the way taxi drivers welcome them -- which is
not far from extortion.

Many taxis refuse to use their meters and charge out-of-town
passengers cutthroat rates. Tough bargaining is advised. And the
passengers' sufferings do not end there because many drivers
refuse to turn on the air-conditioning to save fuel. It must be
noted that once cool Bandung's climate is now almost as hot as
that of the capital Jakarta and other warmer areas of the
archipelago.

Another aspect of Bandung's new found chaos is traffic.
Motorists in Bandung do not seem to see much need for traffic
signs or politeness. This may be due to the worsening traffic
congestion, which has made drivers impatient to get to their
destinations as soon as possible by whatever method or manner.

Of course nobody expects Bandung to retrieve its image as the
"Paris of Java", but surely the Bandung municipal authorities
could do something to bring some order to the city's expansion
and its streets.