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.