Other provinces to help curb urbanization

JAKARTA (JP): Cities as attractive as Jakarta are needed to help curb further urbanization in the capital, an official says.

The deputy governor for economic and development affairs, TB. M. Rais, said yesterday that it is important for the central government to develop other cities to become as big and as attractive as the capital, which is now home to 9 million people.

"In this way people in smaller towns or villages will have many choices of where to migrate, and hopefully the number of people entering Jakarta from time to time can be reduced," he said.

"It is not possible to close Jakarta to newcomers, but it would be much better if migrants had other big cities besides Jakarta as their targets," Rais said.

Hopefully, the number of people coming to Jakarta will decline, he said.

Rais was commenting on a prediction by the United Nations that Jakarta will be home to 21.2 million people, making it the fourth most populous city in the world by 2015.

The latest records indicate that the birth rate in Jakarta is 1.38 percent a year, while urbanization is 1.03 percent.

Rais said he is skeptical about the prediction, saying that 21.2 million will probably be the number of residents in Greater Jakarta, which includes Bekasi and Tangerang in West Java.

The city administration has projected that with a population growth of 2.4 percent per year, the number of residents in Jakarta in 2015 will reach only 15.2 million people.

However, Rais said that the city administration should anticipate a higher figure by building various facilities to support a population growth.

"More roads, tap water and waste treatment centers are required," he said. "While the existing facilities must be properly maintained."

Housing

In line with the population growth, Jakartans' lifestyles will also change as the capital becomes too small to accommodate residents, he said.

Living in apartments, instead of houses, has been introduced by the administration as a step to change Jakartan's lifestyles, Rais said.

"The land available for public housing is becoming less and less. Apartments will be the best choice," he said.

The administration is now working hard to reclaim Jakarta's northern coast in an effort to have more land available for housing. The reclamation is expected to add to the city's land by some 2,000 hectares by 2015. Currently Jakarta covers a total of 65,000 hectares of land.

Rais said by that year people's finances will, hopefully, also increase.

"People's economic positions should improve, as living in the capital with its good facilities will be more expensive," he said.

According to the United Nations, by 2015 Tokyo, Japan, will be the most populous city with 28.7 million people, followed by Bombay, India (27.4 million), Lagos, Nigeria (24.4 million) and Shanghai, China (23.4 million).

Jakarta will surpass Sao Paulo, Brazil (20.6 million), Karachi, Pakistan (20.6 million), Beijing, China (19.4 million), Dhaka, Bangladesh (19.0 million), and Mexico City (18.8 million). (yns)