Researchers refute UN population predictions
JAKARTA (JP): Two Indonesian researchers have rejected United Nations' predictions that Jakarta will be clogged by more than 21.2 million people by 2015, provided other cities can both attract Jakartans and stem the flow of people to the capital.
They were responding separately to latest United Nations estimates that Jakarta will be the world's fifth most populous city in 19 years, based on annual population growth of 2.41 percent. The municipality predicts a figure of 15.2 million.
Economist Didik J. Rachbini said yesterday that towns in West Java other than Tangerang, Bogor and Bekasi should act as a second zone of economic growth.
Moving the capital some three hours away from Jakarta could also be considered, said Didik, the director of the Jakarta-based Institute for the Development of Economics and Finance.
A researcher on the economy's informal sector, Ari Indrayono Mahar, said the government is already starting to develop infrastructure in western areas such as Kalimantan and Sumatra.
"Entrepreneurs and investors will see the potential of these areas, and employees will be willing to be posted outside Jakarta," Ari, an anthropologist at the Research Center of Institutional Development of the University of Indonesia, said.
"We should note that urbanites here are highly adaptive. In time they will choose other places to live and work if they see alternatives to Jakarta," he said.
Didik said the development of smaller towns such as Cirebon on the north coast, or Cilegon near Serang, would further serve to reduce pressure on Jakarta, provided planners do not repeat mistakes such as creating unclear boundaries for industrial and residential areas.
Didik expressed reservations about the UN's estimated population figures, saying that political, technological and planning policy changes must also be taken into account when calculating population growth rate.
Regarding the suggestion to move the capital, "The role of the central government in daily economic affairs will decline, although of course this would be a heavily weighed political decision," Didik said, citing capitals elsewhere, like Canberra in Australia, which are not the sole centers of economic and business activities.
Growing towns like Cilegon already have ports, Didik noted, but these are owned by private companies.
"The government still needs to encourage investors to build more integrated infrastructure," he said.
Citing his 1992 study on a village in East Java, Didik said 95 percent of inhabitants were found to have migrated to Jakarta to become street traders, although the village is only 60 kilometers from the country's second largest city, Surabaya.
"Jakarta still reflects economic, political, and professional power," Didik said. "Even the most marginal jobs pay much higher than the poverty line" of Rp 27,905 (US$11.85) per person per month, he said.
A "transportation revolution" across villages providing cheap public buses and trains, he said, has contributed to the rapid flow of migrants to Jakarta.
Ari's 1994 study of women trained in sewing in Tasikmalaya, West Java, showed training cannot curb migration if the local area cannot offer profitable job opportunities.
"In the end the women would still move to Jakarta when they could not get a higher income as they increase their skills," he said.
Ari praised the initiative of Minister of Population/Chairman of the National Family Planning Board Haryono Suyono, who last year launched a national program to foster a suburban atmosphere in villages, named Bangga Suka Desa.
Bangga Suka Desa means developing a modern family in a village with a suburban atmosphere.
Under the program villagers who have migrated are encouraged to fund development in their hometowns.
Governor Surjadi Soedirdja has welcomed the program, which he said would eventually curb the flow of unskilled migrants to the capital. (anr)