Researchers refute UN population predictions

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)