Urbanization has caused high crime rate: Governor
JAKARTA (JP): Jakarta Governor Surjadi Soedirdja has said that urbanization is one of the main factors causing the city's surging level of crime.
Speaking after a meeting with President Soeharto at Merdeka Palace, the governor pointed to the tide of unskilled migrants pouring into the city. He said that their lack of training forces them to take jobs in the informal sector, such as pushcart workers or as manual laborers in construction firms.
Since the informal sectors are already overpopulated, they resort to crime to survive, Surjadi said.
Governor Surjadi was at the palace on Saturday to brief President Soeharto on the up-coming Eleventh National Inter-City Congress.
Apart from discussing about the congress and various urban problems, Surjadi said Jakarta has a vested interest in urging other cities in the country to help stem the tide of urban migrants coming here.
According to him, a national effort to stem urbanization to the capital can be done by making a law ensuring that Jakarta belongs to everyone in the country.
The population and most notably urbanization have been central themes in identifying the city's ills for over two decades.
"People from other provinces have misconceptions, thinking that getting a job here is easy," the governor said. He added that once these people arrive they find out that making a life here is difficult but they are too ashamed to go home.
"So they force themselves to stay," he said.
Covering an area of 650 square kilometers, the city is now home to a staggering 8.4 million people.
With the population boom, the level of crime in Jakarta has also been steadily increasing, prompting a joint military - police task force to begin "operation cleansing" to restore order in the city's streets.
"That's why our concern is to halt the migration to Jakarta," Surjadi said.
Comparisons
Commenting on the often made comparisons between Jakarta and neighboring Singapore, the governor played down the match saying it was unfair to Jakarta.
"When people first see Singapore and Jakarta, they come to the conclusion that Jakarta is very ugly," he said.
He commented that we shouldn't forget Singapore only has a population of 2.75 million, 90 percent of whom live in flats, leaving much of the land open.
"Jakarta has a population of 8.4 million with less than five percent of those people living in flats...so much of the land here is blanketed with housing," he said.
Meanwhile, during a plenary session of the City Council yesterday, governor Surjadi said there was some success in lowering the annual population growth in the two past decades, from 3.93 percent in the 1970s to 2.41 percent in the 1980s.
However he cautioned that of the latest number about 1.03 percent are the result of urbanization.
"This situation requires us to improve a variety of infrastructures in transportation, education, health and housing," Surjadi explained.(mds)