Dewi Kurniawati
Jakarta’s poorer residents make their homes under bridges and wherever they can find space in the overcrowded city. (Photo: Safir Makki, JG)
Jakarta Faces Swelling Population and Shortfall of Proper Housing
In her 11 years of working as a senior operations officer at the World Bank, Ida Ayu Dharmapatni, who is involved in a project to relocate thousands of squatters as part of the Jakarta’s plans to flood-proof the city, had a confession to make: “I think this is the most complicated and sensitive issue that I have handled in my whole career.”
Her revelation illustrates the fundamental problem facing Jakarta, the country’s resource-starved capital is being choked by an ever-expanding population.
Originally founded by the Dutch colonial government, Jakarta was designed to accommodate 800,000 people. The centralization policies of Suharto’s New Order regime, however, caused the city proper to swell to more than nine million inhabitants. It is even said to host as many as 12 million people during the working week.
According to the World Bank, about 250,000 people move into the Greater Jakarta area every year. This has given rise to a growing number of slums where residents have scant access to infrastructure such as fresh water, and government services.
More than 25 million people reportedly now live in Greater Jakarta, which includes the crowded cities of Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi. By 2020, that number is expected to balloon to 35 million. This mass migration has created a myriad of problems for the capital’s residents, ranging from poor sanitation and transportation to a lack of clean water and housing.
Ironically, while Jakarta has given people the opportunity to make a living, it has also been unable to provide them with a decent place to sleep. With limited accommodation options, those who cannot afford proper housing end up in one of the city’s many slums and squatter areas.
The backlog of housing in Jakarta is part of a national housing problem. According to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the shortfall in 2004 was about 5.8 million homes.
While Jakarta needs about 70,000 housing units every year to cater to its growing population, the city administration is only able to provide 20 percent of that figure.
“We have very limited space,” Agus Subandono, head of the city’s housing agency told the Jakarta Globe, “this is the main reason why housing is very expensive in Jakarta.”
Nevertheless, the dire situation has forced the government to act. In 2007, as part of a program to resolve the problem, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced that 1,000 low-cost apartment blocks would be built to accommodate the poor.
Agus said that so far 220 blocks designated as low-income rental units had been built, with each building accommodating between 800 to 1,000 apartments.
“The Jakarta administration has to put aside at least Rp 136 billion [$14.3 million] per year from the city’s budget to subsidize the low-cost housing,” he said.
According to Aca Sugandhy, a housing expert from the University of Indonesia, aside from the fact that there is limited space in Jakarta for the huge population, the problem is made worse by the absence of proper building regulations in the city.
“Everything is scattered with no clear regulations on housing and urban planning. Moreover, the city administration often only does things by halves,” he said.
“Jakarta should be a megapolitan area, not just a metropolis — it should incorporate Greater Jakarta into its system, including housing, trade and transportation.”
Aside from struggling to provide housing for Jakarta residents in general, the city administration faces the huge challenge of relocating hundreds of thousands of squatters away from public spaces, such as along the city’s rivers, canals, railway lines and under bridges and overpasses. But building new homes for those squatters is costly and difficult, city officials say.
“We don’t have any housing prepared yet. We still have to find a breakthrough,” Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo told reporters.
The city government has raided slums and squatter areas several times, but the large communities just keep coming back. The problem is that most of them are not Jakarta residents.
“We want Jakarta to be free from squatters and slums, but it’s not easy because most of them have no choice and those places are close to where they work,” Agus said.
The relocation of squatters has long since been a sensitive and often politicized issue over the history of the city’s expansion.
“Basically, if the development affects people, you have to relocate them — and that should not make them worse off,” Ida Ayu said. Her World Bank team is hoping to come to an agreement with city officials over squatter resettlement by the end of the month.
“This is basically a large-scale housing program for the Jakarta government, and this is very complicated,” she said, highlighting the fact that the city would need to invest billions of rupiah to provide proper housing for evicted squatters.
Not to be daunted, however, a successful relocation program was launched in 2003 under former Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso’s administration. The initiative saw thousands of squatters moved from the banks of the Angke River to apartments in Cengkareng in West Jakarta.
But housing built too far afield would be pointless for the squatters, who generally work near their homes and would balk at the idea of leaving their neighborhoods. However, building low-cost apartment blocks closer to the city center is a very expensive prospect.
“We need to pay attention to their livelihoods, or else we just relocate the structure and they will move to other areas,” Ida Ayu said.
Aside from providing more housing for residents in the city center, the Jakarta administration should start to look at how to best draw on the outlying areas, namely Bogor, Tangerang, Depok and Bekasi, as an integrated network of cities.
“The concept of a megapolitan area should be seen as an integration of the system, not power,” Aca said. “Jakarta should accommodate other provinces as partners in solving its problems. This is one of the way out.”
Although still lacking in general housing, the city administration is also starting to consider building energy efficient homes, better known as “green housing,” with plans to start this program early next year.
“This is an expensive concept, I know, but it’s a good investment for the future,” Agus said.
From Nov. 10-12, international experts will converge on Jakarta to
map out a sustainable plan for the capital. For more information on the
Sustainable Jakarta Convention, visit the Web site sjconvention.com.
This story is part of a five-day series on some of Jakarta’s most
serious problems. Tomorrow, we look at the need for more green buildings.
