The City’s Limits

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

There are no new problems in Jakarta. Traffic jams, flooding, pollution, disorderly public transportation, disappearing open green spaces, minimal public facilities, ineffective garbage disposal, the list goes on. Improvements that the government has tried to make have had little success. Even the guidelines for the development of the city, the Jakarta 2010-2030 city plan, is still in the form of a draft that at the end of last June had still not yet been approved by the DPRD, the Jakarta Provincial House of Representatives.

Fortunately there are still many initiatives by the people of Jakarta to improve life in the city. Several of these the municipality would do well to adopt in their bylaws and guidelines. If there is anything new on Jakarta’s 484th anniversary it is the success of the initiatives of Jakarta residents to find solutions that actually improve life in the city.

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“WHEN will Jakarta ever not have traffic jams?” Suci wrote on a banner hung around the Hotel Indonesia circle. Traffic jams and flooding are the two problems Jakartans most complained of in the program entitled ‘This and That Suggestions’ which in Indonesia is referred to as ‘Ubeg Ubeg Jakarta’, on Sunday two weeks ago. The program which carries the aspirations of the public, was one of the events during the celebrations commemorating

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