JAKARTA

Jakarta may be the favorite city of very few foreigners.
Love of this sprawling, crowded, sinking

metropolis with its few memorable touristic landmarks may seem eccentric. But its long history
has captivated the heart of one long-time expatriate resident, Dutchman Herald Van Der Linde.
He has now performed the much needed service – a short and very readable account of its history
and geography, linking the past to the present and to the names of its component parts,
kampungs, streets, and its several vital but often forgotten rivers and canals, a port city as well as
the Jabodetabek megacity of today. It is a guide to understanding interesting facets of Jakarta,
not a guidebook.
For some tastes, there may be a little too much of the personal, but it works in easing the path to
understanding the outlines of the city’s long history without suffocating the general reader with
detail. It takes the author from backpacker to learner of Bahasa through socializing not school, to
years in Jakarta as a bank economist – but one with links back to Dutch ancestors in 17th and
18th century Java.
This is a book of value to visitors who want to see the city as more than a modern metropolitan
mass. But it also needs to be read by those who think they already know the city or at least know
the map locations of Tebet, Tugu, and Tanah Abang and do not confuse Kemayoran with
Kebayoran, Glodok with Grogol but the scant idea of how it all came together.
Much of the book is, necessarily, taken up with nearly three hundred years of Dutch presence
from establishing a trading post in 1611 on the right bank of the Ciliwung river, at Jayakarta, a
sultanate then under Banten rule, seizing and burning it in 1619, changing its name to Batavia,
the old Roman name for what is now southern Netherlands, and later diverting the Ciliwung into
canals.
For good or ill the Dutch tried to create a city in their own likeness. Though the techniques of
those who had mastered the North Sea reclamation and canal engineering didn’t always work on
the northwest Java coast, the city has been growing most of the time ever since. The author
shows how the factors behind the expansion created new and distinct districts, the kampungs
which retain identity to today.
The book also takes us farther back, to the fact that long before Jayakarta and Banten became
Muslim sultanates, these ports were important places on the sea trade routes linking the Spice
Islands of the eastern archipelago to India, to China, Arabia and ultimately to the Mediterranean.
The cloves that could be bought in 14th century London may well have come via Kelapa, as
Jakarta was then called and whose rulers were Hindu until conquered by Demak, the first
Muslim sultanate on the Java coast, in 1527
Even farther back, what is now part of Greater Jakarta was the port of the Tarumnegara kingdom
on the Citarum river. A 5th century stone inscription written in Pallava (south Indian) script
recorded the achievements of the “powerful, illustrious and brave King the famous
Purnavarman” comparing him to the god Vishnu. Then as now, trade lured foreigners and their
ideas to the riches of Java.
The book takes us quickly through the history via anecdotes, maps, prints, and photos, in
particular, it shows the expansion of the city outside its walls, and episodes including the growth
of the Chinese population and its massacre in 1740, to brief English rule, Dutch supremacy
throughout Java, Japanese occupation, the post-independence period to the present, and
concludes with the huge challenges the city now faces with population, flooding and multiple
lesser ills. But ever the optimist for his beloved Jakarta he concludes that ingenuity and the
kampung spirit of local cooperation will overcome the challenges. Though there will surely be
bumps. He is probably right. As one who first visited in 1973, this reviewer is aware of how far it
has come since then, developing rapidly while maintaining a diversity of experience without
equal in Southeast Asia.
Jakarta is a fascinating city. Its attraction lies in the incredibly wide variety of people Indonesians,
Chinese, Indians, Arabs and Europeans who have arrived over the centuries, bringing with them
their own habits, folklore and culture. Their descendants have resulted in a vibrant mix of people,
most of them making a living along the thousands of small lanes and alleys that criss-cross the
kampungs of this enormous city. Artefacts indicate that this area was inhabited from the fifth
century. Hundreds of years later, a small trading post on the coast named Kelapa was founded and
eventually grew into the mega-city of Jakarta with over twenty million people. This book provides a
unique look at the history of Jakarta through the eyes of individuals who have walked its streets
through the ages, revealing how some of the challenges confronting the city today congestion,
poverty, floods and land subsidence mirror the struggles the city has had to face in the past.
JAKARTA - The architectural media platform, Rethinking The Future (RTF) places Jakarta as
the city with the worst urban planning in the world.
Responding to this, the Deputy Governor of DKI Jakarta admitted that he had only just
learned about the assessment of the worst urban planning in the world. Riza said his party
would study this assessment.
"We will study whether Jakarta is the worst city in the world in terms of urban planning," said
Riza at the DKI City Hall, Central Jakarta, Monday, August 23.
Riza claimed that all DKI Governors during their tenure tried to make Jakarta a better city.
However, he admits that the complexity of urban planning problems in Jakarta is not easy to
fix.
"It is not easy, we focus on flood control, on transportation. Of course we will all improve it,
so that Jakarta becomes a better city in line with the big cities in the world," he said.
It is known, in its official website, RTF describes Jakarta as the capital city of a country that
has high air pollution and a lot of polluted water. Jakarta is said to be the worst designed
place on Earth.
RTF stated that immature infrastructure planning interventions over the past few decades
have led to Jakarta's poor quality of life.
This is contributed from the state of inadequate green open space, extreme traffic
congestion, and unplanned expansion of the city.
Then, another contributing factor is that infrastructure development is in the hands of local
governments, thereby reducing the possibility of implementing long-term projects.
Cities in other countries that are labeled the worst after Jakarta are Dubai, Saudi Arabia;
Brasilia, Brazil; Atlanta, United States of America; São Paulo, Brazil; Boston, United States of
America; Missoula, United States of America; Naypyidaw, Myanmar; New Orleans, United
States of America; and Dhanka, Bangladesh.

JAKARTA

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JAKARTA

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Jakarta may be the favorite city of very few foreigners.

Love of this sprawling, crowded, sinking

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