Comrades from Jakarta, let us build a Jakarta into the greatest city possible.

Great not just from a material

point of view; great, not just because of its skyscrapers; great not just because it has boulevards and beautiful
streets; great not just because it has beautiful monuments; great in every respect, even in the little houses of the
workers of Jakarta there must be a sense of greatness… Give Jakarta an extraordinary place in the minds of the
Indonesian people, because Jakarta belongs to the people of Jakarta. Jakarta belongs to the whole Indonesian
people. More than that, Jakarta is becoming the beacon of the whole of mankind. Yes, the beacon of the New
Emerging Forces.

-President Sukarno, Cited in Abeyasekere p.168

 The voice of Indonesia’s first President, Soekarno,
slowly fades out, overwhelmed by honking cars and rumbling
engines. I kept walking on the elevated pedestrian way, sensing
the remnants of Soekarno’s ambition that have become vast,
desolate spaces. A group of office workers got out of the bus,
and continued onto the platform. As they were heavily climbing
the stairs, their eyes looked tired, expressing dullness and
disappointment. At the background, an unfinished skyscraper
stood out, haunting the street view with its bare concrete
columns, recalling the past economic downfall. I looked down
to the 10-lanes wide street below me. The streams of cars and
motorbikes kept going and rushing, swallowing any other
voices. The inhabitants, including myself, are awake from the
dream of a “greatest city possible”, only to face the ordeal of
reality.
The capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, has lured me into her
cataclysmic modernity. The idea of opening up opportunities of
sustainable utopia in Jakarta is discouraged upon witnessing
that the city is deemed as “a locus of crisis, a labyrinth in
which anyone who heroically attempts to alleviate a mess will
inevitably end up in a bigger one” (Agung Hujatnikajennong,
in Helmond p.11). A Jakartan could survive either on the
possession of a private car or determination to bear the
scorching sun heat, the polluted air, the risk of being assaulted,
and the seemingly infinite distance unreachable by means
of walking. Through violent historical events and corruptive
fundamentals, the city had been severely traumatized during its
premature stage in the dawn of the nation’s independence and
thus grew into a vast, dismal megalopolis stretched apart by
the horde of private cars. The problems of Jakarta are very well
engraved in her history that they have become a fateful persona
of the city and of the citizens.
I most vividly remember my experiences exploring
the city out of curiosity, especially those when I took public
transport. Before Transjakarta Bus was popularized in
2004, getting around the major parts of the city would be an
impossibly exhaustive experience. In the older vehicle, the lack
of air-conditioning amplified the jumble of activities inside into
a nerve-wracking crowd. The “street parade” was happening
inside the bus: a vendor offering peanuts and cigarettes; heat
and moist coming in and out of my lungs, often trying to
choke me; motorbikes honking their way through the traffic
jam outside precariously; street ‘musician’ shouting songs like
protests; and “bule”, the local term for foreign tourists, holding
on to an enormous backpack possibly containing one month
supply of food, considering the city is a sublime, wild nature.
But in the new bus, air-conditioned passengers enjoy the tour
along the ‘front façade’ of the streets, where we can see the
glitz and glam of malls and bars, the somber and authoritative
municipal buildings, and the limp and abandoned parts of the
old city. While it runs on its own lane, traffic free sometimes,
the bus pierces through the street scenes outside: hours
long traffic congestions of cars, taxis, trucks, minibuses, and
vendors and snarls of motorbikes weaving through the small
openings, creating physical chaos. The bus ride clearly briefs
the characters of Jakarta: its highly opulent and ephemeral
imitations of Western extravagance, and in contrast, the
stretch of barren areas behind walls and below highways where
dubious street-dwellers lurk. It was a much more animated
experience compared to taking a taxi or driving a car, where
shut car windows mutes the streets, deafening our ears,
pampering us with the luxury of privacy. The people who take
public transports are those obligated due to their low income
and the need to commute from rural areas or the city’s vicinity
to center. Those who can afford greater luxury won’t take the
chance and rely instead on private vehicles. This is still the case
even in the newer bus system that transports group of people
with the same low income, but cleaner and more orderly. While
they share the same street, there is a clear separation between
public and private vehicles, between the bus driver and the
chauffeur, between the chaos and the silence.
The sheer social imbalance between the high-class
society to lower class people is not only reflected in the two
separate transportation group, the privatized cars for the
rich, and motorbikes and minibuses for the poor, but also
illuminated in an inevitable cycle that empowers the social gap.
The more people use private cars, the worse the conditions of
the streets as traffic jams intervals increase. The built highways
to temporarily relieve the congestion destroy pedestrian
accessibilities and the value of the area, hindering people to
walk on the streets and encouraging dissident dwellings among
the barren infrastructure, under the highways and behind
the wall gates. The owners of private cars have taken “refuge
in vehicles” to protect themselves from the discomfort and
danger of the streets outside. The city is transformed into a “big
wild-animal reservations of Africa, where tourists are warned
to leave their cars under no circumstances until they reach a
lodge” (Jacobs, p. 46). In fact, most of my acquaintances have
never taken a public transport even once after living in the city
for 18-20 years because there is a good amount of justifiable
reason that goes along with their contemplation. The image of
the streets as being dangerous, dirty, and unpleasant has been
embedded in the mind of most Jakartans like an inerasable
trauma.
During “the year of living dangerously”, a period of
time during the transition of power when Suharto took the
leadership over Sukarno by eradicating the Communist Party
and any of his supporters in 1966, violent acts of massacre
of over half a million Indonesians on the streets had greatly
affected on how Jakarta’s streets function and what activities
can and cannot happen. A novel and a movie with the same
title, “The Year of Living Dangerously” by Christopher Koch,
portray the tumult and violence during the oppression of the
New Order regime by injecting the image of fear of the streets
to the viewers and readers. The space of the street as the
locus of Sukarno’s revolution “has been turned into the site of
“disturbance”. It became a “dangerous” place, which, in the
name of national security, demanded constant anticipation
from the government. With the end of populist politics,
Sukarno’s revolutionary subject was decapitated and the street,
where they used to parade, was criminalized” (Kusno. p.104).
Now, as the streets are no longer used for parades or leisure
they need to become longer and wider to accommodate large
streams of traffic and to connect people and transport goods
between gated suburbs, where wealthy community takes
shelter, without a sense of guilt since the streets had been
cursed with political violence. Smaller streets grow larger, and
big streets never transform to intimate streets.
Of course there are areas specifically designated for
pedestrians. Ironically however, visitors must drive and park
their car on a nearby parking lot to reach these places. Within
the center of the city, most of the streets are not pedestrian
friendly. One time I tried to prove myself that the city’s streets
are not dangerous but I couldn’t. The scenes of the streets
kept alienating me, giving a sense that I don’t belong here or
that I’ve trespassed someone’s territory. One minute I was
walking in front of a glitzy mall complex, complete with signs
of clothing lines like Louis Vuitton, Salvatore Ferragamo, and
Debenhams, labeling the building like nametags. Due to past
events of terrorist bombing in public places such as this mall,
security guards were scattered along the entrances, checking
each person’s purse and bag with a metal detector. Another
minute, only a few steps from the dazzling mall, I arrived
at a slum dwelling complex. My surroundings were filthy. A
row of three-story slum houses was on my left side, and dark
black open sewage, bordered by rigid concrete wall was on my
right side. Behind the wall is a vast, green range, reserved for
playing golf. The stench of rotten garbage and wastewater was
haunting my nose. Some eyes were peering from the balcony
of the slum houses; dogs and chickens were scavenging the
trash pile. I continued walking for about three hours, among
gated neighborhood and highways, only to realize that none of
the streets were expecting pedestrians. I didn’t see any people
walking beside some street dwellers and street urchins, aimless
and desolated, lurking in the shadows, hoping that their
presence went unnoticed.
When I tried to ‘solve’ the problems of Jakarta, I
was discouraged and frustrated by the limitless issue that
permeates throughout the entire city. Just like the “city
dweller is frustrated when he cannot find human order in his
environment” (Maki p.29). I realized then that the problems
of Jakarta are also triggered by the need of escape from the
problems as quickly as possible. The businesses here welcome INTIMATE STREETS
any global prospective investors who are offered greater luxury
In one sense, Jakarta is a city that doesn’t function properly.
that costs much less compared to many other mega cities in
There are more separations and restricting political forces
the world. Globalization and foreign exchange become the
than linkages. These moments of separations alienate city-
powerhouse of the city’s development. There is a need to
dwellers and “when he sees only the results of mechanical and
transform the look of Jakarta by mending and patching certain
economic processes controlling the form and feel of his place,
areas, removing unwanted parts, like plastic surgery. New
he must feel estranged, and outside” (Maki p.29). When the
suburban developments thrived, and modern skyscrapers and
city’s streets cannot function to link different things together,
apartments were placed along the arterial roads, squashing
when walls and mega structures block the streets’ potentials,
any low income houses before them. However, what they
the city also stop operating to bring people together. After all,
(major developers) fail to observe is that “there is nothing less
the formal quality of a city is “the agglomerate of decisions (and
urbane, nothing less productive of cosmopolitan mixture, than
abnegations from decisions) in the past concerning the way in
raw renewal, which displaces, destroys, and replaces, in that
which things fit together, or are linked” (Maki p.29). The same
mechanistic order” (Maki p.34). The fear of the streets has
way that Jakarta’s streets become separators that encourage
propelled exclusive communities to isolate themselves from the
traffic jams, pollution, social discrepancy, political turmoil,
the streets by creating formal separations, and thus creating
and the fear of the streets, they could also become links that
disconnections in the city’s environment itself. A renowned
are adhesive. Any parts of the city could become a link, but the
poet, Goenawan Mohamad, also stated the capital’s cruelty:
streets, especially in Jakarta, are the main “glue of the city” that
“unite all the layers of activity and resulting physical form in
Jakarta does not seem to offer any meaningful sense of
connection; there is nothing that must be retained and the city” (Maki p.35).
must not be lost… The city is alienating and it cannot
In search of intimate streets, I enjoyed the experience
stand alone, it is neither controlled by the ‘Dutch-
style fortress’ nor by the spirit of the ancient Javanese walking along some of Jakarta’s alleys that develop into
‘Mataram Kingdom’, but by something else, something a line of market stalls and small restaurants. An alley in
stronger – the economic and political forces around it,
that made us all foreigners here. Glodok area in Jakarta for instance, although still displayed
a slum-like quality, was bustling with traders, children, and
(Cited in Kusno p.162)
possibly maids, who was told to buy ingredients for dinner.
Glodok is known as the ‘Chinatown’ of Jakarta, yet overtime,
there seems to be a mix of business between the local native
Indonesians and the local Chinese-Indonesians regardless of
the past tension between the two groups. The need of variety
and mutual trading in this area has slowly diminished racial
segregation, that wasn’t caused by differences in skin color
or physical features, but political upheavals of the past and
social contrasts. In this street, where people tend to look
inward and have the same average income, a community is
formed out of local needs. Most of the small streets in Jakarta
however, are filled with slums without proper light, water,
and sanitation, especially in the city center. There is no clarity
between private and public spaces and everything just clutters
into a discomfort. There is no mix of activities nor mutual
relationship between each person and the alleys don’t welcome
strangers. Trapped between tall skyscrapers and arterial roads,
the condition worsens overtime as they could only sulk and
tuck away the slums deeper into the crevices.
Another example of an intimate street is the vibrant
display of gluttony on Smith Street, Singapore. During the
day, the street functions normally to allow cars and public
transports passing through. But at night, the street is closed
off by rows of seatings filled with hungry locals and tourists.
Small shops and restaurants on both sides of the street are
actively serving customers while illuminated by hanging
traditional Chinese lanterns above, acting as a visual roof. The
location of the street and how it connects one spot to another
are integral factors to popularize the street. The same method
was encouraged in one of the streets in my hometown, but due
to the location of the street in the old city neighborhood, the
street failed to revive itself over a stigma of the area being old
and scummy.
The Istiklal Avenue in Istanbul is a prime example of a
successful pedestrian street. Nearly three million visitors fill
the entire street in a single day over the course of weekends.
Bars, restaurants, galleries, boutiques, cinemas, bookstores,
music stores, night clubs, cafes, and hostels occupy not
only both sides of the street but also every single alleys
branching out from Istiklal Avenue. Although the crowd seems
insurmountable, I felt constant safety walking among these
unknown people. People perform music, watch independent
film projected on a large canvas, and dance with strangers.
Certain times during the day, a parade marches through the
street to celebrate. In any other times, the pack of visitors,
orderly bustling in different directions, transform the street
into a festival, as if they celebrate to the city itself. It happened
that the street also connects two busy tram stations on
both ends of the street, and two monuments: a historically
important tower, and a politically important Monument of
Independence. The street ends to a large city square, where
bus stations, tram stations, streets and parks interact with each
other. Only when a street is linking different things and “once
a street is well equipped to handle strangers, once it had both a
good, effective demarcation between private and public spaces
and has a basic supply of activity and eyes, the more strangers
the merrier.” (Jacobs p.40)
A similar example is the Dotonbori street in Osaka,
which runs along the Dotonbori canal and between two
bridges. As a principal tourist destination and main
entertainment district, it also displays a festive quality. The
backstreets of Dotonbori are always cleaned and illuminated,
and even though they are only about eight feet wide, the
walking experience was pleasant and comfortable. All the
streets I’ve mentioned above have a strong bonding capability.
Some of them might be wider, and some of them narrower,
but they all link the surrounding environment and encourage
mutual activities in the community. I imagined that the alleys
in Jakarta’s slums could potentially transform into one of
the interactive market streets, like Glodok, but instead they
become dark pits that isolate people. The alleys of Jakarta
don’t provide link within the environment. Strangers and
public interventions become interrupting forces and the slum
dwellers, having seen as an outcast from the society, are further
alienated by major streets and highways.
To comprehend how slums could possibly transform to
a street in Glodok, I took Jane Jacobs’ argument that there is
an ‘unslumming’ process that happens when there is enough
energy to retain the dwellers. Most of the dissident dwellings
in Jakarta consist of “people with the least choice, forced by
poverty or discrimination to overcrowd, who come into an
unpopular area” (Jacobs p.276). However, people who move to
an overcrowded area cannot expect to stay there for a long time
and “those who overcome the economic necessity to overcrowd
get out, instead of improving their lot within the neighborhood.
They are quickly replaced by others who currently have little
economic choice” (p.276). Due to the obligation to move into
the slum areas, people wouldn’t give up another day to stay in
their crummy houses once they have the chance to get out. At
the same time, when too many people move out of slums too
fast, “they leave a community in a perpetually embryonic stage,
or perpetually regressing to helpless infancy” (Jacobs p.277).
This isn’t the case on Glodok streets as people could actually
stay within the area while their small businesses thrive.
Jacobs also mentioned that “the foundation for unslumming
is a slum lively enough to be able to enjoy city public life and
sidewalk safety” (p.279). It is clearly reflected on how the
streets in Glodok welcome visitors while the slum alleys reject.
These ideas are very relatable to many cities in the world
and opportunistic due to the logic of economy. The idea of
liberating the slum dwellers from slums could be realized by
preserving the shared reliance within the community and to
imbue them with as much linkage as possible. Often times a
link couldn’t happen naturally and there is a need to radically
change the form of Jakarta by redesigning the streets, the
facade, the accessibility, and, indirectly, the mentality of the
inhabitants.
HORIZONTAL LINK
The general form of contrast in Jakarta is a long arterial road
where apartments, offices and malls are placed along the
street, creating an illusion of a modern metropolis. Behind
these buildings are sprawls of low-income housings; some are
informal, connected by countless networks of alleyways and
in between spaces. The large arterial roads don’t reduce in
size gradually, but simply cutting a network of small streets,
creating jalan tikus (rats streets) which drivers coined when
taking these small alleys as shortcuts if they’re trapped
in a traffic jam. There is a complete disjunction, literally
demarcated by perimeter walls between the vertical buildings
and the horizontal slum dwellings. There is a formal separation
and a social separation that limits accessibility. The office tower
users could not care less about their filthy surroundings and
the slum dwellers have nothing to do with the apartments next
to them.
First of all, there is a need to relieve the slums from
the curtain of skyscrapers and high-rise buildings. By clearing
a way through the building and the slums behind it, there
is a porosity that finally reveals and links the slums to the
arterial road. This clearing would ideally continue until it
meets another arterial road and thus becoming physical link
that mediates the two roads. However, in order to encourage
pedestrian accessibility, the clearing wouldn’t allow cars or
any other vehicles to pass through. Not only that the new
street connects two major roads, but on each end, a bus
station allows visitors to reach the place easily. Secondly,
on both sides of the new pedestrian street, local businesses
would be encouraged to start and thus economically support
the area with new job opportunities. These businesses would
vary in price and functions. Small businesses like souvenirs,
electronics, household appliances, fabric, drink, food, etc.
would fulfill the necessity to maintain the crowd and customers
during night and day, and thus preventing the area from
becoming dead, dull, and dubious when less shops are open.
The idea here is also to attract different kinds of customers
and mutual relationships between each local stores. When a
dependency towards high-class customers started to occur,
there is a tendency that the businesses would amplify the social
gap and the place could potentially be akin to red light district.
Every so often, the street would open up to a public square,
where local facilities are located, such as schools, mosques,
administrations, and small fields for ceremonies and bazaars
to happen. Just like the olden days, goods are transported
manually by carts, while pedestrians and bikers voluntarily
share the same street.
VERTICAL LINK
(social link, jobs, flow of money, tree + mushroom, housing for
the poor, housing for the rich, )

CARS”Garage or station of rapid transit system as stop, is a

link between the highway (or train) and pedestrian movement”
(p.33) (includes bus station, car station)
ATTRITION OF CARS (explain traffic jams, and then how?)

SEQUENTIAL PATH (from bedroom, to work, to parks, to

shopping, back to bedroom)
DESIGNING DECAY (old and new buildings integrated, old
and new city integrated)
ANIMATED CITY (filled with movements, and grows and
dies over time)

“Small shops, stores and restaurants - mostly one or two

stories high - occasionally mingled with small factories,
make continuous linear development along with the streets
where street cars (artery) and bus system run. Attached small
residences behind commercial structures are occupied in
general by those who own the shops or who are in low income
groups. These areas are subject to becoming slum areas.”
(Maki p.60-61)
 BIBILIOGRAPHY

Abeyasekere, Susan. 1987. Jakarta: A History. Singapore:

Oxford U P.

Cortes, Jose Miguel. Dissident Cartographies. Pap/Cdr ed.

New York: Seacex, 2008. Print.

Helmond, Arjan van and Stani Michiel. Jakarta Megalopolis:

Horizontal and Vertical Observations. Amsterdam: Valiz Publishing,
2007.

Jacobs, Jane. Death and Life of Great American Cities. New

York: Random House, 1961.

Knapp, Ronald G. Asia’s Old Dwellings: Tradition,

Resilience, and Change. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Kurokawa, Kisho. Metabolism in Architecture. Oxford:

Westview Press, 1977. Print.

Kusno, Abidin. Behind the Postcolonial: Architecture, urban

space and political culture. London: Routledge, 2000.

Maki, Fumihiko. Investigations in Collective Form. St. Louis:

Washington University, 1964.