globalization, mega projects in jakarta

8/6/2019 Globalization, Mega Projects in Jakarta

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Globalization, Mega-projects and the Environment:

Urban Form and Water in Jakarta

Mike DouglassGlobalization Research Center and Department of Urban and Regional Planning

University of Hawaii

International Dialogic Conference on Global Cities:Water, Infrastructure and Environment

The UCLA Globalization Research Center AfricaMay 16-19, 2005

Abstract. Intercity competition for world city status and new layers of global consumer and

finance capital entering very large city regions in Pacific Asia are the drivers for an

unprecedented mega-project boom that is intensively restructuring and expanding urban space inenvironmentally unsound ways. Land use planning by governments has largely yielded to these

private developments, placing the environmental conditions and livability of these city regions atheightening risk. The case of Jakarta is used to reveal how the ensemble of mega-projects isundermining regional ecologies, including water supply, quality and distribution in the greater

mega-urban region.

1. Mega-projects as Layering of Global Capital

[Note: The purpose of this section is to provide an understanding of the specific context andreasons for the boom in mega-projects in Pacific Asia. This will set the stage for a linkage

between mega-projects, urban form and water.]

The past two decades have witnessed the advent of a new era of mega-projects throughout theworld (Altshuler and Luberoff 2003). The more general reasons for this boom include

(Flyvbjerg et al. 2003; Altshuler and Luberoff 2003):

Big Fix: globalization needs global-size projects, with the effect of ratcheting up size

expectations with every new mega-project. Institutional innovations in syndicating loan packages: private sector involvement in

mega-projects has boomed since 1980 when public projects began to be turned over toprivate developers through BOT (Build-Own-Operate [-Transfer]) and other arrangements.

Globalization of law: projects are vastly easier to run from afar due to lower transaction

costs in all phases of project development. Technological innovations in very large structures: buildings over 100 stories high can

now be constructed.

Ever larger infrastructure demands for global flows: mega-container ports, world hubairports, very fast train services, superhighways for trucking.

"Green light" syndrome: efforts to stop mega-projects are politically impossible once theyare underway.


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Impossibility of accurate feasibility/risk analysis: a pathology of underbidding forcontracts, enormous cost overruns, and unknown risks allow for ready approval of mega-

projects even in situations where many similar ones have failed (Flyvbjerg et al. 2003).

Pacific Asia is experiencing among the most exaggerated forms of these new mega-projects,

which include the worlds tallest buildings, mega-malls with churches in them, world business

triangles, cyber-cities, magnetic levitation rail services, and private new towns for hundreds ofthousands of people. Together these projects are creating a new layer of the built environmentin core and suburban areas that stand in contrast to those of even the recent past of rapid urban-

industrial growth, which mainly focused on peri-urban areas. In addition to the explanationsnoted above, the surge in mega-projects in Pacific Asia can be attributed to the intrusion of

contemporary circuits of globalization into metropolitan regions:

Globalization of finance capital. A major stimulus of mega-projects in Pacific Asia camein the late 1980s with the regional spread of Japans bubble economy that was followed by

the opening of Asian banking systems to short-term speculative investments from around theworld. These events witnessed massive switching of industrial and finance capital into urban

land development throughout the region. This trend continues. Emergence of a broad urban class of affluent consumers. Mega-malls, global franchise,

world trade centers and other consumption-oriented mega-projects were almost non-existentin most of Pacific Asia before the late 1970s when the stellar economic growth in the region

began to produce a new consumer middle class ready to buy from global markets. Hugeenclosed shopping complexes became the ideal for securing global chain stores and

franchises in otherwise inadequately planned and managed cities. Intercity competition for global investment. Transnational corporations are shifting from

owning the means of production to controlling channels of distribution through sub-contracting, patent and copyright agreements, and licensing (Douglass 2000). This pushes

intercity competition even further as cities compete with ever larger schemes with greaterfinancial outlays in sunk capital in the built environment that is perceived to be required to

attract and host global enterprises. Intentional world city formation. The production of urban space is now part of the

formation of a global hierarchy of cities (Friedmann 2002; Knox and Taylor 1995; Clark1996; Sassen 2000). In this hierarchy city regions begin to articulate more with each other in

a global network than they do with their own national economies (Castells 2000). Openeconomies of Pacific Asia are turning to emblematic mega-projects that are designed to raise

them to the highest world city tier within this network.

In sum, the urban transition and transformations of the built environments of cities in Pacific

Asia over the past several decades are inseparable from an intensifying process of globalizationthat has focused national energies on a handful of huge city regions that are now the magnets for

the current wave of mega-projects. In Pacific Asia, giant city regions have emerged from whatwere relatively small cities channeling cash crops and raw materials to the world economy up to

the 1960s. Several of these city regions now rank among the largest urban agglomerations in theworld.1 From the late 1980s, two more layers of global circuits of capital occurred with the

1The latter half of the 20th century also was the period in which population growth in the region reached its highest

rates, peaked, and then began to slow. In Southeast Asia, the population almost trebled from 178 million in 1950 to

522 million in 2000. In East Asia (dominated by China), the population grew by 2.2 times.


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intrusion of global consumerism and finance capital, both of which work together to generate themost fundamental restructuring of cities since the height of high imperialism a century or more

before. Added to national industrialization processes, these factors underlie the rapid increasesin the population size of major city regions (Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1. Globalization, Urbanization and Mega-projectsFigure 2. Population of 5 Mega-Urban Regions of Pacific Asia, 1864-2000

2. Jakarta: Mega-projects and the Environment

[Note: The purpose of this section is to show how the totality of urban mega-projects in Jakarta

defeat modest government efforts to guide urban growth in an environmental sound manner.]

Until the end of the 1970s Jakartas growth was based on the extraction of raw materials

mostly oil and timber from the outer islands. In the early-1980s Jakarta began a substantialshift into a new mode of export-oriented industrialization (EOI), complete with exploding

population and economic growth in Jakarta (Figure 3) where EOI sectors gravitated and massive

public investments were made in export-processing zones, metropolitan highway systems and anew international airport. By the early 1990s the opening banking and financial institutions toforeign investors allowed enormous injections of capital into the capital city region. The lions

share of this investment went to urban land development projects (Douglass 1997, 2000).

Figure 3. Expansion of Jakarta (Jabodetabek) 1980-1990

By the time the 1997 Asia economic meltdown occurred, with Indonesia as one of its majorcasualties, the metropolis had already shifted outward from Jakarta to a larger metropolitan

region called Jabotabek from a monocentric city focused on the core of Jakarta to a multi-polaragglomeration of 5,500 square kilometers that had spread into the adjoining province of West

Java.2 From 1990 to 2000 Jabotabeks population jumped from 17 to 21 million, or an average

of more than 800,000 people per year. With mega-projects devoted to world business hubs,malls and commercial services in the core and massive suburban new towns in the periphery ofthe city, most of the population increase was experienced on the urban fringe while the core

began to lose residential population that was being replaced by commuters. Despite thelackluster economy after the crisis, by the early years of the 21

stcentury, speculative land

development schemes and mega-projects had returned to cater to the still affluent middle classand elites. Jabotabek also added another node, Depok, to become Jabodetabek.

Even before the EOI-led boom awareness already existed among urban planners in Indonesiathat the rapid expansion of Jakarta was seriously endangering its environmental foundations.

Intensifying population concentration in the core was depleting well water and causing intrusionof salt water into the citys water system. Ground subsidence occurred with some tall buildings

at risk of leaning and collapsing. With expansion toward Bogor and the uplands of Puncak, theregions aquifers were in danger of pollution and the felling of trees and natural vegetation was

leading to flooding in rainy seasons and droughts in dry seasons in and around Jakarta. Figure 4geographically shows these elements of environmental risk.

Figure 4. Environmental Impacts of Jakarta MUR Expansion

2 Jabotabek comes from the first syllables of Jakarta and the contiguous regencies of Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi.


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Recognizing that expansion along the northern coast or into the higher elevations in the southwere the most ecologically threatening directions of expansion, a Jakarta Out plan of east-west

expansion was advocate by the Department of Public Works, the agency in charge of most ofwhat can be called urban planning in Indonesia (Figure 5). This plan was elaborated by dividing

the region into a number of zones, each of which was to have its own relation to urban expansion

depending on its particular environmental management requirements (Figure 6).Figure 5. The Jakarta Out strategy

Figure 6. Proposed Environmental Management Zones for Jabotabek, 1984,

and Population Distribution by Kecamaten, 2000

The principal mechanism used to implement the Jabotabek plan was the public allocation ofinfrastructure for industrial growth toward Tangerang in the west where a new international

airport was constructed next to a long toll road from Jakarta filled with industrial estates. Bekasiwas designated at the growth pole in the eastern side of Jabotabek. Bogor was to be avoided

because of its location toward the uplands.

The plan was effective in creating an industrial corridor through EOI-related mega-projects, butbecause it had no regulatory power to inhibit land conversion to urban-industrial uses, it failed interms of preventing the metropolitan region from expanding into environmentally unsound

directions during a heady period of mega-projects in housing, shopping malls, and tall buildingsin a designated Golden Triangle of world business functions. Nearly 100 shopping malls were

built in the region from the late 1980s (Figure 8). In 2003 alone 20 new malls were constructed.This was paralleled the appearance of huge new towns with gated communities in suburban areas

(Figure 9), which involved large-scale conversation of prime agricultural land and green spacesto urban functions in the regions principal area of water supply and its main aquifer.

Figure 7 shows a map of private new town development, the largest of which were intended asself-contained cities for more than a half million residents. Over time, government regulation of

such projects was relaxed through a series of policy changes to put decisions increasingly inprivate sector hands. Rather than trying to strengthen either its regulatory oversight over land

development, the government reduced controls and even joined in the mega-project fever byproposing to construct with public money the worlds tallest tower in Jakarta.

Figure 7. Private New Towns, 1985-1997

Figure 8. Malls and Shopping Centers in Jakarta 1990-2004

Figure 9. Expansion of Housing Estates (1990s)

Regional plans intended to guide expansion in an environmentally sound manner continued to be

put forth by local governments and central planning bureaus alike. Figure 10, which is a planintended for the year 2015, is shown to now embrace large-scale private new town development.

It thus represents a broader acknowledgment that, in the new era of neoliberal deregulation,ecologically sound urban growth was no longer being seriously pursued.

Figure 10. Regional Strategy for Jabodetabek 2015


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3. Environmental Management and the Ecology of Urban Water Supply

Note: The purpose of this section is to assess the condition of water systems and supply, with a

critical analysis of recent privatization of water management.

Since the first spatial plan for environmental sustainability was launched in the late 1970s

(Douglass 1991), the environment of what is now termed Jabodetabek has continued to worsenin quality of air, land and water. Concerning the assault on the regions water system, water

supplies are at crisis point as underground supplies are depleted, deforestation continues, andaquifers are increasingly degraded by urbanization, industrial and human waste, and poorly

managed dumpsites:

Deteriorating water ecology

With 13 rivers flowing through the city, half of Jakartas land area is prone to flooding,which now occurs with increasing severity. Flooding in 2002 claimed 77 lives, damaged

50,237houses and 529 schools, and up to 1.5 million of people suffered from lack of food,clean water, and very poor sanitation conditions. All of Jabodetabek experiences extreme

water shortages in dry seasons.

The level of groundwater in Jabotabek has been decreasing by as much as 3 centimeters peryear, adding to the declining quality of water due to salination from intrusion of salt waterfrom the Java Sea now spreading into freshwater supplies as far as 11 kilometers from the

coast (Mamas and Komalasari 2005). Land subsidence is following these trends of over-abstraction of deep ground water. From

1979 to 1991, North Jakarta subsided at a rate of about 25-34 centimeters per year; WestJakarta subsided at 8, East Jakarta at 4, and Central Jakarta at 2-3 centimeters per year (PDKI

1994). Levels of groundwater in Jabotabek have been decreasing from 0.03-2.95 cm/year.Pollution of water supplies

Most industries in Jabodetabek have no wastewater treatment plants.3 The major water suppliers the Ciliwung, Sunter and Krukut Rivers for Jakarta have an

overall water quality of poor to very poor from human settlement waste and industrialpollution (copper, lead; cadmium; zinc; mercury) (Palupi, et al. 1995).

80 percent of groundwater in Jakarta is polluted with pathogenic, disease causing bacteria.Industrial effluents, such as phenol, detergents and nitrate, also have been observed in

shallow aquifers in the Jabodetabek area (The World Bank, 2003). Most shallow wells arecontaminated by fecal coliform bacteria, and this is accompanied with bad smell.

Environmentally unsound urban expansion (Figures 8 and 9)

Zone I, where urban development is to be avoided, has become a dense industrial and

housing estate zone. Zone IV, where urban development is to be limited and agricultural diversification is to be

encouraged, has become an industrial area,

Industries have also reached Zone V, which is supposed to be reserved for upland forestplantations, recreation, and conservation, this environment-supporting area at the inner andouter zone.

3 In a 2000 study, only 81 out of 535 factories were discharging wastewater of acceptable quality; 136 factories emit

poor quality; and 318 factories remain unable to process the wastewater and generate polluting wastewater (Bapedal

2000; Mamas and Komalasari 2005).


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Luxurious private villas and weekend tourist sites also continue to be built in this area,especially in the higher altitudes in the Puncak overlooking the Jabotabek region.

Inadequate Water Infrastructure

Only 1.9 percent of the population of Jakarta is served by a city sewerage system (Anwar

2003:2). Wastewater is mostly disposed of either directly into canals and rivers or into septic

tanks that are too densely clustered or too poorly maintained to prevent groundwatercontamination. Most households rely on on-site sanitation, but on-site septic tanks and cesspits are often

connected to street drains leading directly back to the regions water system. Less than half of the population of Jakarta has access to some kind of water supply service

other than bottled water purchase or open river. For the poorer residents of Jakarta, groundwater is the primary source of drinking water.

Most of this surface water is too polluted to be used even for washing or for laundry. The supplier of water for Jakarta, PT. PAM Jaya, is only able to supply clean water for 48

percent of the residents. Outside of Jakarta in Bekasi only 2 percent of the population isserved by piped municipal water systems, mostly due to lack of infrastructure (BPS Bekasi

Regency, 2000).3. Conclusions

[Note: the purpose of this section is to synthesize the discussion to argue you that thecombination of globalization, urbanization and mega-projects producing urban space is the

major source of water system degradation. At the same time, investment in water infrastructureis insufficient in the face of these trends. Moreover, privatization of water system management

and delivery is symptomatic of the same mega-project syndrome of under-performance and highenvironmental risk.]

Mega-projects are functionally part of a transcendent meta-project of global accumulationinvolving both physical transformations and ideological struggles over the social construction

of landscapes (Gellert and Lynch 2001:2). In Pacific Asia today they are adding new layers ofglobal business hubs, mega-malls, huge new towns with gated communities, and global tourist

sites to the previous layers of export-processing zones as part of the global factory. Togetherthey represent a broad assault on the city that is resulting in massive urban expansion in an

ecologically insensitive manner that is further endangering the capacity to environmentallysupport the city region itself. Among the most troubling impacts are those on regional water

systems.

Figure 11. The Meta-Project of Global Accumulation

Summary: Impacts of the Meta-Project of Global Accumulation on Water Systems

New approaches toward city regional planning are needed to secure clean water for Jabodetabek

in an ecologically sound manner. Projections show that this city region will possibly double in population by mid-century. Among the issues to confront for water are: regional scale

governance above Jakarta DKI; land use zoning and effective regulation of urban expansion;raising priority for environmental infrastructure and services; and rethinking privatization of

water management to include multi-level governance and community capacity building for watermanagement, especially in low income kampungand squatter settlements.


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Reference

Altshuler, Alan A. and David E. Luberoff (2004) Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of

Urban Public Investment (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution and LincolnInstitute of Land Policy).

Anwar, Alizar (2003), Regulating Service for the Poor, Jakarta, Indonesia, 3rd World WaterForum, Osaka, 19th March.

Bapedal (Environmental Impact Management Agency) (2000),Laporan Prokasih 2000 (Jakarta:Government of Indonesia).

BPS Bekasi Regency (2000), The Bekasi Regency in Figures (Bekasi).Clark, David (1996), Urban World/Global City (London: Routledge).

Castells, Manuel (2000), The Rise of the Network Society (New York: Blackwell Publishers).Douglass, Mike (1991), Planning for Environmental Sustainability in the Extended Jakarta

Metropolitan Region. Ch. 12 in N. Ginsburg, B. Koppel and T. G. McGee (eds.), TheExtended Metropolis: Settlement Transition in Asia (Honolulu: UH Press).

Douglass, Mike (1997), Structural Change and Urbanization in Indonesia: from the Old to theNew International Division of Labor, in Gavin Jones and Pravin Visaria, eds.,

Urbanization in Large Developing Countries; China, Indonesia, Brazil, and India (Oxford:Clarendon Press), 111-141.

Douglass, Mike (2000), Mega-urban Regions and World City Formation: Globalisation, theEconomic Crisis and Urban Policy Issues in Pacific Asia, Urban Studies, 17:12, 2317-2337.

Flyvbjerg, Bent, Nils Bruzelius & Werner Rothengatter (2003), Megaprojects and Risk: AnAnatomy of Ambition (Cambridge University Press).

Friedmann, John (2002), The Prospect of Cities (University of Minnesota Press).Jones, Gavin W. and Mike Douglass (2005), The Transformations of Mega-Urban Regions in

Pacific Asia Urban Dynamics in a Global Era (Singapore: draft manuscript).Knox, Paul and Peter Taylor, eds. (1995), World Cities in a World-System (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press).Mamas, Si Gde Made and Rizky Komalasari (2004), The Growth of Jakarta Mega-Urban

Region: Analysis of Demographic, Educational and Employment Changes, Conference OnGrowth Dynamic Of Mega Urban Regions in Asia, Singapore 24-25 June.

Palupi, K., S. Sumengen, S. Inswiasri, L. Agustina, S.A. Nunik, W. Sunarya, A. Quraisyn(1995), River water quality study in the vicinity of Jakarta, Water Science and Technology,

31:9, 17-25.PDKI [Pemerintah Daerah Khusus Ibukota Government of DKI Jakarta] (1994), Neraca

Kualitas Lingkungan Hidup (Jakarta).River water quality study in the vicinity of Jakarta

World Bank (WB). (2003).Indonesia environment monitor 2003. http://www.worldbank.or.id


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Figure 1. Globalization, Urbanization and Mega-projects

Figure 2. Population of 5 Mega-Urban Regions of Pacific Asia, 1864-2000

Source: Jones and Douglass (2005).


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Figure 3 Expansion of Jakarta (Jabodetabek) 1980-1990

1980 1990

Figure 4. Environmental Impacts of Jakarta MUR Expansion

Source: Douglass (1991).

Figure 5. The Jakarta Out strategy

Source: Douglass (1991).


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Figure 6. Proposed Environmental Management Zones for Jabotabek, 1984,

and Population Distribution by Kecamaten, 2000

Figure 7. Private New Towns, 1985-1997

Source: Mamas and Komalasari (2005)


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Figure 8. Malls and Shopping Centers in Jakarta 1990-2004

Source: Mamas and Komalasari (2005).

Figure 9. Expansion of Housing Estates (1990s)

Source: Mamas and Komalasari (2005).


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Figure 10. Regional Strategy for Jabodetabek 2015

Source: Jabotabek Metropolitan Development Plan Review Study, 1995.

Figure 11Summary: Impacts of the Meta-Project of Global Accumulation on Water Systems

Impacts on the Water System

Depletion of regional aquifers resultingin land subsidence and salt water

intrusion into water supply Loss of ground cover and smaller

waterways, resulting in more frequentand severe flooding and droughts

Pollution of rivers from urban andindustrial expansion

Urban expansion into critical coastaland upland ecologies

Diversion of public resources to urbanmega-project support and away from

water and environmental services.

globalization, mega projects in jakarta

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