Mega Urbanization:[1] new town and city setting

By: Johan SILAS

History has noted a world wide urbanization more than two centuries ago when migrants from Ireland, Italy and other European countries moved to the east coast of North America, Chinese and Japanese settled in the west coast with Spanish and people from Africa occupying the south and central part. Over time the reasons behind migration from long distance places shifted from gaining power and wealth for the monarch followed by establishing towns and cities to develop economic and political dominance. In lesser degree similar urbanization is taking place within national border of a country such as Indonesia with its high economic growth cities such as Jakarta and Surabaya.

Indonesia as the fourth most populous country (after China, India and USA) with 201.242 million people, 51.12 % (more than 102 million) live on Java that has 7% of the total land area of the country. Prof. Emil Salim considered Java as a large kampung island. Terry McGee’s study on urban development in Indonesia classifies Java as an island of desakota or village-town. If both hypothesises were true, Java should be the first mega-urbanized place in the world involving developing population of more than in Benelux countries, France and Germany. Obviously the discussion on mega urbanization in Indonesia should take the example of Java and Surabaya, as the largest second city within ASEAN countries will be the case study. With the enactment of local government law (no. 22/1999) and the balanced redistribution of national resources law (no. 25/1999), local government has now greater autonomy in drafting and approving local development plans without intervention by central authorities as before.

After the abortive coup in 1965, Indonesia started rebuilding itself and cities such as Jakarta and Surabaya reformulate the development plans to accommodate a need for development beyond its administrative boundaries. Large cities of Jakarta or Surabaya faced great constraints in spatial management unless neighbouring areas to far beyond city limits were included and integrated in the plan. Both include its greater urban area to form JABOTABEK[2] (Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi) and GERBANGKERTOSUSILA (Gersik, Bangkalan, Mojokerto, Surabaya, Sidoarjo and Lamongan) respectively. The review of population growth of both greater urban areas showed its importance in national development.

Table 1. Population of JABOTABEK to GERBANGKERTOSUSILA 1990 - 2000

Source:  Penduduk Indonesdia, Hasil Sensus Penduduk 2000 seri RBL1.2 Central Bureau of Statistics

Table 1 showed that in the last ten years the population of JABOTABEK has grown twice faster as GERBANGKERTOSUSILA. The high growth of JABOTABEK was due to the seat of the central government and strong centralized government so that large fund (about 70%) was circulating there complemented by big government and private investment. The growth of GERBANGKERTOSUSILA was mainly through investment from local resources with little central government involvement. Physically JABOTABEK is an agglomeration of vast area centred in Jakarta. There is no visible boundaries from one administrative region to the others creating complicated movements of people, goods and services that led to environmental degradation and poor living quality. Travelling in GERBANGKERTOSUSILA, a network of cities and towns developed and a clear definition of administrative area exists and land-uses can be observed. This bears less physical problems such as traffic congestion to flooding and pollution control.

Cities (Bekasi, Tangerang and Depok) around Jakarta that reached more than one million people in less than one generation were not developed by the respective regencies. Rather it was the investment of private housing developers to serve their economic needs and interest. It was also not planned by the respective local governments. Rapid urban development in China was taking place faster than in Indonesia. In Western Europe mega urbanization occurred cross-national boundaries.

Economic interest is the dominant factor in pressuring the urbanization process at mega scale. Development generator based on economic interest can consist of different types and forms. Non-economic intervention can be transformed into profitable economic ventures such as the construction of very low-cost housing stimulates the development in the periphery of the cities. The emergence of new economic potential, such as high demand for shrimps and prawns by countries in East Asia and Europe stimulate the urbanization process way out from the city centre to the rural coastal area. The mega urbanization area can be further extended if communication in surface transport can be provided (easily). The combination of road and ferry services between Surabaya to the adjacent islands to as far as Sumbawa and East Kalimantan create new mega urbanization boundaries. This allows medium size enterprises to do business based on simple and cheap movement of people, goods and services.

Goods and services from the city easily penetrate deep into the rural area, strengthening the ecological footprint concept of William Reese (1992). People from rural area also move easily to the urban area to seek better job and income. Some arrived well prepared, but most do not. Some stayed for a limited time, most gradually stayed longer and became permanent residents. Complemented by the reformation and democracy in learning, urban life deteriorates at rate that only harsh and uncompromising actions by city government can keep the situation normal. Pressured by unrest and conflict in many areas push more people to the cities that led to no-action policy and made the situation difficult to resolve. Does better understanding of the mega urbanization enable city governments to better deal with the issue. Is it possible to maximise the positive and reducing the negative impact of mega urbanization without eliminating the favourable options for the under privilege to improve their future livelihood. 

There exist different models of urbanization. One over riding element applies to all models is the linkages between host-city to the neighbouring towns and cities. The process can be coming to as well as going from the main city. Those seeking employment to the cities drive the in-urbanization. Whereas investors from the city when looking for economic advantage in area with cheaper land and labour create ex-urbanization. In-urbanization implies to urbanise ineffective use area as perceived by new migrants such as constructing squatters and hawking in public places. City government despised this type of urbanisation although a reality in many towns and cities. The ex-urbanization happened when economic growth reached faster and further than the city limit.

Investment carried out by lower income migrants generates urbanization process at different quality and scale. Studies were carried out to understand the ex-urbanization of Surabaya. There exist three types of mega-urbanization around Surabaya:

·        The southward self contained urbanization, around of the airport of Surabaya. This type or ex-urbanization depends on local support and involvement.

·        The second has strong link and depend to the main city (Surabaya). This is the most common type of mega urbanization.

·        Lastly is the centred mega-urbanization. The third type is basically developed in small towns around the main city that maintain strong link to it.

The Bali bombing (10/02) revealed that people from outside has taken over Bali and allows doing activities not related to the uniqueness of Bali to include sacrilegious activities. It Evidently two third of land in the most popular tourist area (Kuta and Legian) are owned by people not from Bali, mostly from Jakarta. It is now obvious that the over built and over supply of urban facilities created grave aftermath of post blasts condition. Big hotels, shopping centres, restaurants, and other amenity facilities were left vacant with almost no visitors. Three important lessons can be learned from the mega urbanization experience in Indonesia, namely:

·        In the local autonomy system of government, mega urbanization should create mutually beneficial economic co-operation.

·        The intensity of the investment complemented by improved linkage quality in soft or hardware is needed to include cyber highways.

·        Urban area should be an integral part to the hinterland, and observing the ecological footprint of the respective cities and towns.

References:

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McGee, T.G. (1989), Urbanisasi or desak0ta? Evolving Pattern of Urbanizations in Asia, in Costa, F.J., (ed.) Urbanization in Asia - Spatial Dimension and Policy Issue, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.

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