Flaneur's Diary - Living on the Edge
As the end of this virtual journey throughJakarta comes to end, I look back through what I have come to learn about thisincredible mega-city. Jakarta has grown exponentially since the 1990’s at sucha fast pace, the city struggles to keep up with the urbanization. As theprojected population to be at a whopping 40 million by 2020, the city strugglesto maintain the urban growth. All throughout the city, dense slums have risenas an influx of low-income residents live more on top of each other. Incontrast, globalization has risen dramatically, as the city attempts to reshapeits image to be a source of global power and resource. Multinational companiesflock to the city and squeeze out the native residents and their vernacularneighborhoods and take over with an endless sea of skyscrapers. These twoconcepts of neoliberal urbanism sit right next to each other as skyscraperstower over slum villages. These brand new buildings are being constructed aslow-income families struggle daily in the shadow of the construction.
There are two ways that urban growth has impacted the city of Jakarta. As urban development grows uncontrollably, the privatization of public funds have left city infrastructure useless and in consequence extreme flooding and obnoxious traffic congestion overpowers the city. Flooding has let the city in fear yearly as water mitigation lacks structure. Jakarta is also a coastal town and sits a couple of feet belowsea level. This leaves the mega-city drowning every year and thousands offamilies forced to evacuate their homes. Another example of urban change is the extreme influx of daily commuters that are found on the city’s highways. Lack of public transportation and poor infrastructure for drivers has led to traffic areas that are so congested, commuters are stuck in traffic for hours. Many of these drivers are on motorcycles. This endless sea of bikes are usuallysqueezed between cars and buildings and take over the roads daily.
As neoliberal urbanism transforms the global city of Jakarta, the city has evolved to survive in the wake of its impact. These concepts of urbanization in the Global South can be transferred to every mega-city throughout the world. Through globalization transnational and vernacular architecture are transformed as evil paradises take over the city and slums grow larger to make room for these paradises.
Throughout the course of the semester, I was able to conduct my own flaneur exploration in Phoenix, Arizona. We explored an Indoor Swapmeet to gather a more understanding of vernacular culture and the people involved in that eye level. We also explored master-planned communities to view how evil paradises are all around the city here.