Kampongs (Slums)
As megacities in the Global South like Jakarta have grown exponentially all over the world, since the 1970’s, the prevalence of slums has risen as well. Mike Davis uses the United Nations criteria to define slums in his book, Planet of Slums, as “characterized by overcrowding, poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation and insecurity of tenure” and now over 1/3 of the urban population live in these slums (Davis, 23).
Jakarta is one of the prime examples of urban density and overpopulation leading to the rise of slum neighborhoods known as Kampungs. Jakarta’s population has risen dramatically within the past two decades jumping from 7 million in 1992 to 14 million in 2005 and most recently a whopping 17.8 million in 2015. It has been estimated that the total greater Jakarta region will have an estimation of 40 million by 2020 (Spatial Pattern of Land Values). This rapid growth has led to uncontrolled development, minimal public services, and bad infrastructure.
In the Strait Times Newspaper article, “Recent Floods in Jakarta are Strong Evidence That Urbanisation Should be Reduced” Rukmana describes how Jakarta is hit with deadly floods each year which inundate over 70% of the city and send 450,000 annually fleeing from their homes. These floods that destroy the global city demonstrate that Jakarta is not able to sustain its rapid urbanization. Rukmana notes that while privatization has allowed commercial, office buildings and new homes to spring up all over Jakarta and have become a pull for urbanization in the city, public investment in things like infrastructure and water canal systems has become nonexistent since the economic crisis of 1997. Thus, as urban growth intensifies and public investment declines in Jakarta, slums are beginning to take over the city.
There are over 3.5 million slum-dwellers across the Jakarta region and Kampungs can often be found alongside highways, train tracks and river canals. Ann Basuki discovered more information of where these slums were located around the greater Jakarta area by comparing land values in her article “The Spatial Pattern of Land Values in Jakarta”. Firstly, she maps out Jakarta by region such as Central Jakarta, North Jakarta, South Jakarta, East Jakarta, and West Jakarta. She discovered that the North and the East regions had significantly lower land values as compared to the West and the South meaning that the North and East regions are more occupied with low-income neighborhoods or Kelurahans. While Central Jakarta had the highest land values, there were also significant areas of low value. This demonstrates that low value areas like kampungs are often right next to skyscrapers and privatized buildings. These kampungs began to rise over the greater Jakarta area during the 1970’s when housing construction boomed. This increase of construction claimed over 30,000 hectares of land. Subsequently, over three quarters of this land were sub-divided illegally and informal housing grew to be large slums. This illegal land ownership is one of the many causes of insecurity of tenure among the slum residences.
This use of public space throughout the megacity is a demonstration of the city dwellers taking back their right to the city. In the article “Slum Dwellers Driven to the Edge”, The
Canberra Times discusses how slum residences are taking back the city with illegal settlements. The article goes into detail of how the slum dwellers are overtaking the city and one prime example of this is the size of the Ciliwung River. The river was 60 meters wide measured back in the colonial era but today the river only measures to be about 5-10 meters wide. Kampung dwellers have overtaken land alongside the river often without permit permission which is illegal. The river is a high choice to build informal housing as dwellers often rely heavily on the river as a resource in their every day lives. Many slum residents rely on the fish markets that gather along the river for the little income that they can make. The river is also used to wash clothes and a playground for children. Despite being largely used by the residents of Jakarta, the river is extremely polluted and is often the cause of the extreme flooding in the city.
As kampungs in Jakarta are often informal settlements with little to no access to public services and the public investment has been neglected in the spending of government funds, the slum residents are faced with many obstacles. Without a social safety system, slum dwellers are constantly worried about uncertainty of tenure, material damage from flooding, drowning, and water-borne diseases. Yet while these inhabitants are fighting for their lives, they are left without a support system. In “The Right to Aid”, Roanne van Voorst describes Banteran Kali as one of Jakarta’s most flood-prone kampungs and explains how those slum dwellers use informal and little formal social support to survive. Many times, the residents are neglected and even discriminated against by political institutes that are meant to give aid. This has led to a large gap of distrust of the government among Kampong dwellers. Therefore, the residents look to informal support groups such as militia groups like the Betawi Brotherhood. This is just one example of how low-income groups are veering away from relying on the government for aid.
As Jakarta is has become the city hub for all capital functions as well as
educational, commercial, industrial and transportation systems, the city has
overgrown too fast. Thus, the city is now overpopulated with uncontrolled
development, minimal public services, and bad infrastructure. The damage from flooding is one prime example that urbanization in Jakarta needs to be
decreased. Hopefully, in time actions will be taken to reduce urban growth and begin to help the residences of Jakarta.