JAKARTA UNTIDINESS, THE FACE OF INDONESIAN DEVELOPMENT FAILED

By. Muhammad Nurjihadi

Traffic jammed, untidiness, dirty, flood, trash, and criminal are the dark face of Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia. In the other side, Jakarta is the central of civil movement, business office, NGO centre, and home of the richest people in Indonesia, even Jakarta also a religious movement centre. In the simple sentences, we can say that Jakarta is the centre of everything. Centre of government, centre of business, centre of socio culture activity, centre of civil movement, centre of poverty, centre of traffic jammed, centre of flood, trash and criminal.

How Jakarta can be like that? It’s a simple think, because Jakarta has everything that are not owned by the other regions. Jakarta is like a sugar, it can invite many ant to come there. All of owned Jakarta is a sugar that was invited people from outside Jakarta to come and live in there. When people come to Jakarta, there are two possibilities, success or fail. First, if they become success, they will buy some vehicles, build or buy a house, and produce some descent. This condition creates traffic jammed and increase the density of Jakarta. Second, if they become failed, they will get survive by working in informal sector like PKL, ojeg, scavengers (pemulung), etc. Because their incomes are low, they build home traditionally in public land, especially in riverside. This is the cause of untidiness, dirty and flood in Jakarta. Usually, poor people have more children than the rich people. It makes the dirty houses growth faster and occupied more riverside. Who is wrong in this case?, the poor ? the rich ? or Jakarta ?.

Let us talk about development history in Indonesia. In new order era (Soeharto’s regime), the government focus to stabilize Indonesian economics in macro level. Economic growth, inflation control, public infrastructure, and human investment had been development orientation. To get high economic growth, Indonesia must be a capitalist country. Capitalism is the classic economic ideology that was introduced by Adam Smith with his ‘invisible hand theory’. There are four pillars in capitalism ideology, (1) freedom; (2) selfish; (3) competition; and (4) profit oriented. Soeharto invited foreign investors to invest their capital in Indonesia. As a rich resource country, many investors come to Indonesia and build their business here. But Indonesian government must give some guarantee to follow capitalism principle: freedom, selfish, competition and profit oriented.

Freedom mean that Indonesian government forbidden to instructed the investors about what, when, where and how to realize their business. Indonesian government just has an authority to give permission and get tax from the business. Selfish mean that Indonesia must give recognition for private property and protect them from criminal action. Competition mean that all of business activity must be perfect competition, and profit oriented mean that government must be respect to investors aim, that is to get high profit. To get high profit, there are some requirements, (1) high demand (market oriented); (2) cheap but educational labor; (3) good infrastructure; and (4) near from central government to do lobbying. Java Island is a most populated region in Indonesia. Populated region mean that there are a big market, and there are many labor surplus there. So the investors build their business central in Java because there are high demand (big market), and there are many labor surplus (cheap wage of labor). Another reason is because Java has better infrastructure than another Java region and near from central government.

Although manufacturing or production activity do in another Jakarta (but still in java region), but each firm usually open their central office in Jakarta. Not only to do lobby, but also to build business network in national and international level. Another reason is that the investors live in Jakarta. This condition make Jakarta look more luxury and develop Jakarta economic significantly. Statistic show that 25% Indonesian GDP come from Jabodetabek region. It is the fact of regional disparities in Indonesia and it is not good for Indonesian future.

Another impact of luxury Jakarta is rural migration. Many villager come to Jakarta to increasing their life quality. In their mind, Jakarta has everything they need. Like my explanation before that there are two possibilities will be haven at villager who come to Jakarta, be success and make Jakarta more jammed, or be failed and make Jakarta dirty. Both condition increase Jakarta density, and also increase household waste, the cause of Jakarta flood every year. So, the main idea of this article is that regional disparities increase rural migration to Jakarta and make Jakarta denser, jammed, dirty, and flood.