22 Aug
Some Answers on a Rather Large Postcard
With 9.5 million people living in the city, and millions commuting in from the surrounding areas each day, Jakarta will not be a pleasant place to live in coming years unless significant efforts were made to slow population growth. Quoted in my last post
It may be 'home' to several million of us, but it's already an unpleasant place to live. We're only in it for the money! With staggering youth unemployment breeding uncontrollable social chaos, no cohesive transport policy emanating from City Hall which insists on building yet more roads and the usual culprits of endemic corruption, pollution, bureaucratic hassles, the lack of recreational facilities and ready accessible to open spaces, there is no way that, apart possibly from the Mayor of Solo, Joko Widodo, any Indonesian will be nominated as World Mayor 2010. Jakarta's Governor, Fuddy 'Bandaid' Bozo, is, however, my nominee for the World's worst.
The organisers of the World Mayor Project are looking for city leaders who excel in qualities like: leadership and vision, management abilities and integrity, social and economic awareness, ability to provide security and to protect the environment as well as the will and ability to foster good relations between communities from different cultural, racial and social backgrounds.
Good hunting, chaps. So, what's to be done before Jakarta's Doomsday finally arrives?
Can Jakarta go …….
from this …
and this …
to this?
Could the capital be relocated to, say, Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan? SBY likes the idea but, not unexpectedly, Fuzzy Bodoh prefers to not think about it.
Or how about building a brand new city? This should, of course, preferably be somewhere close to the nuclear power plant which keeps being talked up as if in a bad dream.
There would also be an opportunity for some revolutionary town planning, perhaps as currently being considered for Southern Sudan’s capital, Juba, which would be in the shape of a rhinoceros. The country's the second-largest city, Wau, will be in the form of a giraffe. If Indonesia's town planners and architects can't manage the Garuda, then how about the foul-smelling durian?
Enough of this frivolity. There are answers being given to solving Jakarta's problems, but not by those in power. I'll outline the ways and means in yet another post.
As someone who is unambigously anti-nuclear weapons, to admit I am however ambivalent about nuclear energy is a little uncomfortable, to say the least. That said, much of the debate about nuclear energy must hinge, has to hinge, on waste disposal and Jakartass is spot on when he points to Indonesia's often woeful infrastructure, roads, railways, ports as a complete argument against not having nuclear power plants built here.
In the early 1990s…I forget when exactly…South Korea suffered an earthquake epicentred very close to just such a plant. What did the authorities say? Well, the quake was centred off the Pacific coast and there was no cause for concern…
Can you imagine the obfuscation you would have here in the same set of circumstances?
Of course you can!