Jakartass Home thoughts from abroad. Alien thoughts from home.

On Wednesday, the Jakarta branch of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) revealed the city’s population had reached 9.5 million, or 4 percent of the country’s total population of 237.6 million.

Agency head Agus Suherman told the Post that the total population in the city is 9,588,198 people, with 3 percent more males in the ratio of male to female.

(I wonder if that 3 percent correlates to the number of thugs who belong to the Betawi Brotherhood and FPI.)

Back in June, I wrote thus: The current national census cannot be completed as scheduled because rich folks in their enclaves deny access to officials because they have something, their ill-gotten wealth, to hide.

So was the census completed? Although the figure given by BPS is extremely detailed, it is legitimate to wonder how accurate it really is. Leaving aside the number of recalcitrants mentioned above, how about the "numerous" poor who cannot afford to buy ID cards and face eviction and 'repatriation' to their hometowns?

The census, if accurate, reveals a 14.4 percent growth on the 8.3 million people tallied in the previous nationwide census in 2000. That figure had only grown by 1.8 percent from figures collated in 1990.

Agus said Jakarta’s 662-square-kilometer area had a population density of 14,476 people per square kilometer – give or take 100,000 or so …

Interestingly, the City Mayors site gave Jakarta's population – as of 6 January 2007 – as 9.4 million.

Their population density chart ranks the cities with the largest land area and their surrounding urban areas by population density expressed in people per square kilometre. Most such agglomerations are economically, socially and culturally dominated by one city at their centre.

So if all the residents of Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi, collectively known as Jabotabek, are included, then the population is/was 14,250,000, at a density of 1,360 per square kilometre with a world ranking of 17.

Agus said that of the five municipalities, excluding the Thousand Islands regency, Central Jakarta has the highest density with 18,676 people per square kilometer. Central Jakarta, however, was home to the fewest people, with a population of only 898,883, compared to East Jakarta with 2.6 million people.

Central Jakarta has fewer residents because it has been redeveloped into the country's business and government centre. It also has the most expensive apartments, hotels, shopping malls and offices. The population density during office hours is much swollen, thus creating the horrendous rush hour traffic jams.

A senior researcher from the University of Indonesia’s Demography Institute, Djainal Abidin, said the city’s soaring population was likely caused by a lower mortality rate thanks to improvements to healthcare, a higher birth rate and increased urbanization.

Djainal is wrong about the "higher birth rate": the city’s fertility rate stands at 2.1, down from 2.2 in 2002.

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, Djainal said.

"Will" not be? Djainal, as anyone trying to get back home this month in order to break their fast can readily attest, it already isn't.

So, what is to be done?

Answers will not be on a postcard, but there will be some tomorrow.