The built environment element of economic development in post conflict response in Indonesia

The recent violent communal conflicts events at the end of 1990s in Indonesia has appointed to the importance of relationship within the community and linked to the role of economic sector and built environment. This paper presents some findings from interviews with four groups of stakeholders related to urban development on a recent study in the context of the communal conflict that occurred on three cases: Solo (Central Java), Poso (Central Sulawesi), and Sambas (West Kalimantan). The finding suggests that the economic development needs to seriously consider the role of traditional market place and informal sector, as well as urban heritage conservation

Tapol bulletin no, 168, September 2002

Contents: Emergency continues to grip Aceh -- Rights violations continue unabated -- Maluku is now a closed territory -- Problems mount in West Papua -- Unexplained killings in Merauke -- Is a zone of peace possible in West Papua? -- Violence against women -- Indonesian justice in serious trouble -- Will these generals ever be brought to trial? -- Appeal to support former tapols -- New revelations about 1999 mayhem in Timor -- Book review: Bitter dawn by Irene Cristali

Politics and Urban Development Focus on Jakarta’s Shopping Center Trajectory

"City of consumerism" seems to be an appropriate moniker for Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. Over the past few years, Jakarta has transformed from an administrative town where both state and local public authorities exercise policy and development strategy — into an economic empire of the nation. Economic indicators pointed out that the economic development in the metropolitan region is massive; 6 percent economic growth, rising middle-class’ purchasing power, and increasing foreign property investment. Urban scholars have highlighted that this urban transformation is much influenced by modern world-class city aspiration driven by the private sectors who are able to display grandiose modern projects and influence the policy makers. One of the many phenomena that shows this urban revolution is the booming of shopping center development in the metropolitan region. Currently, Jakarta Metropolitan Region has 153 shopping centers, supplying more than 5 million square meter retail spaces to the 30 million metropolitan population. I argue that the enormous number of shopping center operated in the city comes as the result of the shifting urban development focus towards neoliberalism bounded to an intricate economic, political, and ideological system of the nation. Using urban historical framework and the mapping techniques, I seek to analyze the urban transformation through the shopping center perspective. I further evaluate series of implications — supported by data and facts — that emerge from the shopping center deployment

Semper floreat

Title varies: Gamut; Time off: Semper; The press. Numbering system very erratic

Housing, homeownership and labour market change in Greater Jakarta, Indonesia

PhD ThesisGlobalisation, economic restructuring and structural adjustment are significant phenomena in contemporary society. Since the economic crisis in 1997, Indonesia’s market through economic reform has become more neoliberally-oriented, leading to the reduction of subsidies, the privatisation of state companies and the transformation of the labour market to become more flexible. This has influenced the shift from permanent employment to short-term contracting and outsourcing systems in Indonesia’s labour market, resulting in unsecure employment for many. Meanwhile, since Indonesia’s property prices started to pick up in 2004, growing house price inflation through the widespread commodification of housing has shown no signs of stopping – but on the contrary, experiencing annual growth. Declining affordability in housing costs, the increased housing shortage in urban areas, lack of finance availability and affordability, and increasing housing market speculation are important phenomena that have created insecurity within Indonesia’s housing markets. This study focuses on how labour insecurity has influenced the nature of housing consumption of households from varying socioeconomic backgrounds. In exploring both the labour and housing market, the study employs the ‘household strategies’ paradigm to understand the dynamics underlying the ‘housing careers’ of blue-collar and white-collar households. The study differentiates between these households by dividing them into three groups: ‘Defensive’, ‘Managing’ and ‘Improving’ households. This paradigm provides a useful way of understanding residential mobility via the operation of the housing market, exploring how the progression of the household through the housing stock is influenced by the diverse circumstances that prompt different economic strategies, each which seeks to protect that household from the harsh realities of the contemporary neoliberal condition.General Directorate of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Culture, Republic of Indonesi

Mangroves degradation: a local perspective on its awareness

Mangroves in Malaysia reside on the coastlines, and the largest areas of mangrove are in the Northern Sabah. Over the past decades, mangrove species have been reported to be disappearing from the globe. It is due to several natural processes that have been inserted to fill the needs of the increased population. These include illegal logging, agriculture activities and urbanisation. In this regards, awareness of the local residents about the problem of mangrove depletion is important to inhibit the problem to prolong further.Therefore, this research was conducted to determine the degree of awareness of local residents on the importance of mangroves in managing environmental quality. Consequently, a questionnaire survey was conducted on 103 respondents to examine their awareness on the subject of mangrove degradation.The respondents were selected randomly among local residents of Kuala Selangor district.It is found that only twenty percent of the total number of respondents are totallyaware of the issue and acted upon it; either taking part in the endeavours made by the government as well as those with the nongovernmental bodies or practicing mangroves replanting at their backyard

Population and poverty: A review and restatement

Worldwide in the 1990s over one billion persons are estimated to have a purchasing power of below a dollar per day, the conventional demarcation of “absolute poverty.” Other dimensions of poverty, extending beyond income measures to encompass a person’s broader capabilities and social functioning, are less empirically accessible. Poverty is commonly thought to be associated with high fertility and rapid population growth (regionally, South Asia and Africa have the highest poverty rates), but that view finds little support in the extensive statistical research literature on population and poverty. However, a clear-cut depiction of such an institutionally contingent relationship is not to be expected. Economy-wide effects of population change on poverty can be traced through direct changes in distributional outcomes and through effects resulting from changes in rural and urban environments and social organization. The indirect links are complicated by problems of characterizing the urban informal sector and by the relocation of poverty through migration (and its recomposition through economic mobility). Analytical difficulties arise in stipulating ceteris paribus conditions against which to assess demographic influences. Stylized models can show how certain patterns of social structure and economic transfers in a society sustain resilient “equilibrium trap” situations that generate adverse demographic and poverty outcomes. Although neither fertility nor poverty is usefully regarded as a policy instrument, there are policy measures that impinge on both. The familiar examples of these are programs in education, health, and family planning. Policies in the economic and political domain may be as or more important. The developmentalist strategies behind many of the strongest economic growth performances of recent decades, albeit contentious on some other grounds, have been associated with poverty alleviation and fertility decline

Vectors of risk, bodies that breathe

Fogging pyrethroid-based pesticides is a routine component of vector management strategies in Jakarta, Indonesia with the aim to kill the Aedes aegypti mosquito and reduce Dengue infections. As more mosquitoes become resistant to pesticide, fogging is an ineffective technology to reduce mosquito populations. This thesis tells a historical epidemiological multi-species narrative about Dengue in a megacity. Power and agency are noticed as dynamic forces that shape the illness experience and the choice to continue fogging. The thesis brings forth questions: “how do mosquitoes, viruses, and humans co-create one another?, how do power differentials shape public health intervention decisions?, how do nonhumans and technology act in ways that are disparate from humans intelligence and intention?, and how might affirming the inseparability of nature and culture resign humans to live together with mosquitoes in a way that reduces harmful viral mixing? Public Health statement: By discussing mosquitoes’, virus’, and residents’ response to fogging and tracking the ways pyrethroid risks are made invisible, the author suggests that fogging itself is a risk. As 60% of infectious diseases that affect humans spend part of their life course in a nonhuman animal, this considered approach toward the vector’s ability to make meaning and exercise agency inspires illuminating questions about zoonotic diseases

NeoTowns - Prototypes of corporate Urbanism: Examined on the basis of a new generation of New Towns - by the cases of Bumi Serpong Damai (Jakarta), Navi Mumbai (Mumbai) and Alphaville-Tamboré (São Paulo)

This research aims to contribute new insights to the question of the city as a venture, exploring the dynamics of privately driven urbanism. Broadly it seeks to reconfirm, up-date, and furnish the concept of spatial production (which was mainly developed in the 1960s and 1970s), in the context of global urbanisation as well as the framework of a new economy. It explores this general objective along three actual sites that reflect the impacts of privatisation in a most direct and unfettered way