Globalization, Mega-projects and the Environment: Urban Form and Water in Jakarta

Mike Douglass Globalization Research Center and Department of Urban and Regional Planning University of Hawaii International Dialogic Conference on Global Cities: Water, Infrastructure and Environment The UCLA Globalization Research Center Africa May 16-19, 2005 Abstract. Intercity competition for world city status and new layers of global consumer and finance capital entering very large city regions in Pacific Asia are the drivers for an unprecedented mega-project boom that is intensively restructuring and expanding urban space in environmentally unsound ways. Land use planning by governments has largely yielded to these private developments, placing the environmental conditions and livability of these city regions at heightening risk. The case of Jakarta is used to reveal how the ensemble of mega-projects is undermining regional ecologies, including water supply, quality and distribution in the greater mega-urban region.

1. Mega-projects as Layering of Global Capital [Note: The purpose of this section is to provide an understanding of the specific context and reasons for the boom in mega-projects in Pacific Asia. This will set the stage for a linkage between mega-projects, urban form and water.] The past two decades have witnessed the advent of a new era of mega-projects throughout the world (Altshuler and Luberoff 2003). The more general reasons for this boom include (Flyvbjerg et al. 2003; Altshuler and Luberoff 2003): Big Fix: globalization needs global-size projects, with the effect of ratcheting up size expectations with every new mega-project. Institutional innovations in syndicating loan packages: private sector involvement in mega-projects has boomed since 1980 when public projects began to be turned over to private developers through BOT (Build-Own-Operate [-Transfer]) and other arrangements. Globalization of law: projects are vastly easier to run from afar due to lower transaction costs in all phases of project development. Technological innovations in very large structures: buildings over 100 stories high can now be constructed. Ever larger infrastructure demands for global flows: mega-container ports, world hub airports, very fast train services, superhighways for trucking. "Green light" syndrome: efforts to stop mega-projects are politically impossible once they are underway.

Impossibility of accurate feasibility/risk analysis: a pathology of underbidding for contracts, enormous cost overruns, and unknown risks allow for ready approval of megaprojects even in situations where many similar ones have failed (Flyvbjerg et al. 2003).

Pacific Asia is experiencing among the most exaggerated forms of these new mega-projects, which include the worlds tallest buildings, mega-malls with churches in them, world business triangles, cyber-cities, magnetic levitation rail services, and private new towns for hundreds of thousands of people. Together these projects are creating a new layer of the built environment in core and suburban areas that stand in contrast to those of even the recent past of rapid urbanindustrial growth, which mainly focused on peri-urban areas. In addition to the explanations noted above, the surge in mega-projects in Pacific Asia can be attributed to the intrusion of contemporary circuits of globalization into metropolitan regions: Globalization of finance capital. A major stimulus of mega-projects in Pacific Asia came in the late 1980s with the regional spread of Japans bubble economy that was followed by the opening of Asian banking systems to short-term speculative investments from around the world. These events witnessed massive switching of industrial and finance capital into urban land development throughout the region. This trend continues. Emergence of a broad urban class of affluent consumers. Mega-malls, global franchise, world trade centers and other consumption-oriented mega-projects were almost non-existent in most of Pacific Asia before the late 1970s when the stellar economic growth in the region began to produce a new consumer middle class ready to buy from global markets. Huge enclosed shopping complexes became the ideal for securing global chain stores and franchises in otherwise inadequately planned and managed cities. Intercity competition for global investment. Transnational corporations are shifting from owning the means of production to controlling channels of distribution through subcontracting, patent and copyright agreements, and licensing (Douglass 2000). This pushes intercity competition even further as cities compete with ever larger schemes with greater financial outlays in sunk capital in the built environment that is perceived to be required to attract and host global enterprises. Intentional world city formation. The production of urban space is now part of the formation of a global hierarchy of cities (Friedmann 2002; Knox and Taylor 1995; Clark 1996; Sassen 2000). In this hierarchy city regions begin to articulate more with each other in a global network than they do with their own national economies (Castells 2000). Open economies of Pacific Asia are turning to emblematic mega-projects that are designed to raise them to the highest world city tier within this network.

In sum, the urban transition and transformations of the built environments of cities in Pacific Asia over the past several decades are inseparable from an intensifying process of globalization that has focused national energies on a handful of huge city regions that are now the magnets for the current wave of mega-projects. In Pacific Asia, giant city regions have emerged from what were relatively small cities channeling cash crops and raw materials to the world economy up to the 1960s. Several of these city regions now rank among the largest urban agglomerations in the world.1 From the late 1980s, two more layers of global circuits of capital occurred with the
1

The latter half of the 20th century also was the period in which population growth in the region reached its highest rates, peaked, and then began to slow. In Southeast Asia, the population almost trebled from 178 million in 1950 to 522 million in 2000. In East Asia (dominated by China), the population grew by 2.2 times.

intrusion of global consumerism and finance capital, both of which work together to generate the most fundamental restructuring of cities since the height of high imperialism a century or more before. Added to national industrialization processes, these factors underlie the rapid increases in the population size of major city regions (Figures 1 and 2). Figure 1. Globalization, Urbanization and Mega-projects Figure 2. Population of 5 Mega-Urban Regions of Pacific Asia, 1864-2000 2. Jakarta: Mega-projects and the Environment [Note: The purpose of this section is to show how the totality of urban mega-projects in Jakarta defeat modest government efforts to guide urban growth in an environmental sound manner.] Until the end of the 1970s Jakartas growth was based on the extraction of raw materials mostly oil and timber from the outer islands. In the early-1980s Jakarta began a substantial shift into a new mode of export-oriented industrialization (EOI), complete with exploding population and economic growth in Jakarta (Figure 3) where EOI sectors gravitated and massive public investments were made in export-processing zones, metropolitan highway systems and a new international airport. By the early 1990s the opening banking and financial institutions to foreign investors allowed enormous injections of capital into the capital city region. The lions share of this investment went to urban land development projects (Douglass 1997, 2000). Figure 3. Expansion of Jakarta (Jabodetabek) 1980-1990 By the time the 1997 Asia economic meltdown occurred, with Indonesia as one of its major casualties, the metropolis had already shifted outward from Jakarta to a larger metropolitan region called Jabotabek from a monocentric city focused on the core of Jakarta to a multi-polar agglomeration of 5,500 square kilometers that had spread into the adjoining province of West Java.2 From 1990 to 2000 Jabotabeks population jumped from 17 to 21 million, or an average of more than 800,000 people per year. With mega-projects devoted to world business hubs, malls and commercial services in the core and massive suburban new towns in the periphery of the city, most of the population increase was experienced on the urban fringe while the core began to lose residential population that was being replaced by commuters. Despite the lackluster economy after the crisis, by the early years of the 21st century, speculative land development schemes and mega-projects had returned to cater to the still affluent middle class and elites. Jabotabek also added another node, Depok, to become Jabodetabek. Even before the EOI-led boom awareness already existed among urban planners in Indonesia that the rapid expansion of Jakarta was seriously endangering its environmental foundations. Intensifying population concentration in the core was depleting well water and causing intrusion of salt water into the citys water system. Ground subsidence occurred with some tall buildings at risk of leaning and collapsing. With expansion toward Bogor and the uplands of Puncak, the regions aquifers were in danger of pollution and the felling of trees and natural vegetation was leading to flooding in rainy seasons and droughts in dry seasons in and around Jakarta. Figure 4 geographically shows these elements of environmental risk. Figure 4. Environmental Impacts of Jakarta MUR Expansion
2

Jabotabek comes from the first syllables of Jakarta and the contiguous regencies of Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi.

Recognizing that expansion along the northern coast or into the higher elevations in the south were the most ecologically threatening directions of expansion, a Jakarta Out plan of east-west expansion was advocate by the Department of Public Works, the agency in charge of most of what can be called urban planning in Indonesia (Figure 5). This plan was elaborated by dividing the region into a number of zones, each of which was to have its own relation to urban expansion depending on its particular environmental management requirements (Figure 6). Figure 5. The Jakarta Out strategy Figure 6. Proposed Environmental Management Zones for Jabotabek, 1984, and Population Distribution by Kecamaten, 2000 The principal mechanism used to implement the Jabotabek plan was the public allocation of infrastructure for industrial growth toward Tangerang in the west where a new international airport was constructed next to a long toll road from Jakarta filled with industrial estates. Bekasi was designated at the growth pole in the eastern side of Jabotabek. Bogor was to be avoided because of its location toward the uplands. The plan was effective in creating an industrial corridor through EOI-related mega-projects, but because it had no regulatory power to inhibit land conversion to urban-industrial uses, it failed in terms of preventing the metropolitan region from expanding into environmentally unsound directions during a heady period of mega-projects in housing, shopping malls, and tall buildings in a designated Golden Triangle of world business functions. Nearly 100 shopping malls were built in the region from the late 1980s (Figure 8). In 2003 alone 20 new malls were constructed. This was paralleled the appearance of huge new towns with gated communities in suburban areas (Figure 9), which involved large-scale conversation of prime agricultural land and green spaces to urban functions in the regions principal area of water supply and its main aquifer. Figure 7 shows a map of private new town development, the largest of which were intended as self-contained cities for more than a half million residents. Over time, government regulation of such projects was relaxed through a series of policy changes to put decisions increasingly in private sector hands. Rather than trying to strengthen either its regulatory oversight over land development, the government reduced controls and even joined in the mega-project fever by proposing to construct with public money the worlds tallest tower in Jakarta. Figure 7. Private New Towns, 1985-1997 Figure 8. Malls and Shopping Centers in Jakarta 1990-2004 Figure 9. Expansion of Housing Estates (1990s) Regional plans intended to guide expansion in an environmentally sound manner continued to be put forth by local governments and central planning bureaus alike. Figure 10, which is a plan intended for the year 2015, is shown to now embrace large-scale private new town development. It thus represents a broader acknowledgment that, in the new era of neoliberal deregulation, ecologically sound urban growth was no longer being seriously pursued. Figure 10. Regional Strategy for Jabodetabek 2015

3. Environmental Management and the Ecology of Urban Water Supply Note: The purpose of this section is to assess the condition of water systems and supply, with a critical analysis of recent privatization of water management. Since the first spatial plan for environmental sustainability was launched in the late 1970s (Douglass 1991), the environment of what is now termed Jabodetabek has continued to worsen in quality of air, land and water. Concerning the assault on the regions water system, water supplies are at crisis point as underground supplies are depleted, deforestation continues, and aquifers are increasingly degraded by urbanization, industrial and human waste, and poorly managed dumpsites: Deteriorating water ecology With 13 rivers flowing through the city, half of Jakartas land area is prone to flooding, which now occurs with increasing severity. Flooding in 2002 claimed 77 lives, damaged 50,237 houses and 529 schools, and up to 1.5 million of people suffered from lack of food, clean water, and very poor sanitation conditions. All of Jabodetabek experiences extreme water shortages in dry seasons. The level of groundwater in Jabotabek has been decreasing by as much as 3 centimeters per year, adding to the declining quality of water due to salination from intrusion of salt water from the Java Sea now spreading into freshwater supplies as far as 11 kilometers from the coast (Mamas and Komalasari 2005). Land subsidence is following these trends of over-abstraction of deep ground water. From 1979 to 1991, North Jakarta subsided at a rate of about 25-34 centimeters per year; West Jakarta subsided at 8, East Jakarta at 4, and Central Jakarta at 2-3 centimeters per year (PDKI 1994). Levels of groundwater in Jabotabek have been decreasing from 0.03-2.95 cm/year. Pollution of water supplies Most industries in Jabodetabek have no wastewater treatment plants.3 The major water suppliers the Ciliwung, Sunter and Krukut Rivers for Jakarta have an overall water quality of poor to very poor from human settlement waste and industrial pollution (copper, lead; cadmium; zinc; mercury) (Palupi, et al. 1995). 80 percent of groundwater in Jakarta is polluted with pathogenic, disease causing bacteria. Industrial effluents, such as phenol, detergents and nitrate, also have been observed in shallow aquifers in the Jabodetabek area (The World Bank, 2003). Most shallow wells are contaminated by fecal coliform bacteria, and this is accompanied with bad smell. Environmentally unsound urban expansion (Figures 8 and 9) Zone I, where urban development is to be avoided, has become a dense industrial and housing estate zone. Zone IV, where urban development is to be limited and agricultural diversification is to be encouraged, has become an industrial area, Industries have also reached Zone V, which is supposed to be reserved for upland forest plantations, recreation, and conservation, this environment-supporting area at the inner and outer zone.

In a 2000 study, only 81 out of 535 factories were discharging wastewater of acceptable quality; 136 factories emit poor quality; and 318 factories remain unable to process the wastewater and generate polluting wastewater (Bapedal 2000; Mamas and Komalasari 2005).

Luxurious private villas and weekend tourist sites also continue to be built in this area, especially in the higher altitudes in the Puncak overlooking the Jabotabek region. Inadequate Water Infrastructure Only 1.9 percent of the population of Jakarta is served by a city sewerage system (Anwar 2003:2). Wastewater is mostly disposed of either directly into canals and rivers or into septic tanks that are too densely clustered or too poorly maintained to prevent groundwater contamination. Most households rely on on-site sanitation, but on-site septic tanks and cesspits are often connected to street drains leading directly back to the regions water system. Less than half of the population of Jakarta has access to some kind of water supply service other than bottled water purchase or open river. For the poorer residents of Jakarta, groundwater is the primary source of drinking water. Most of this surface water is too polluted to be used even for washing or for laundry. The supplier of water for Jakarta, PT. PAM Jaya, is only able to supply clean water for 48 percent of the residents. Outside of Jakarta in Bekasi only 2 percent of the population is served by piped municipal water systems, mostly due to lack of infrastructure (BPS Bekasi Regency, 2000). 3. Conclusions [Note: the purpose of this section is to synthesize the discussion to argue you that the combination of globalization, urbanization and mega-projects producing urban space is the major source of water system degradation. At the same time, investment in water infrastructure is insufficient in the face of these trends. Moreover, privatization of water system management and delivery is symptomatic of the same mega-project syndrome of under-performance and high environmental risk.] Mega-projects are functionally part of a transcendent meta-project of global accumulation involving both physical transformations and ideological struggles over the social construction of landscapes (Gellert and Lynch 2001:2). In Pacific Asia today they are adding new layers of global business hubs, mega-malls, huge new towns with gated communities, and global tourist sites to the previous layers of export-processing zones as part of the global factory. Together they represent a broad assault on the city that is resulting in massive urban expansion in an ecologically insensitive manner that is further endangering the capacity to environmentally support the city region itself. Among the most troubling impacts are those on regional water systems. Figure 11. The Meta-Project of Global Accumulation Summary: Impacts of the Meta-Project of Global Accumulation on Water Systems New approaches toward city regional planning are needed to secure clean water for Jabodetabek in an ecologically sound manner. Projections show that this city region will possibly double in population by mid-century. Among the issues to confront for water are: regional scale governance above Jakarta DKI; land use zoning and effective regulation of urban expansion; raising priority for environmental infrastructure and services; and rethinking privatization of water management to include multi-level governance and community capacity building for water management, especially in low income kampung and squatter settlements.

Reference Altshuler, Alan A. and David E. Luberoff (2004) Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy). Anwar, Alizar (2003), Regulating Service for the Poor, Jakarta, Indonesia, 3rd World Water Forum, Osaka, 19th March. Bapedal (Environmental Impact Management Agency) (2000), Laporan Prokasih 2000 (Jakarta: Government of Indonesia). BPS Bekasi Regency (2000), The Bekasi Regency in Figures (Bekasi). Clark, David (1996), Urban World/Global City (London: Routledge). Castells, Manuel (2000), The Rise of the Network Society (New York: Blackwell Publishers). Douglass, Mike (1991), Planning for Environmental Sustainability in the Extended Jakarta Metropolitan Region. Ch. 12 in N. Ginsburg, B. Koppel and T. G. McGee (eds.), The Extended Metropolis: Settlement Transition in Asia (Honolulu: UH Press). Douglass, Mike (1997), Structural Change and Urbanization in Indonesia: from the Old to the New International Division of Labor, in Gavin Jones and Pravin Visaria, eds., Urbanization in Large Developing Countries; China, Indonesia, Brazil, and India (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 111-141. Douglass, Mike (2000), Mega-urban Regions and World City Formation: Globalisation, the Economic Crisis and Urban Policy Issues in Pacific Asia, Urban Studies, 17:12, 2317-2337. Flyvbjerg, Bent, Nils Bruzelius & Werner Rothengatter (2003), Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition (Cambridge University Press). Friedmann, John (2002), The Prospect of Cities (University of Minnesota Press). Jones, Gavin W. and Mike Douglass (2005), The Transformations of Mega-Urban Regions in Pacific Asia Urban Dynamics in a Global Era (Singapore: draft manuscript). Knox, Paul and Peter Taylor, eds. (1995), World Cities in a World-System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Mamas, Si Gde Made and Rizky Komalasari (2004), The Growth of Jakarta Mega-Urban Region: Analysis of Demographic, Educational and Employment Changes, Conference On Growth Dynamic Of Mega Urban Regions in Asia, Singapore 24-25 June. Palupi, K., S. Sumengen, S. Inswiasri, L. Agustina, S.A. Nunik, W. Sunarya, A. Quraisyn (1995), River water quality study in the vicinity of Jakarta, Water Science and Technology, 31:9, 17-25. PDKI [Pemerintah Daerah Khusus Ibukota Government of DKI Jakarta] (1994), Neraca Kualitas Lingkungan Hidup (Jakarta). River water quality study in the vicinity of Jakarta World Bank (WB). (2003). Indonesia environment monitor 2003. http://www.worldbank.or.id

Figure 1. Globalization, Urbanization and Mega-projects

Figure 2. Population of 5 Mega-Urban Regions of Pacific Asia, 1864-2000

Source: Jones and Douglass (2005).

Figure 3 Expansion of Jakarta (Jabodetabek) 1980-1990

1980

1990

Figure 4. Environmental Impacts of Jakarta MUR Expansion

Source: Douglass (1991).

Figure 5. The Jakarta Out strategy

Source: Douglass (1991).

Figure 6. Proposed Environmental Management Zones for Jabotabek, 1984, and Population Distribution by Kecamaten, 2000

Figure 7. Private New Towns, 1985-1997

Source: Mamas and Komalasari (2005)

10

Figure 8. Malls and Shopping Centers in Jakarta 1990-2004

Source: Mamas and Komalasari (2005).

Figure 9. Expansion of Housing Estates (1990s)

Source: Mamas and Komalasari (2005).

11

Figure 10. Regional Strategy for Jabodetabek 2015

Source: Jabotabek Metropolitan Development Plan Review Study, 1995.

Figure 11 Summary: Impacts of the Meta-Project of Global Accumulation on Water Systems Impacts on the Water System Depletion of regional aquifers resulting in land subsidence and salt water intrusion into water supply Loss of ground cover and smaller waterways, resulting in more frequent and severe flooding and droughts Pollution of rivers from urban and industrial expansion Urban expansion into critical coastal and upland ecologies Diversion of public resources to urban mega-project support and away from water and environmental services.

12