Zeitbombe Jabotabek? Metro-Jakarta im Spannungsfeld von internationaler Investition, ökologischem Desaster und politischer LabilisierungGünter Spreitzhofer und and Martin Heintel

ASIEN – Nr. 78 (2001) pp. 50–69

Indonesia’s current social and political tensions culminate in Metro-Jakarta (Jabotabek), South-East Asia’s biggest urban agglomeration of 20 million inhabitants, which is located in western Java. Since the beginning of Suharto’s ‚New Order‘ policy (1967), the capital has been pushed as a centre of international (mainly East Asian) investment. A number of deregulation programmes increased the attraction of the (sub)urban area of Jabotabek for polluting, labour-intensive and high-wage production (for Indonesian standards), which became responsible for the tripling of Jakarta’s population due to enormous migration within the last three decades. However, the lack of adequate infrastructural improvement increased both ecological problems (transport, air pollution, water availability, waste disposal) and socio-economic disparities, which resulted in growing political unrest and a standstill of Jabotabek’s economic growth by 1998. Jakarta’s desired status of a ‚global city‘ seems to be unrealistic considering the agglomeration’s growing gap between rich and poor and its persistent lack of adequate infrastructural management.