Jakartans may like to think of their hometown as a prominent 21st century world-class city.

But several subdistricts in North Jakarta municipality still exist in a mid-19th century Gangs of New York-type era where thugs are the kings who provide bread and meat for residents.

"We don't get jobs from the local administration, but from the big gangsters that rule the areas where we live," said Isroil, a resident of Kamal Muara subdistrict, North Jakarta.

THUG LIFE: A teenage boy is seen in this file photo collecting drips of fuel from a tanker in Plumpang, North Jakarta. The boy is just one of many residents recruited by thugs who control market places and ports in the area. (JP/Anissa Febrina)

Isroil was speaking Tuesday in a discussion on citizens' views of heterogeneity and the challenges of living in North Jakarta.

He said most residents in his village were given jobs at the Muara Angke fish auction market -- ranging from fish sorters to stevedores -- by "the bosses" who had controlled the market for decades.

The Urban Poor Consortium and researcher AbdouMaliq Simone of Goldsmiths College, London, facilitated the discussion between residents in six subdistricts: Kamal Muara, Penjaringan, Pademangan Timur, Warakas, Kalibaru and Prumpung.

Their aim was to research the socioeconomic conditions of the area and to define the power distribution that determines the residents' lives.

There are always at least five "big bosses" ruling the subdistrict, another resident, Dela Apriani from Penjaringan subdistrict, said.

The "big five" include the bosses who each control the Samudra Port, Muara Baru fish auction market and several traditional markets in the area, as well as one boss from the Betawi Brotherhood Forum who runs the small kiosks near the ports and a fifth who controls the warehouses.

"During (Idul Fitri) holidays or the recent fuel price hikes, these people are the ones that provide us with incentives or cash," she said.

Dela, who has lived in the area since the 1970s, said the gangsters who controlled the ports and the fish market worked alongside local businesspeople, who wanted protection from them.

"Over time, these businessmen's trust grew and finally gave them authority in the ports," she said.

Dela said the authorities allowed the gangsters to provide jobs at the port to locals.

North Jakarta is home to hundreds of ports, warehouses and various industries, dominated by non-oil and gas manufacturing economic activities.

Simone, who has spent three months researching the subdistricts, called North Jakarta one of the most complex and heterogeneous urban regions in the world.

Imas, a resident of Kalibaru subdistrict, said when high pollution in the 1990s caused green oysters to vanish from Jakarta Bay, several thugs claimed the empty land along the streets to the ports and offered residents jobs building kiosks.

"We almost lost hope when those oysters went because we had lived by selling them for generations. They (the thugs) ran the small kiosks and made several women work as sex workers there.

"It wasn't nice, but at least they offered opportunities," she said.

Simone said the domination of gangs in the municipality was a result of a dysfunctional local government.

"But this kind of informal authority cannot work in the long run because it doesn't make people better off," he said.

Residents could not become prosperous as there was too much uncertainty in their lives under the illegal authorities, Simone said.

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