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Living in Jakarta will likely drive you crazy, say experts
If you are easily upset or are considered passive in dealing with other people, then you might want to skip town, as experts denounce the city's stress levels as being "too high"
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f you are easily upset or are considered passive in dealing with other people, then you might want to skip town, as experts denounce the city's stress levels as being "too high".
Dr. Ratna Mardiati, director of the Soeharto Heerdjan Mental Institution in Grogol, West Jakarta, says Jakarta's poor planning has inflicted a "high level" of stress on residents, contributing to the number of patients with mental disorders in the city.
"At this hospital, we get 80 to 100 people coming in to check their stress levels every day," Ratna said Thursday at a discussion on Jakarta's urban planning and its psychological impact.
"One to 3 percent of them show symptoms of severe mental illness."
She added at least one out of every four of the capital's 9 million inhabitants is stressed out, while 14 percent have experienced mental disorders following untreated stress as of last year.
There were 1.4 million people treated for stress in community medical centers across the city in 2007, she went on, and this was expected to continue increasing every year.
Ratna blamed the high stress levels on the city's notoriously worsening traffic and annual floods, which in turn encouraged people to be aggressive and highly resilient.
She added such traits may be necessary in this environment, but pointed out the lack of rest could lead to decreases in productivity and life expectancy.
"There's no accurate data available on the suicide rate in Jakarta, but the number of bridges and tall buildings in the city does contribute to more people thinking about it," she said.
Furthermore, she went on, the city's lack of space contributed directly to mental disorders, because personal space was required in a social environment.
"I've seen cases where parents can't hide their sexual activities from their children, simply because they have nowhere else to do it but behind the curtains, for instance," she said.
"And then the child sees it, and not knowing what to do, starts experimenting at a young age."
She said many aggressive Jakarta residents were suppressing their emotions, which tended to lead to other physiological and mental illnesses in the future.
Firdaus Cahyadi, from the Knowledge Sharing Office for Sustainable Development from One World Indonesia, an NGO that focuses on the country's social issues, agreed.
He said Jakarta faced multiple crises that continued to threaten the people's livelihoods, forcing many to work harder to secure a stable future or move to the city's fringes, where commuting became a struggle all its own.
The crises, he went on, included increasingly high chance of floods, high levels of urbanization and traffic, and lack of clean air.
Water runoff reached 70 percent in 2007, up from 53 percent in 1990, thereby increasing the chance of flooding. Urbanization, meanwhile, sees an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 people flood into the capital every year, contributing to rising competition.
Economic losses from managing the city's pollution by nitrogen oxide and sulfuric oxide has been estimated at Rp 132.7 billion (US$13.8 million) and Rp 4.3 trillion, while the loss of productivity from high traffic cost an estimated Rp 5.5 trillion in 2005.
"With numbers like these, it's easy to see how the city's residents get so easily stressed out," Firdaus said.
