In Jakarta, one might encounter a fenced and barb-wired pedestrian path. People from outside the city would be confounded but Jakartans would know that the fencing was there to either keep pedestrians on the path or keep motorcyclists and sidewalk vendors out.
Urban expert Muhammad Danisworo said fenced pedestrian walks was one example of how Indonesia's cities were only pseudo-urbanized.
"It's fake because city people are yet to be urbanized," he said.
Investments and concentration of capital have changed the city's physical appearance but have yet to result in behavioral change for most residents, Danisworo said in a seminar on urban planning held by the Public Works Ministry.
"City development should not only be seen from a physical perspective, but also from social and cultural aspects," he said.
"In developing countries, mental urbanization is more important than physical urbanization. The city should be the catalyst."
Danisworo said while other cities transform from agrarian to industrial, continuing from service society to information society and lastly to a recreational society in a span of more than a century, Jakarta was going through all those transformations at once.
This resulted in a city full of contrasts, marked by a sharp dualism in social and economical aspects as well as cultural and physical, he said.
"When you look at Jakarta and its tall buildings, it looks like any other world city. But if you look down, you will see the real Jakarta with its sidewalk vendors, who are often pushed aside."
Danisworo said urban planning in Indonesia needs to provide public spaces that bridge the formal and informal sectors in the city to push for a healthy transformation.
He said kampung rehabilitation, public-private partnerships in public spaces, urban design intervention that provided space for the informal sector, and public education would facilitate necessary transformations.
Almost 50 percent of Indonesians now live in cities.
The Public Works ministry held the seminar to commemorate World Habitat Day, which fell on Oct. 5.
Public Works minister Djoko Kirmanto said many rural Indonesians have made the cities their homes.
"Challenges for Indonesian cities are complex, starting from the inevitable problem of urbanization, basic needs for city residents, slum residences, transportation and city infrastructure and poverty, up to social and cultural problems as well as environmental degradation."
Former president B.J. Habibie, Research and Technology minister Kusmayanto Kadiman, Al Azhar University Indonesia rector Zuhal A Kadir, and former finance minister Dorojatun Kuntjoro-jakti were also present at the seminar.
Al Azhar University rector Zuhal said that if Indonesian cities wanted to compete with other cities by 2025, the cities needed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent, add pedestrian facilities, add public transportation facilities, recycle waste water and increase the use of renewable energy.
Habibie said legislation for city spatial planning was not enough to create a humane city.
"Without implementation, it would not change a thing," he said.
"Humans created problems and humans should able to solve them."
- JP/Prodita Sabarini
