It stands in stark contrast to its bordering neighborhood Villa Permata Gading, a gated affluent housing complex, which boasts an array of pillared, multibillion-rupiah homes.

The two neighborhoods represent two very different worlds separated by a two-kilometer brick wall; the west part is a poor, dilapidated strip, while the east features grand Mediterranean-style mansions.

Tanah Merah is a kampung, one of the few poor housing areas that has survived a gentrification project that has largely pushed out lower-income residents from Kelapa Gading, an area that once was a marshland that the Dutch colonial government designated as a no-build area because it is so low lying. It is now a bustling district home to upscale apartment blocks and housing and businesses estates.

"I would fight tooth and nail if a real-estate developer wanted to take over my land and home," a Tanah Merah resident told The Jakarta Post recently.

Urban renewal and gentrification projects have converted several poor residential areas, or kampungs, into middle- to upper-class housing estates or office complexes.

However, most have failed to involve marginalized groups, instead evicting them completely, leaving a deep social divide and latent ethnic division, experts say.

Kelapa Gading is just one example of widespread unscrupulous gentrification and urban expansion projects that the city administration has approved for real estate developers that exploit the urban poor just for the sake of profiteering, according to University of Indonesia's urban and social space expert Johannes Frederik Warouw.

Besides Kelapa Gading, such projects have also transformed Pantai Indah Kapuk and Pluit, both in North Jakarta, and from Daan Mogot to Cengkareng in West Jakarta, and some areas in Central Jakarta.

This urban development pattern demonstrates how the city administration and property developers have completely ignored the rights of the city's poor.

"Jakarta's spatial landscape has developed into a capitalistic engine that produces multi-nucleus and exclusive communities," Johannes said.

Such communities have failed to sufficiently include the displaced poor in economic and social activities in those areas, he said.

"Central business districts, which have replaced kampungs, in reality rarely involve the displaced kampung residents in the socioeconomic processes," Johannes added.

Trisakti university urban and spatial planning expert Yayat Supriyatna said the pathology of gentrification and urban renewal was that they created ethnic divisions that sowed the seeds of conflicts.

Poor city planning contributed to the targeting of ethnic Chinese in the May 1998 bloody riots, he added.

"The wave of unplanned gentrification in Jakarta has enabled the proliferation of privatized cities within a city itself, which is actually a public domain," Yayat said, adding that most developers privatized and sold such cities, using the premise of prestige and pride to entice potential rich buyers.

"As a consequence, social ignorance between the poor and the rich in Jakarta is increasing," he continued.

Urban analyst Marco Kusumawijaya said the Kemang area in South Jakarta was less ethnically divided due to its urban pattern that avoided the formation of gated communities.

"But Kemang's problem lies in its function as a transit site. The increasing number of cars owned by Kemang residents, along with cars en route to areas surrounding it, is exacerbating the traffic gridlock," he said.

Bianpoen, a senior expert on urban management, in a recent interview with the Post said architectural and spatial planning in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta, was too focused on technical and artistic aspects.

"The social and environmental dimensions were only touched in passing," he had said. (tsy)

Popular

Prabowo inaugurates construction of Majapahit palace replica

Indonesia sees hottest April in 40 years

Is Indonesia really ready to embrace dual citizenship?