If realized, it would be the second in this country’s history that the capital has been moved away from Jakarta, but unlike the first time in 1949, this time the reason would be more pragmatic than symbolical.

Urban experts have been voicing their concerns about the unsustainability of Jakarta’s urban development. Problems such as overcrowding, dysfunctional and overburdened physical infrastructures and uneven regional developments are among the classic subjects of discussion. With all those less than flattering qualities, Jakarta is no longer able to play the central administrative role of this country.

Another goal of the move would be to stimulate more balanced regional urban development in Indonesia.

There is a discourse about relocating the capital to Kalimantan, or Borneo. Strictly speaking, this would be moving the capital from the densest to the least-populated island in this country country.

Problems would range from infrastructure insufficiencies to threats to Indonesia’s and one of the world’s largest and richest areas of rainforest.

There are many aspects yet to be examined to investigate the feasibility of the plan, such as the impacts of the move on the Jakarta region and Java Island, and as well as on Borneo.

There are a lot of articles written concerning this issue. However it seems that they do not touch on the real problem. Many of them discuss the possible impact of the plan on Jakarta’s infrastructure problems — suggesting that it would help ease its infrastructural burdens.

What would happen to Jakarta once the capital is relocated? As the main business and trading center, and the biggest port in this country, the city would most likely maintain its economic importance.

Although businesses and corporations would probably move their headquarters to the new capital — on the assumption that the new capital could offer state-of-the-art infrastructure — in order to keep close to the center of administration and decision makers, it is less likely they would abandon Jakarta all at once.

The reason for this is that Jakarta’s infrastructure and connectivity is arguably the best in the country, and would remain so in the coming future. The city also still hosts the most importance shipping routes; this is another reason why it is difficult to dismiss the city’s economic importance.

Its cultural significance is also less likely to fade. With the long social and cultural history attached to Jakarta, and a long list of cultural institutions, its cultural supremacy is less likely to be contested by others. With all these qualities, Jakarta will maintain its political importance.

Furthermore, being stripped off its role as an administrative center, the most logical strategy is to maintain Jakarta’s competitiveness by promoting its role as the business and cultural capital — the roles it has been playing at its best in the last few decades.

With all these important functions and roles to sustain, the intensity of activities and mobility and thus infrastructural burdens would not decrease in Jakarta.

An increasing flow of people to the new capital would be unavoidable, but the chances are it would not be so drastic as to match the colossal effort required to move the capital to Kalimantan.

We could expect to see the relocation of more than 75,000 public servants from the diverse range of institutions and ministries, plus 125,000 of their family members.

Taking this amount of people out of this city would not ease its infrastructural burden, as this is insignificant compared to Jakarta’s overall population. The impact, therefore, would be somewhat negligible.

However this would be a drastic change for Kalimantan. The change Jakarta sees would be no where near as significant as the changes seen in Kalimantan. With 11 million people and a landmass five-times larger than Java (Java is home to nearly 130 million people, more than a half of Indonesia’s population), Kalimantan is relatively sparsely populated. Could the island host a capital city that could grow into a metropolis?

The building of a new capital would lead to massive urban and infrastructural developments involving not only substantial land clearance but also environmental changes.

Moving the capital to Kalimantan would mean moving the administration activities further away from more than half of Indonesia’s population.

Kalimantan is a two-to-four-hour flight away from Java, and sea transportation is less than efficient.

Imagine, therefore, the amount of travel required to get things done in a new capital? This would cost extra time, money and fuel. It certainly would not make the administrative process smoother, as hoped.

So would it be worth the whole circus?

Many would argue that the proposed capital relocation would boost the development of the region by encouraging people to move to Kalimantan, thus redistributing the population and wealth. But this could also be achieved through different strategies, such as by developing the region as a new centre for science and education. Such an agenda should be separate from the capital relocation plan, as it would serve these different goals more effectively.

The way forward now is to conduct a more careful investigation into the possible implications of this plan. While it is unavoidable to separate the implementation from political agendas, politicians should avoid making big statements without rational grounds.

The writer works for Megacities Foundation and is a partner at Urban4.

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