T

he population of Greater Jakarta Metropolitan Area, comprised of DKI Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi (Jabodetabek), reached 27.9 million according to the 2010 national census, with a growth rate of 3.6 percent per annum over the period 2000-2010.

That figure far exceeds the national annual population rate of 1.49 percent per year over the same period. Jabodetabek accounts for 11 percent of Indonesia’s population, up from 10 percent in the previous census in 2000.

The capital city of Jakarta (DKI Jakarta), as the core of Jabodetabek, is home to nearly 9.6 million people, according to the 2010 census, a sharp increase from 8.4 million in 2000, with a growth rate of 1.40 percent per year (see Table).

This figure is lower than the average population growth rate, but is still quite surprising, as DKI Jakarta’s population grew by only 0.16 percent over the period of 1990-2000. Even during this period, Central Jakarta and South Jakarta experienced population declines of 2.01 percent and 0.67 percent respectively.

Based on the 2010 census, all mayoralties and regencies within DKI Jakarta experienced a positive growth rate between 2000 and 2010. Central Jakarta registered the lowest rate of 0.27 percent, with Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand Islands) regency logging the highest at 2.02 percent per year.

The census found that DKI Jakarta’s population proportionally dropped to 34.1 percent from 40 percent in 2000, compared with that of its satellite cities, indicating that the Bodetabek region (Jabodetabek minus DKI Jakarta) is growing even faster.

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has not published the data of urban and rural populations, so the proportion of urban population in Jabodetabek can not be calculated yet.

According to the 2000 census, urban areas accounted for 88.5 percent of the region’s population. Assuming that the urban population in Jabodetabek grew at a conservative rate, the total urban population would now have reached at least 25 million people.

The population growth in Bodetabek, as the buffer area of the Jakarta metropolitan area, shows a very interesting phenomenon.

All municipalities and regencies in the region registered annual growth rates far exceeding the national and DKI Jakarta marks. South Tangerang municipality, separate from Tangerang regency, for example, had a population growth rate of 4.69 percent per annum.

The population of Tangerang regency itself sharply increased from 2.50 percent per year in the period from 1990-2000 to 3.82 percent in the period 2000-2010.

There are three components in annual urban population increase: The first is natural population increase, meaning the number of people born minus the number of those who died in the same year.

Second is the net migration, which is the number of incoming migrations minus outgoing migrations.

Third is reclassification, more popularly referred to as changes in rural localities to urban localities. The trend of 1990-2000 period indicated high rates of population growth in cities in Bodetabek attributed to net migration and reclassification. What is the importance of the population growth in Jabodetabek?

The population of DKI Jakarta, as the core of Jabodetabek, is now nearing 10 million, not including the number of commuters from surrounding areas, including Bodetabek, which is estimated to have reached 1.5 million.

Indeed, the population of DKI Jakarta only increased by 1.40 percent per year over the past decade, but this figure actually surged sharply from only 0.16 percent over the period 1990-2000.

This is quite astonishing, because the growth rate of DKI Jakarta’s population was expected to decline following the trends of population growth during 1990-2000.

Thus far, the data shows that Bodetabek experienced rapid development. The growth of Jabodetabek’s population during 1990-2000 is often referred to as a doughnut phenomenon, where the center is empty and thick at the edges. However, now the doughnut is getting bigger and solidifying.

Overall this indicates a spill-over of various socio-economic activities from DKI Jakarta to its peripheries that need huge tracts of land, including large-scale housing areas and industrial estates.

The writer is a professor at the Bandung Institute of Technology.