J

akarta holds a special position not only as the country’s capital city, but also as the center of literally everything in the country. The port city has over time become the center of administration, business, technology, entertainment and public facilities.

However, the facilities and economic gains Jakarta offers have come at the price of chronic urban problems such as traffic congestion, housing backlogs, pollution and floods, all on the back of the city’s patchwork development.

Critics say the overcrowded city is no longer the ideal place for the capital, amid a concurrent push to expand economic equality across the archipelago. Many of the country’s leaders had also expressed an interest in moving the capital city to another part of the country, considering both Jakarta’s urban problems and the success of other countries relocating their capital cities.

The idea of moving the capital city gained momentum following an announcement by the National Development Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro. Bambang said his ministry aimed to complete a study into possible new capital cities by the end of this year. Once the study is completed, the government is expected to begin the relocation process early next year starting with central government activities.

Bambang assured that the new center of government would not be located on the densely populated island of Java. “It will be located outside Java, most likely in Kalimantan,” he said on Monday. He did not, however, provide any further details.

Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan has been mentioned several times as the strongest candidate as the new capital city of Indonesia. Historically, in his master plan the country’s first president Soekarno designated Palangkaraya as the capital of the country, declaring the idea during the inauguration of the city as the capital of Central Kalimantan in 1957.

He repeated the idea again in 1965 during a seminar in Bandung. The discourse of moving the capital then disappeared until the leadership of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono whose administration considered relocating the central government to another city following worsening traffic gridlock in Jakarta. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo reopened the plan of relocating the administration in 2015, instructing the National Development Planning Agency to conduct research on the relocation.

The reason for considering Palangkaraya, according to urban analyst Yayat Supriatna, is because of its geographic location in the middle of Indonesia. Some reports also suggest that Palangkaraya is relatively safe from natural disasters like earthquakes as it has no volcanoes and is far from the open seas.

Bambang said the relocation of the central government would likely start in 2018 or 2019, and that within three to four years the construction of all basic infrastructure needed for the new capital, such as presidential and ministry offices, would be complete.

He said previously that the main reason for moving the central government’s activities was because Jakarta, as both the business and administrative center of the country, bore too heavy a burden.

“Jakarta has become the center of everything, from the economy to industry, business and government, resulting in heavy traffic congestion,” he said, “There should be an initiative to prevent the concentration of citizens in the city.”

Urban expert from Trisakti University Nirwono Joga said the relocation of the central administration to another city would not yield any significant impacts for Jakarta as two of the city’s classic problems — traffic congestion and inundation — would remain if not addressed properly.

“Jakarta still needs to take care of these two chronic problems regardless of the relocation,” Nirwono said.