How long does it take for the average person to reach maturity and take control of his or her life? Talking biologically, it may takes at least 20 years, or until a secure job of their own is in the bag.

Life is still in the making when you are in your teens. This is the time when acne is despised, as well as the day a boy's voice breaks.

It's also a time when girls get their first period and feel anxious about their changing bodies, as they avoid mirrors at all costs.

And suddenly, life gets harder than it used to be. After a string of failed romances at schools and maybe several brawls with other students, these boys and girls find themselves looking for lives more suitable for themselves.

Securing a job gives them direction and the next step is to start a family and continue the circle of life.

It is a different story for cities. Things take much longer to grow. How long does it take for a city to reach its maturity and be able to offer a nice and comfortable life for its citizens?

For Jakarta, 481 years has seemingly not been long enough to get things going. The city still does not offer a decent standard of living for its citizens.

Almost five centuries old, Jakarta is hardly able to provide any sort of decent livelihood for people living on the riverbanks.

They generally no longer bathe in the river as many did hundreds of years ago; it has become unbearably murky. Still, these people practice good sanitation to improve their lives by the river.

The city remains a trading hub for people from all over the world. Trade here has brought the city the lights and colors of other cities around the world.

But these imported spectacles are not enough to make the city as attractive as it once was. Hundreds of years ago, the Chinese, Europeans and Arabs competed to live in the city. Nowadays, the city attracts few foreigners. People from other provinces come here only to try and make it in the big smoke. Less than five percent of the city's 8.5 million population are foreigners.

The main obstacle for the city is one of values. Citizens and their governments pay more attention to the bling bling of the city, like high-rises or whether or not the city has malls, rather than basic facilities to keep it functioning.

The city has yet to update its drainage system, which further deteriorates each time the city is flooded.

The busway, established on disagreements and poor planning, is the most sophisticated development we have seen in public transportation after the Dutch established the railway for the first time in 1871.

Other public transportation is just as unsatisfactory and crowded as it was in several decades ago.

Having too many immigrants, from inside or outside the country, is no excuse for the administration's inability to develop the city.

The city has been a city of immigrants since the day its founder, Fatahillah, a king from Demak, won the small harbor city back from Portugal and changed its name from Sunda Kelapa to Jayakarta on June 22, 1527.

Some think the 400-year-old city is still young. But what about Singapore, which began as a British trading post in 1819 or Bangkok, established as Thailand's capital in 1782?

While these two cities developed subway systems decades ago, we are only starting to construct one, while still attempting to develop a monorail for the city.

In the end, it is likely the people will change before the system or the city does.

They will probably change their holiday destinations from Bogor and Bandung to the more developed Singapore or Shanghai.

Even if these things change, hypocrisy and unfairness remains on all levels of society.

Think about how long the administration has treated squatters as non-existent beings in the city. Think about the people who still believe in the "trickle-down" effect, where prosperity is supposedly automatically distributed to all, as opposed to implementing proper systems in the city.

Think about how we have denied the Ahmadiyah sect and other religious groups from practicing their faiths.

Looking back to the Monas attack, I hardly think Jakartans, whether Betawi or not, are going to make a greater leap towards prosperity than we already have.

Members of Islamic Defendant Front (FPI) and the Alliance for Freedom of Faith and Religion are not willing to make room for their differences.

The FPI and the alliance have made a statement through their actions that their differences will be settled physically, as both sides fight with their eyes shut.

The state also keeps its eyes shut, meaning we need to live with unfinished business while pretending that we have moved on.

Once again, all of us pretend we have no problems at all, rather than trying to solve them.

--Adisti Sukma Sawitri

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