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fficials will adjust city transportation, housing and demographic policies after the latest census said that Jakarta’s population was 9.58 million — surpassing the 15-year forecast.

“All officials must comply with the census results. It’s clear that the result will demand greater attention to family planning,” Governor Fauzi Bowo said, adding that the city would improve rail transportation, housing and family planning programs.

The census figure exceeded a prediction of 8.9 million people for 2010, and even surpassed a predicted population of 9.2 million in 2025.

The administration would review the population forecast under the draft 2030 spatial planning bylaw, Jakarta Development Planning Agency chief Sarwo Handayani said.

Jakarta’s population is projected to reach 10 million by 2030, but could reach 12.5 million if the North Jakarta reclamation projects are accounted for, Sarwo said.

Fauzi said one worrying implication from the census is the growing number of commuters regularly entering and leaving the city.

Currently, Jakarta’s 662-square-kilometer land area has 14,476 people per square kilometer.

The increase in commuters has been partially spurred by pros-perous Jakartans who have moved to the city’s outskirts in pursuit of cleaner and more affordable properties, which will exacerbate congestion because these people still work with the city, Fauzi said.

Meanwhile, social and economic burdens in Jakarta would remain unchanged, or even deteriorate, because of the flow of migrants from other provinces bring less qualified and less educated people into a job market already plagued by unemployment, Fauzi said.

“This is a trend we should anticipate. We have to prepare facilities to accommodate these realities,” Fauzi said.

He added that the administra-tion would continue to encourage the use of public transportation, including the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system and its feeder networks.

The city’s first subway system, which will connect Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta and the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta, is expected to start operating in 2016.

The city will have to upgrade the quality of existing housing complexes and make low-cost rental apartments an alternative for workers in the city, Fauzi said.

The administration is concentrated on spatial planning efforts that locate housing near mass transit terminals and feeder railway networks, he added.

Thirty years ago, he worked with a research team from Germany who suggested railway develop-ment was a key component of Jakarta’s spatial planning process, Fauzi said.

“The central government rejected the idea for various reasons.

“At that time, they gave more support to development of roads,” he said.

This will become a never-ending issue across Java unless the central government has a special strategy to promote economic growth outside Java, Fauzi said.