Urban Water Politics in Jakarta
AS I’m not so sure. I mean, the impact of flooding, of water, has created a kind of corridor of dead neighborhoods, neighborhoods that are basically…over. And if you look at where there have been attempts to invest, to renovate, to try new things, to develop new uses for existing facets of the built environment and infrastructure, they tend to take place in areas that are relatively removed from flooding. But if you look at areas in which flooding does occur, and you walk block by block, you can see that there has been almost nothing done for many years, which is very unusual when you look at the overall picture in Jakarta. So these have become almost like dead spaces, and their future disposition is unclear.
AS Ketika Anda melakukan apapun di Jakarta, kemungkinan besar Anda melanggar hukum. Biasanya tidak masalah, tapi selalu ada seseorang di sekitar Anda yang membuat pelanggaran itu terlihat jelas, dan itu akan membuat Anda membayar sesuatu. Dalam pengertian tertentu, Anda tinggal di suatu kondisi ilegal yang permanen dan jika Anda melakukan sesuatu, Anda harus membayar supaya tidak dituntut. Jadi, dalam pengertian tertentu, berarti sistem penuntutan akan sibuk selama berabad-abad di masa datang jika kita menuntut semua aktivitas ilegal, yang termasuk hampir semua aktivitas. Jadi, pertanyaan apa yang korup dan tidak korup tergantung dari visibilitas, skala, dan kolusi.
AB Dead spaces in what sense? AS In the sense of the trajectory of a general decline. When you go through much of Jakarta, there is always something going on, some kind of modest construction taking place. There is always someone trying out a new business, or there are always ways in which people are trying to reconcile commercial and residential usage within the same space, providing residents with a kind of dynamism, and also using it as a way to develop new commerce. And this is how you get this sense of rebuilding, remaking, a kind of sustainability. In these areas, these dead spaces, you don’t find any of that—no initiatives, no attempt to remake or improve upon. You just hold on to what you have for as long as you can, and you cope with the flooding that occurs, which is terrible to deal with, but you can’t sell your property for very much because no one
Bagaimana hal itu terlihat di lingkungan yang terbangun kadang-kadang sangat jelas. Ada 104 mal di Jakarta, dan paling tidak 40 dari mal-mal tersebut dibangun dan dibayar dengan uang tunai. Universitas Tarumanagara melaksanakan kegiatan penelitian mengenai mal dan metode penelitiannya mencakup berpartisipasi di dalam konstruksi beberapa dari mal baru. Jadi, kami tahu uang tunai digunakan dan mereka mengambilnya. Cara lain untuk melihatnya adalah bangunan-bangunan yang dibangun dan dijual delapan bulan setelahnya dengan harga 60% dari ongkos produksi—gedung-gedung ini dibangun bukan sebagai investasi yang baik tapi sebagai cara untuk “mencuci” uang. Untuk ini, seseorang yang perlu dikenal adalah Tommy Winata. Dia akan membangun menara kelima terbesar di Jakarta. Anda tahu Freemasons? Ada 91