Jakarta has been popping up on a lot of lists recently, but certainly not ones we can be proud of. The Indonesian capital came in dead last in both The Economist Intelligence Unit’s “Safe Cities Index 2015” and the “Castrol Magnatec Stop-Start Index” (which basically said we had the worst traffic in the world.”)
Now, on top of “most dangerous” and “worst traffic,” we can add “worst-designed” to the list of dishonorifics used to describe Jakarta.
Yesterday, popular website Thrillist.com published an article titled, “The 9 Worst-Designed Cities in the World.” Although the list is not explicitly ranked, Jakarta appears in the #1 slot.
In describing why Jakarta is so deserving of a spot on the list, Thrillist’s Ginanni Jaccoma writes, “Jakarta’s dismal transportation infrastructure is compounded by its ever-increasing number of car owners, as more and more are forced to commute to and from the suburban sprawl surrounding this megacity. The result? Jakarta’s citizens spend 400 hours a year in traffic…”
If anything, the article is kind not to also mention Jakarta’s horrible annual floods, which are another result of terrible urban planning and short-sightedness.
It is that short-sightedness that Jaccoma primarily pins Jakarta’s problems on. He writes, “Where does the responsibility lie? Well, since the duty of maintaining and developing Jakarta’s infrastructure falls on the local government, and development contracts are often renegotiated annually, long-term projects are pretty much an impossibility.”
With other such lists we’ve argued about specific points, but we pretty much have to completely agree with Thrillist on this assessment. Actually, the website’s brief write-up doesn’t even touch on the corruption, bureaucracy and greed that also makes long-term projects nearly impossible to implement here.
The only bright side to being on this particular list is that we’re in good bad company – among the other worst-designed cities are Atlanta and Boston (even the USA can screw up city planning) and Dubai. Rounding out the list are Dhaka, São Paulo, Naypyidaw, Brasilia and Missoula.
The currently under construction MRT offers at least a glimmer of hope for ending some of Jakarta’s traffic woes, but with the impact of that at least a decade off, do you think there are any more immediate solutions to Jakarta’s urban planning insanity?
