Reflective Journal

I would have written this in Indonesian so you guys can really get the pictures about what I’m going to share you. But I have to submit this writing also as my essay project for my class. So, let’s just use our linguistic quotient for the next two minutes, shall we? First of all, I never really expected that this euphoria of seeing and finding lots of new things in the city will last until now. Well, it is only just three weeks though. But I thought it would probably just the same with Jakarta, where you can easily know the city –apart of its cultural and demographical diversity- in like a week. And only takes you like 5 hours when you’re in town to get the ‘traffic jam’s everywhere’ idea that best describe Jakarta city. Let’s just hope this euphoria will last untill the end of the academic year.

Anyway, I always amaze with the urban development happens here in Hong Kong. Although it’s not even a month I’ve been here, but I can tell you this. From the very first day I arrived here, towers –more specifically residential towers- have been one of the most intriguing city part for me. It is not just the physical form which built the city image, but off course the history behind it, the numbers, the people, the culture, the process, the impacts and so on and so forth. This towers is just one of the physical evidence of the vast urban development here. If you want to take a look back abit to the late of 1800s, this vast urban development marked when the first reclamation began. Huge reclamation project has started since then. Though many protests from the people is now rising, the reclamation process is still on going now on the Central District. The issue on environment has been one of the major consideration that the reclamation process need to be re-examined. People here seems to realize and start questioning and claiming their right on determining the development of the city they live in.

Another interesting finding is the planning system here in Hong Kong. I can’t tell you much about the planning process and system we had in Indonesia. I hardly practiced in this field. But as far as I know, the hierachical plans we had is not really different with the Hong Kong’s. There are three majors hierarcy of spatial planning in Indonesia according to the Spatial Planning Law 24/1992 passed by the Indonesia parliament, the National Spatial Planning Guideline (as we call it National RTRW), Provincial Spatial Planning Guideline and the District Spatial Planning Guideline (which includes the Kabupaten and Kotamadya RTRW). There’s been an amandments though in 2007 on this law which resulted in the Spatial Planning Law 27/2007, but I’m not really sure if this hierarchy is change too. Some changes stipulated the authority of provincial and district government in Spatial Planning, the concept of Metropolitan and Megapolitan Area is also introduced in the new law, the minimum standards services etc. Whilst in Hong Kong, the hierarchy is derived into (also) three major levels with specific concerns,

1. The Territorial/Strategic level which deal with the Territorial Development Strategy (TDS),
Hong Kong 2030 is the vision develop within the TDS.
2. The Sub-Regional Level which deal with the Sub-Regional development, divided into 5 subregion, metropolitan area and the 4 new territories development.
3. The District/Local Level which providing the Outline Zoning Plan (OZP), the Develeopment
Permission Area Plan (DPA), the Outline Development Plan (ODP) and the Layout Plan (LP).

Well, it will take you guys for another three hours or even more to really understand the planning system here in Hong Kong. But my point is, having compare this two hierarchical plan, I can say that the quality of our physical environment is not only depend on the planning system. We do have OZP as we know it Rencana Tata Ruang Kawasan (RTRK), ODP and LP which included in the Rencana Detil Tata Ruang Kawasan (RDTRK), and we do have Town Planning Board as we know it Dinas Tata Kota (DTK). So, is it just my feeling that we are walking on the treadmill? The effects of the development hardly felt, at least for me. No pointing finger. I myself, probably know better the structure of the planning department organization here –since I had the class- rather than in Indonesia. It leaves me with no right then for such judgement.

Ok, let’s go back a litle while to the towers thing. The number of the built area in Hong Kong is nomore than 25% of its total area of 1,100 sqkm. The number of the people settlement of only 3.6% from the total area of HKSAR is really a shocking number. That is the towers and this also explains the number of density of 6,400 people/sqkm. This is something that I’m sure we don’t see it inIndonesia, even in the most dense city of Bogor. The conditions are totally different for sure. We hardly find any problems with the availability and the expediency of the land to settle. The so called new town development in Jakarta and its periphery area always characterized with single landed detached housing –instead of towers- which incrementally sprawled satelliting the capital city of province. It is worth mentioning the new town developments here in Hong Kong. There are three generations of the new town developments . And total of nine new tows which the first, Tsuen Wan was started in 1959. The second generation began in 1970s/1980s which include new town of Yuen Long, Tai Po, Fanling and Sheung Shui. And the third began in 1980s/1990s, Thin Sui Wai and Tsueng Kwan O. What I mentioned earlier about the sprawling new town in Jakarta, didn’t mean it in a bad way. But as Cybrowsky and Ford said, the fact that this new town hardly implement the initial concept of new town as a self contained communities only makes it as a ‘bedroom suburbs for citybroad commuters (Cybrowsky and Ford, 2001). The new towns don’t provide enough jobs for the people there. They have to travel way back, roundtrip everyday to the city center. Causes alot of polution, time-loss, degradation of the quality of live. A better transportation infrastructure and healthy economy condition are some of ideas as a starting point towards a better living environment in the new towns.

Last thing but not least, I don’t want this writing to sounds too pesimistic with the current condition happenning in Jakarta, without offering solutions. Well, it simply because I hardly can, since solutions in planning provide no space for the subjectivity of one. But I do believe we still have long way to go and you can bet I’ll be on it.

Anyway, there are lots of reference that you can get online for further study. You can find some on the refence section below.

REFERENCE :
Roman Cybriwsky, Larry R. Ford, City profile: Jakarta, CitiesVolume 18, Issue 3, , June 2001, Pages 199-210.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V9W-433NPW2-82 e03e9ea851ac0415962688cf1a71f5ed)
Tommy Firman, New town development in Jakarta Metropolitan Region: a perspective of spatial segregation, Habitat InternationalVolume 28, Issue 3, , September 2004, Pages 349-368.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V9H-48NJ0JD-3/2/2ed8c5d119d2995d834be4534e395f2f)
http://indonesiaurbanstudies.blogspot.com/2008/09/historical-overview-of-spatial-planning.html