Indonesia has decided to move its capital from the overcrowded Jakarta to some place else, and President Joko Widodo wants its citizens to suggest a new location for it.
On his Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, the President sought suggestions from the public about the new capital, garnering thousands of responses from netizens in its first hour of the post.
The President wrote in Bahasa Indonesia on his Twitter account, to his 11.3 million followers.
"In your opinion, where should the capital of Indonesia be located?"
Several social media users pitched Central and East Kalimantan as the best location for the new capital, while some others suggest the government to build a more modern and eco-friendly capital using examples from the Netherlands, Japan and New Zealand.
The move started a day earlier on April 29th, when Jokowi ordered his cabinet to start working on relocating the capital outside of the Java island.
DKI Jakarta kini memikul dua beban sekaligus: sebagai pusat pemerintahan dan layanan publik, juga pusat bisnis. Banyak negara memindahkan ibu kotanya, sementara kita hanya menjadikannya gagasan di setiap era Presiden.
Menurut Anda, di mana sebaiknya ibu kota negara Indonesia? pic.twitter.com/sl7NljisE5— Joko Widodo (@jokowi) April 30, 2019
Indonesia is an archipelago country in the Southeast Asia. Having more than 17,000 islands across the nation, Indonesia is considered the fourth most populated country in the world.
And Jakarta, its capital city, is located in the Java island, and houses more than 60 percent of the country’s 264 million population, essentially making it the world's most populous island. As a result, Jakarta and its outskirts are plagued with severe congestion and traffic.
As the city is the center of government and public services, as well as a business center, Jakarta is already overcrowded with more than 18,000 people living per square kilometer (2014 census).
According to the National Development Planning Agency, or Bappenas, traffic congestion in the Greater Jakarta wasted about $7.4 billion each year due to congestion. As of 2018, there were more than 13 million motorcycles and 4.4 million cars running the roads of Jakarta, with more than 3 million commuters that commute from the outskirts.
While moving Indonesia’s administrative center has been discussed periodically for decades, this time, the sense of urgency came as Jakarta approaches total gridlock.
Jokowi in attempting to move the capital city can also save Jakarta, since the city is also considered one of the fastest sinking cities in the world.
In the capital, particularly its northern belt, four million people live in neighborhoods that are about four meters below sea level. Areas of north Jakarta, including the seawall designed to protect them, are sinking at an estimated 25cm a year.
Jakarta is sinking because of subsidence. The city does not pipe in enough drinkable water to its citizens, forcing many Jakarta residents to rely on wells which extract water from shallow aquifers. The result is inevitable: the land above it collapses.
This is made worse by the rapid explosion of new apartment blocks, shopping malls and even government offices, which despite official restrictions on groundwater extraction, not only draw water from the city's porous ground but also add to the weight compacting it.
The city is also known for its frequent flood, especially during rainy seasons that swollen rivers and bursting their banks. With concretization of Jakarta, the water has no where to go.
Jokowi in seeking to ensure economic development in the country's other islands, wants to move the city to create better condition with more potentials.
Building a new capital may taken between five to 10 years and cost as much as $33 billion, according to Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro.
Some people were quite skeptical about the announcement, given the numerous times the government has talked about moving the capital in the past and then, and not doing it. As a matter of fact, the idea can be traced back to the country’s founding father, President Soekarno, who first suggested that the central government’s base of operations should be moved to Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan.
That was in 1957.
Sixty years later in 2017, Minister Bambang said that Jokowi’s administration was serious about starting to move the capital to Palangkaraya as soon as early 2018. And that didn't happen.
In the post, Jokowi makes his case for moving the capital, acknowledging that it has often been discussed in the past, but arguing that now is the time to act.
"Many countries have thought and anticipated the direction of their country’s development in the future by moving the capital city of the country. For example Malaysia, South Korea, Brazil, Kazakhstan, and others," he said.
"Yesterday at the President’s Office, I held a meeting about moving the capital city of the country. We discussed not only the short-term benefits but especially the needs and interests of the state on its journey to becoming a developed country. The transfer of the capital is a process that will take time and be costly. In addition, there is the matter of selecting the right location, consideration of the geopolitical and geostrategic aspects, and readiness of supporting infrastructure."
"In your opinion, where should Indonesia’s capital city be located and what should be the considerations?"