Like dozens of others at the streetside ceramics market in north Jakarta, Neslon had been selling dishes out of a small kiosk in the shadow of a highway for more than 30 years.Then, early one recent morning, the police moved in with wrecking equipment and within hours reduced the market to a pile of collapsed shops and shattered plates. And then they set it on fire."We didn't get to talk to anyone about this, to find a solution or a place for us to go," Neslon said, surveying the site the next day, looking for anything he could salvage from the smoldering ruins. "Now I have no idea what I will do."Similar scenes have played out all over Jakarta in recent months as the city's new governor, Fauzi Bowo, has moved ahead with a plan to increase the amount of open green space in Jakarta - a change many residents have been demanding for years. The plan would expand green space from 9.6 percent of the city to 13.9 percent by 2010.The markets are considered an eye-sore by those who don't depend on them. They are often a chaotic jumble of dilapidated shacks, with orange or blue plastic sheeting as roofs.
Mud and trash clog the narrow footpaths that wind around the stores, and traffic piles up on the road as shoppers stop to look. From early morning to late evening, the shouts of competing vendors, many of whom live in their shops, can be heard."I feel sorry for the traders," said Madi Ahmadi, who manages an upscale restaurant across from a recently demolished market in south Jakarta. "But having a park here will be great. It will be much nicer, and it will be good for the restaurant."There is little doubt that Jakarta, a crumbling city of 14 million notorious for its frenzied traffic and choking pollution, could use more parks. For wealthier residents, the demolitions are evidence that the government is finally making progress toward beautifying the capital.But so far, it has been the city's poor, those who have lived and worked for many years, usually illegally, on any unoccupied land they could find, who have borne the sacrifice.In the name of beautification, several communities of squatters have been evicted from beneath highways and along riverbanks and railways in recent months.
A law passed last year by the Jakarta city government not only bans beggars and street performers but prohibits people from giving money to them.Another law that took effect in February imposes hefty fines and jail sentences on the homeless scavengers who sift through trash.The government argues that the laws will help bring order to an otherwise anarchic city.Jakarta, already one of the world's most densely populated cities, continues to grow every year as Indonesians from the countryside come seeking a better life. Many end up living in illegal settlements on public land that the government and police had, until now, tolerated for decades.Jakarta's poor, who live side by side with the very rich, outnumber them by 7 to 1, according to the Legal Aid Foundation in Jakarta.As the market demolitions continue - more than a dozen more are planned for the coming months - large-scale construction throughout the city flourishes. Huge shopping malls, many anchored by upscale department stores, are being built at a seemingly breakneck speed.Jakarta now boasts about 60 medium-sized to large malls. One of the newest and most luxurious just opened at Jakarta's central traffic circle across from another large mall. Directly behind that mall is yet another one."Who is shopping at all these malls?" asked Wardah Hafid, coordinator for Urban Poor Consortium, an Indonesian anti-poverty group. "Out of the total population here, only about 500,000 people can afford to shop in them."The street markets, by contrast, are often essential for the very poor, who rely on them for food, clothing, sometimes shelter, hardware and just about everything else, including jobs.Demolishing the smaller markets is a relatively easy way to clear ground for new development, because their tenants often lack titles to the land they occupy.Hotman Hutagalung, 40, who worked at the now-demolished ceramics market for 15 years, said that although he never had a land title, he had been paying government agents monthly business fees for long as he can remember.
"You know the government, they never give notice about anything," he said. "They are all so arrogant."The ceramics sellers said that if the government did not provide fair compensation or a relocation plan quickly, they would band together in protest. But such movements have proved ineffectual in the past.The Jakarta government has said it would compensate the ceramics traders, but only a handful have received payments, and some were promised more than others, causing conflicts among them. Traders from other demolished markets have been told they could move to a new, designated location, only to find there wasn't enough room there for all of them.A popular flower market in south Jakarta that catered to rich and poor alike was recently destroyed to make way for a park, despite weeks of protests and newspaper editorials decrying the move. Alternative proposals by architects and residents for a park that could include the flower market were ignored.Bowo, the governor, said in January that the flower vendors were there illegally and had no right to the land.
"When I was a kid, before they came, there was a park there," he said.But Patra Zen, chairman of the Legal Aid Foundation, argued that it wasn't fair to look at the issue solely from a legal angle. The government should also consider the welfare of the poor, who often have nowhere else to go after the evictions, he said."I support the development of infrastructure and parks," he said. "But these evictions are totally unjustified. They will only make poverty in this city worse. The government's priority should be to alleviate poverty. To do that, you must work with the poor, not against themPoor displaced by Jakarta beautification drive By Peter GellingThursday, March 6, 2008 JAKARTA: Like dozens of others at the streetside ceramics market in north Jakarta, Neslon had been selling dishes out of a small kiosk in the shadow of a highway for more than 30 years.Then, early one recent morning, the police moved in with wrecking equipment and within hours reduced the market to a pile of collapsed shops and shattered plates. And then they set it on fire."We didn't get to talk to anyone about this, to find a solution or a place for us to go," Neslon said, surveying the site the next day, looking for anything he could salvage from the smoldering ruins. "Now I have no idea what I will do.
"Similar scenes have played out all over Jakarta in recent months as the city's new governor, Fauzi Bowo, has moved ahead with a plan to increase the amount of open green space in Jakarta - a change many residents have been demanding for years. The plan would expand green space from 9.6 percent of the city to 13.9 percent by 2010.The markets are considered an eye-sore by those who don't depend on them. They are often a chaotic jumble of dilapidated shacks, with orange or blue plastic sheeting as roofs. Mud and trash clog the narrow footpaths that wind around the stores, and traffic piles up on the road as shoppers stop to look. From early morning to late evening, the shouts of competing vendors, many of whom live in their shops, can be heard."I feel sorry for the traders," said Madi Ahmadi, who manages an upscale restaurant across from a recently demolished market in south Jakarta. "But having a park here will be great. It will be much nicer, and it will be good for the restaurant."There is little doubt that Jakarta, a crumbling city of 14 million notorious for its frenzied traffic and choking pollution, could use more parks. For wealthier residents, the demolitions are evidence that the government is finally making progress toward beautifying the capital.But so far, it has been the city's poor, those who have lived and worked for many years, usually illegally, on any unoccupied land they could find, who have borne the sacrifice.In the name of beautification, several communities of squatters have been evicted from beneath highways and along riverbanks and railways in recent months. A law passed last year by the Jakarta city government not only bans beggars and street performers but prohibits people from giving money to them.Another law that took effect in February imposes hefty fines and jail sentences on the homeless scavengers who sift through trash.The government argues that the laws will help bring order to an otherwise anarchic city.Jakarta, already one of the world's most densely populated cities, continues to grow every year as Indonesians from the countryside come seeking a better life.
Many end up living in illegal settlements on public land that the government and police had, until now, tolerated for decades.Jakarta's poor, who live side by side with the very rich, outnumber them by 7 to 1, according to the Legal Aid Foundation in Jakarta.As the market demolitions continue - more than a dozen more are planned for the coming months - large-scale construction throughout the city flourishes. Huge shopping malls, many anchored by upscale department stores, are being built at a seemingly breakneck speed.Jakarta now boasts about 60 medium-sized to large malls. One of the newest and most luxurious just opened at Jakarta's central traffic circle across from another large mall. Directly behind that mall is yet another one."Who is shopping at all these malls?" asked Wardah Hafid, coordinator for Urban Poor Consortium, an Indonesian anti-poverty group. "Out of the total population here, only about 500,000 people can afford to shop in them."The street markets, by contrast, are often essential for the very poor, who rely on them for food, clothing, sometimes shelter, hardware and just about everything else, including jobs.Demolishing the smaller markets is a relatively easy way to clear ground for new development, because their tenants often lack titles to the land they occupy.Hotman Hutagalung, 40, who worked at the now-demolished ceramics market for 15 years, said that although he never had a land title, he had been paying government agents monthly business fees for long as he can remember."You know the government, they never give notice about anything," he said. "They are all so arrogant."The ceramics sellers said that if the government did not provide fair compensation or a relocation plan quickly, they would band together in protest. But such movements have proved ineffectual in the past.The Jakarta government has said it would compensate the ceramics traders, but only a handful have received payments, and some were promised more than others, causing conflicts among them. Traders from other demolished markets have been told they could move to a new, designated location, only to find there wasn't enough room there for all of them.
A popular flower market in south Jakarta that catered to rich and poor alike was recently destroyed to make way for a park, despite weeks of protests and newspaper editorials decrying the move. Alternative proposals by architects and residents for a park that could include the flower market were ignored.Bowo, the governor, said in January that the flower vendors were there illegally and had no right to the land. "When I was a kid, before they came, there was a park there," he said.But Patra Zen, chairman of the Legal Aid Foundation, argued that it wasn't fair to look at the issue solely from a legal angle. The government should also consider the welfare of the poor, who often have nowhere else to go after the evictions, he said."I support the development of infrastructure and parks," he said. "But these evictions are totally unjustified. They will only make poverty in this city worse. The government's priority should be to alleviate poverty. To do that, you must work with the poor, not against them".
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