Greater Jakarta, the world's second largest conurbation – part 1

The past 40 years has seen astonishing growth of the city of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, extending from the core city that had <5 million residents in 1970. Today, the main city is home to over 10 million permanent residents, thus classifying it as one of the world's 28 megacities, 16 of which are in Asia. The city's population increases by 2·5 million during working days; physically, the city has simply emerged with its suburban satellite towns such that Greater Jakarta, generally referred to as Jabodetabek, caters for a population of 29 million, which is expected to increase to 50 million over the next 30 years, putting Greater Jakarta firmly in the metacity category. As elsewhere, Jakarta is grappling with all the technical, administrative and social problems that rapid urbanisation entails. The first part of this two-part paper examines the growth of the future metacity by tracing the historical background from which the city has grown; a small sixteenth century fishing village famous only for its clean water. The analysis concentrates on the key development of the city port and and land-based transportation that present two key challenges for providing a functioning liveable city that is able to cope with its fast rate of expansion.