
Indonesia Plans to Move Its Capital Out of Jakarta, a City That's Sinking - tshannon
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/718234878/indonesia-plans-to-move-its-capital-out-of-jakarta-a-city-thats-sinking
======
DoreenMichele
I've read both _Salt Dreams_ and _Water for a thirsty land : the Consolidated
Irrigation District and its canal development history_. The first is roughly
the history of the Colorado River and water issues in Southern California. The
second is the history of water development and water rights in Fresno County,
California.

Fresno has a surprisingly rich history in that regard, one I never hear about
outside of reading that one book. It is basically the modern day equivalent of
the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

When settlers first arrived in the area, it was mostly desert with some
greenery along the rivers. After canal development, it became a lush
landscape. The book contains incredible _before_ and _after_ photos.

After canal development, low lying areas turned into de facto lakes. They
eventually turned some into groundwater recharge ponds.

During some years, Fresno has actually raised the ground water level, though
it only gets 11 inches of rain per year. The county played a critical role in
the creation of water rights laws in the state of California, as well as in
the history of water development tools and technology. Multiple patents were
developed in Fresno County.

If you are concerned about these issues or do work related to such, I highly
recommend reading the book.

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/water-for-a-thirsty-land-
the-...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/water-for-a-thirsty-land-the-
consolidated-irrigation-district-and-its-canal-development-
history/oclc/36954078&referer=brief_results)

( _Salt Dreams_ is also an excellent read.)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> When settlers first arrived in the area, it was mostly desert with some
> greenery along the rivers. After canal development, it became a lush
> landscape. The book contains incredible _before_ and _after_ photos.

Except for the photos, this is a good match for the development of Iraq
several thousand years ago. As far as I understand, it's back to being desert
everywhere today.

~~~
ucaetano
> As far as I understand, it's back to being desert everywhere today.

Not entirely. The once massive Mesopotamian Marshes (which were largely
drained by Saddam to destroy the local Shia population) have been partially
restored, from about 10% of the original size to about 50%. It will probably
take many decades for the ecosystems to be restored, but it is nonetheless
good news.

Edit: Worth seeing here
[https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=31.16454,47.12287...](https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=31.16454,47.12287,7.817,latLng&t=2.63&ps=50&bt=19840101&et=20181231&startDwell=0&endDwell=0)

------
tshannon
> Jakarta's problems are largely man-made – the area's large population has
> extracted so much groundwater that it has impacted the ground levels, and
> many surface water resources are polluted.

~~~
siruncledrew
> “Decades of living dangerously in terms of water resource management, urban
> planning, waste and wastewater management, is taking its toll on the
> megacity. This is made possible by poor city planning, environmental and
> conservation policies, enforcement and practices.”

What are the chances that Indonesia’s incompetence won’t be incompetent at
managing the environmental impact of their next capital city?

~~~
jpatokal
I recently had the chance to visit Jakarta after over 10 years away, and
they're finally starting to get some things right. The recent emphasis on
public transport is particularly promising: the first MRT (subway) line
finally opened this year, there's a lot more on the way, they've beefed up the
commuter railways, Jakarta airport T3 is head and shoulders above the old
ones, etc. Some bloggage on the topic:

[https://driftingclouds.net/2019/03/28/jakarta-by-rail-mrt-
op...](https://driftingclouds.net/2019/03/28/jakarta-by-rail-mrt-opening-
week/)

[https://driftingclouds.net/2019/04/01/jakarta-by-rail-
airpor...](https://driftingclouds.net/2019/04/01/jakarta-by-rail-airport-rail-
link-and-skytrain/)

Much of the credit goes to recently re-elected president Jokowi, who's the
least incompetent leader Indonesia has had in a while (possibly ever/since
independence?) and who's also the prime mover behind the new capital idea.
That said, I'm not entirely sold on the idea myself, the track record of other
SE Asian countries trying this -- Putrajaya in Malaysia and particularly
Pyongyang-in-the-tropics aka Naypyidaw in Myanmar -- are not encouraging.

[http://www.thebohemianblog.com/2017/07/naypyidaw-myanmar-
gho...](http://www.thebohemianblog.com/2017/07/naypyidaw-myanmar-ghost-city-
capital.html)

~~~
mango7283
Yeah, and Putrajaya barely qualifies as moving the capital, given it's still
part of KL's metropolitan area.

------
kenrick95
The plan to move Indonesian capital city has been around since Sukarno's era
(1957) [0]. I hope that it will really happen this time.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_future_capital_city...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_future_capital_city_proposal)

~~~
forgot-my-pw
It better, they only have 3 decades left...

> Jakarta faces massive challenges. As the BBC has reported, it's the fastest-
> sinking city in the world, with almost half of its area below sea level.

> "If we look at our models, by 2050 about 95% of North Jakarta will be
> submerged," Heri Andreas, an expert in Jakarta's land subsidence at the
> Bandung Institute of Technology, told the broadcaster.

------
qwerty456127
People should really stop growing megapolises and start developing smaller
cities, interconnection infrastructure and regional decentralization
(decentralization is already fine in the US with its states system but near-
zero in e.g. Russia (Moscow everything) and I dunno about Indonesia).

~~~
scythe
Basically all of Java is as dense as a mid-sized American city. Java (2903 /
mi^2), Atlanta (3547 / mi^2). Here, Java's population density includes its
12000-foot peaks. Or, to give an alternate picture, it's a third of the size
of California, with four times as many people.

------
rmm
It is a complete understatement of how bad it is. Traffic is unreal. Getting
to the airport from a hotel that would be 20mins away with no traffic takes
4+hrs.

------
NikolaeVarius
I wonder what the cost comparison looks like between moving and trying to fix
sinking issue

------
elihu
Moving makes sense I think, not just because of environmental issues but
because it's not healthy to have all the country's leadership and wealth
concentrated in one place. Hopefully they can figure out a way to move the
capital that results in less consolidation of power and not more, and that
isn't bad for the people and environment around where the new capital is
placed.

~~~
simplicio
"because it's not healthy to have all the country's leadership and wealth
concentrated in one place."

Has there been any research on this? It seems a pretty common pattern to have
the gov't capital, financial center, largest population center and largest GDP
producing cities all be the same place. This holds true in (more or less)
stable industrialized countries like France, Japan, S. Korea, etc. as well as
in many 3rd world countries.

I have a vague feeling its unhealthy, but that's admittedly probably at least
partly because I grew up in the States, where it isn't the case and gives me
something of a bias against it. And presumably there's a reason its such a
popular model, even if it hasn't been a conscious decision in most cases.

~~~
jcranmer
I was going to say it's pretty common not to have the major city (largest
finance/population/GDP, pretty much all correlates of one another), but it's
actually not. Excluding countries that explicitly moved their capital from the
largest city (e.g., Brazil), the major countries with this setup are
Australia, Bolivia, Cameroon, Canada, Ecuador, Morocco, New Zealand, South
Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, US, and Vietnam. And most of those countries
boil down to "we took several regions and agglomerated them into one entity,"
where the capital is either unchanged from one of the old constituents (e.g.,
Turkey--Ankara was the capital during the Turkish rebellion) or was sited in a
middle point to not favor one constituent (e.g., Canada).

It's just that I'm more familiar with the exceptions than the rule.

~~~
dmurray
This list is suspiciously incomplete, how are China and India not on it? In
both of the world's most populous countries, the largest city and indisputable
financial centre is not the capital. I would guess the majority of the world's
population lives in countries where this is the situation, so it's not just
you.

~~~
jpatokal
The commercial cities in question, Mumbai and Shanghai, have never been the
capitals of India or China.

Delhi was built as a new capital by the British Raj, taking over from
Calcutta. Beijing's history is long and complicated, but it has been the
capital of unified China since 1421, give or take a few blips during wars.

------
basetop
Interesting. It looks like Korea and Egypt are also moving their capitals.

[https://qz.com/1608402/indonesia-like-egypt-and-south-
korea-...](https://qz.com/1608402/indonesia-like-egypt-and-south-korea-plans-
new-capital/)

I wonder if it is due to overcrowding or to separate business and political
centers?

------
didip
I am glad that the politicians finally want to do something about it.

The capital also unnecessarily pulls all of the country's resources into that
one city causing even worse wealth inequality and poverty.

------
eucryphia
A city on Samosir, on the island of Lake Toba would look spectacular but quite
impractical.

~~~
qxfys
not sure what do you mean by spectacular, but Lake Toba already got plenty of
problems with its environment [1].

[1]. [https://aquaculturemag.com/2018/09/25/indonesian-fish-
farmer...](https://aquaculturemag.com/2018/09/25/indonesian-fish-farmers-get-
early-warning-system-for-lake-pollution/)

------
simonh
Miami next.

~~~
irrational
And New Orleans.

~~~
sbov
Miami sits on porous bedrock. It has much less of a chance of survival than
New Orleans.

~~~
irrational
Maybe.

"After a $14.6 billion-dollar upgrade, Army Corp engineers have confirmed that
New Orleans’ levees are sinking. Today, 11 months after one of the largest
public works in world history has been completed, the system could stop
providing adequate protection in as little as four years."

[https://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topstories/new-orleans-
lev...](https://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topstories/new-orleans-levees-are-
sinking-city-in-vulnerable-position/ar-BBWdUHs)

~~~
selimthegrim
Previously on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19696096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19696096)

