1 Jorien Posthouwer (6230369/10018417)
E-mail: jorien.posthouwer@student.uva.nl
Bachelor Thesis Project Human Geography: Urban Poverty and Inequality (FRWA734301370Y) dhr. dr. D.L. Arnold
1 Pictures by EPA and ABC.net
Informality and Floods in Jakarta
What is the role of informality on the flood vulnerability of the urban poor in Jakarta?
Jorien Posthouwer 19-6-2014
UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM
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Outline
Introduction ... 4
List of figures ... 6
Chapter 1: Review of Related literature: The Disaster Discourse ... 7
1.1 The origins of disaster research ... 7
1.2 Vulnerability ... 7
1.3 Vulnerability framework ... 9
Chapter 2: Jakarta: a local manifestation of global trends ... 12
2. 1 Global: Climate Change, Urbanization and natural disasters ... 12
2.2 Asia: a concentration and intensification of world-dynamics ... 15
2.3 Jakarta: localising global dynamics ... 16
Chapter 3: Vulnerability and coping strategies in Jakarta ... 23
3.1 How natural are floods in Jakarta? ... 23
3.2 Ratio behind behavior ... 24
Chapter 4: Informality ... 28
4.1 Theoretical approach of informality ... 28
4.2 Institutionalised informality: the RW\RT-system ... 29
4.3 Informal land market ... 30
4.3 Informal economy ... 31
Chapter 5: Application of the vulnerability framework ... 33
Conclusion ... 37
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Introduction
Jakarta is considered as one of the most vulnerable cities to climate change related disasters (Firman et al, 2010 Francesco and Yussef, 2009). Every year this mega city is exposed to floods and due to climate change these floods are highly expected to increase in intensity and frequency. Since these dynamics, together with urbanization and population growth, are a trend not only in Asia but on the whole global level it is a relevant topic of research.
Jakarta occupies a total land area of 662 square kilometres and has a total population of 9.6 million in 2010, plus about 2.5 daily commuters coming from neighbouring areas. This makes Jakarta the biggest city of South East Asia. Jakarta is also a magnet for migrants seeking for better living conditions, mostly poor and rural migrants. The official population growth has been on a 1.39 % rate over the period of 2000 – 2010 (Central Board of Statistics BPS, 2010). Those statistics do not take into account the illegal inhabitants of Jakarta and the measuring stops at the administrative borders of Jakarta while urban sprawl continues at the
neighbouring areas. Therefore the population numbers are a lot higher.
Within the city of Jakarta, the urban poor are considered as the most vulnerable towards floods (Surbakati et al., 2010, Wamsler, 2007). Due to the inadequate reach of the administrative government, the daily lives of the urban poor are usually maintained, founded and supported by informality. Since both flood vulnerability and informality are important characteristics of the urban poor of Jakarta, it would be interesting to find out the interaction between them. Therefore my research question is: What is the role of informality on the flood vulnerability of the urban poor of Jakarta?
It could be said that history has proven that the administrative government of Jakarta does not have capable institutions on governmental level to cope with- or prevent Jakarta from floods (Wilhelm, 2012). Therefore it is enormously interesting to find out what strategies the people of Jakarta apply to manage flood risk, particularly the urban poor since they are often the most severe hit by floods. How have they become familiar with floods? What resources and capacities allow them to adapt to and cope with floods?
Since many of the threats Jakarta is facing, as urbanization, climate change, population growth, are global phenomena it is interesting to start with a wider scope and slowly narrow it down to the Jakarta city level. Concerns about vulnerability and urban resilience are investigated worldwide and to find out if the urban poor in Jakarta have a unique strong coping mechanism starting this research with a broader scope seems necessary.
Part one of the paper will start with a brief explanation of the concepts of disaster discourse and the possibilities and difficulties it contains. It will discuss the concept vulnerability and introduce the integrated vulnerability framework founded by Turner et al. (2003a) which I will use as a theoretical framework to analyse the vulnerability of the urban poor of Jakarta. Part two is an analysis of global trends slowly narrowed down to the regional level and eventually the Jakarta city level. In the third paragraph I will discuss the different
5 vulnerabilities and coping strategies applied by the urban poor of Jakarta regarding floods. Hereby I will use several empirical dissertations, articles and thesis’s about flooding in Jakarta. In the fourth chapter I will start with discussing some theoretical information about informality in general which will be later on in the chapter applied on the case of Jakarta. In the fifth chapter all different parts (the global-local analysis, the coping strategies and adaptive capacities and the discussion regarding informality) of the thesis will be tied together within the integrated vulnerability framework applied on Jakarta.
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List of figures
Figure 1: Integrated Vulnerability Framework (Turner et al. 2003a) ... 11
Figure 2: Classification of disasters according to the centre for research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, University of Louvain. (Leaning and Guha-Sapir, 2013)... 13
Figure 3. Numbers and Types of Natural Disasters, 1950-2012 (Leaning and Guha-Sapir, 2013) ... 13
Figure 4. Urban and rural populations by development group, 195-2050 (Heilig, 2012) ... 14
Figure 5 Urban sprawl within Jabodetabek region (Samad, 2012) ... 18
Figure 6: Number of Poor Households in Jakarta (BPS Statistics) ... 19
Figure 7 Flood areas in Jakarta, Depok and Tangerang. (Marschiavelli et al. 2008) ... 20
Figure 8: Significant Jakarta Floods and Affected Area (World Vision, 2012) ... 20
Figure 9: Communities Perception of Flood Intensity (Marschiavelli et al. 2008) ... 33
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Chapter 1: Review of Related literature: The Disaster Discourse
This chapter discusses the related literature used to support this research. It describes the origins of disaster research and explains the concept of vulnerability and the integrated vulnerability framework.
1.1 The origins of disaster research
The meaning people attach to a natural disaster is an interesting topic of investigation since it is part of the coping strategies people apply to cope with disasters. Forms they use to explain reason and create rationality behind the extreme events, which are taking away all daily structures and all normality, is a way to make sense of the chaos and uncertainty coming along with a disastrous event.
Until the late Middle Ages disasters have been interpreted as signs or punishments of God. However questions started to be raised. To what extent could the government be blamed, since they were acting on behalf of god? Consequently, norms and values of the society were contested even as the justification of the goodness of God. (Wilhelm, 2011) In 1755 a severe earthquake and following tsunami destroyed Lisbon, the center of colonial power Portugal. The earthquake and tsunami destroyed three quarters of the city, including all major churches, but did not touch Lisbon’s red light district Alfama. A European wide debate about the interpretation of the earthquake followed, discussion between clerics and
philosophers perfectly fitted in the Zeitgeist of the early Age of Enlightenment. Philosophers, as for example Emanuel Kant, aimed to understand natural causes of earthquakes. Activities around recovery have been for the first time well documented and the Lisbon earthquake can be seen as the beginning of disaster management and disaster research. Responses and interpretations of this event have reflected a broader transition from religious to secular world views (Dynes, 2000). One has to keep in mind that this explanation features as a western modern explanation of the origins of disaster research. Disaster research developed independently in other parts of the world (Janku 2009: 86-88).
In 1920 Samuel R. Prince published a study about the explosion of the munition ship Mont Blanc in the harbor of Halifax in 1917, this study is often considered as the start of disaster research in social sciences in the US. Prince saw catastrophes as stimuli for societal change, as a break with the status quo (Prince, 1968). He was concerned with the social processes following a disaster and the human response towards it. This focus is still very important in current research, and is central to the vulnerability analysis which will be explained next. 1.2 Vulnerability
Different people give a different meaning to the concept of vulnerability. It arises as a consequence of the different needs confronting particular groups to deal with particular issues of the potential impacts of disasters (Marschiavelli et al., 2008).
Schroeder and Gefenas compare the ambition to define vulnerability with a South Asian legend. Six blind men touch different parts of an elephant, the tusk, the trunk, the ear, and
8 etcetera. When they try to describe the entity, they cannot agree. The moral of the story is that, depending on one’s perspective, one may only be able to describe half-truths. So, what could it mean to be vulnerable (Schroeder and Gefenas, 2009)?
Adger (2006) defines vulnerability as the state of susceptibility to harm from exposure to stresses associated with environmental and social change and from the absence of capacity to adapt. As the example of Schroeder and Gefenas shows numerous definitions regarding the concept of vulnerability exist. All different vulnerability theories share a focus on socio-ecological systems linked to resilience. The concept of a social-socio-ecological system reflects the idea that human action and social structures are integral to nature (Folke, 2006). Seen in this context resilience refers to the magnitude of disturbance that can be absorbed by a system before it changes to a radically different state. It also refers to the capacity of a system to self-organize and to adapt to emerging circumstances.
In contrast to resilience, vulnerability is often portrayed in negative terms. The degree to which a system (which can be a geographic area, a structure, a service, a community or an individual) is susceptible to, and unable to cope with effects. In all different formulations key concepts of vulnerability are (Adger, 2006): (a) The stress to which a system is exposed to external effects, (b) its sensitivity and (c) its adaptive capacity. The vulnerability of social-ecological systems is influenced by the ability to absorb shocks, to adapt both in advance and in reaction to these shocks and the autonomy of self-organization.
The concept of vulnerability has been a powerful analytical tool to describe the susceptibility towards harm, powerlessness and marginality of a physical or social system. It has been useful as well in guiding normative analysis of actions to enhance well-being through reduction of risk (Adger, 2006). However, it is important to note is that the two concepts of vulnerability and resilience are not contrary towards each other. It often happens that a vulnerable system is not resilient and vice versa but this is not necessary. A good example of this is the case of The Netherlands: Dutch people are not vulnerable towards floods, the last time a severe flood hit the country was 1956. But Dutch people are not resilient towards floods either, due to their dikes and their other physical measures they are not able to cope with, and adapt to a flood situation.
Vulnerability to environmental change appears within a system of a wider political economy of resource use. Therefore political ecology argues that attention should be given to (Adams, 2009, p. 196-199): (i) uneven access to natural resources, (ii) the impact of power
imbalances in the relationship between society and the environment, (iii) multi-scalar connections between the local and global, (iv) the impact of different discourses and knowledge claims on how environmental problems are interpreted and (v) the role of grassroots actors.
There are a few challenges and difficulties within vulnerability research (Kasperson, 2005). It is a very dynamic phenomenon, constant in state of motion. The systems are very
9 complicated and have many linkages that are difficult to determine. Therefore the
measurement of vulnerability is very difficult, the operationalization and quantification is often limited to grasp reality, or too extended to be feasible. Another challenge appears from the tension between objective and perceived elements of vulnerability. The example of the South Asian legend in the beginning of the chapter displays this difficulty very well; vulnerability may be perceived or experienced differently by different people. Measuring the perceptions of insecurity is not easy but the role of perception and the social and cultural evaluation of stresses and perturbations is important to both the recognition of stresses and the decisions regarding coping, adaptation, and adjustment.
1.3 Vulnerability framework
The integrated vulnerability framework developed by Turner et al. (2003a) seeks to capture as much as possible of the totality of the different elements that have been distinguished in risk, hazards, and vulnerability research (Kasperson, 2005). The framework frames the different elements regarding their complex linkages and recognizes that all components and linkages vary by scale. An important characteristic of the framework is that it recognizes that the scale of assessment may change the specific components but that it does not change the overall structure.
The core of the vulnerability analysis is compromised by three components: (I) Exposure, (II) Sensitivity and (III) Resilience. Exposure (I) is understood as how a reference unit, in this case Jakarta, experiences a hazard. This hazard can be defined in terms of frequency, magnitude or duration for example. Sensitivity (II) is the degree to which a system is modified or affected by perturbations; those effects can be direct or indirect, and human or
environmental. Turner et al. operationalize this as for example entitlements, institutions or capitals in the human system. In the environmental system natural capital shapes the environmental condition. I want to highlight here the importance of institutions in this component (Adger et al., 2009). Institutions as collectively shared expectations contribute significantly to the reorganization of social order following a disaster. Because sensitivity is influenced by values, power structures, perceptions and processes within a society;
institutions are a key issue in sensitivity.
Resilience (III) comes from the field of human ecology and is generally defined as the capacity of a society to adapt and cope with disasters. Within the framework Turner et al. (2003a) link resilience to human and environmental conditions. Resilience is further divided in three components: (a) impact, (b) coping mechanisms and (c) adjustment and adaptation. Loss of life or economic losses can be a direct impact (a). Coping mechanisms (b) can be a direct human action or a policy that responses to the impacts. Coping mechanisms do not have to be on the individual level, they can also occur as collectively shared strategies. Institutions also play a role in coping mechanisms, via culture or religion people are able to give meaning to natural hazards. This can assist them in coping with disasters. Adjustment
10 And adaptation (c) refers to the changes in the human-environment conditions such as policy changes but also social capital could be seen as an adaptation strategy.
In Figure 1 you see a display of the different components of the vulnerability analysis and the different scales they are active in. As you can see the three components of the vulnerability analysis just explained are all active on the local (place based) level but are influenced by and influence human and environmental influences on the regional and worldwide level. This means that a wider focus then just a place based analysis of Jakarta is necessary for my research. An important asset of this framework is the display of agency of the concerned vulnerable people. Often in disaster research victims are portrayed as passive people without agency while this framework also takes the coping strategies and adaptive responses on the local level into account.
Concluding, the vulnerability framework by Turner et al. provides an advanced tool to capture the complexity of socio-ecological systems in vulnerability research. However, the operationalization and magnitude of such an analysis is a serious challenge due to the complexity and the different scales involved. Based on their own experience in applying the framework Turner et al. state:
“A full vulnerability assessment is no easy task given the complexity of factors, processes, and feedbacks operating within even relatively simple coupled human-environment systems. The difficulties of the task are amplified by scalar dynamics, be they global processes operating on the local system of assessment, the asynchronous character of important social and natural processes, or the various, even incompatible goals of the different stakeholders in the system. Indeed, a full vulnerability assessment following the framework developed by the Sustainability Systems Program may lie well beyond the capacities of most research efforts.” (Turner et al. 2003b, p. 8085)
However, I find that the framework will provide a valuable starting point to approach the complexity of the flood situation in Jakarta. I will use the integrated vulnerability framework as a methodological framework but I am aware of the fact that I am only able to reflect part of Jakarta’s complexity in my work. Some external effects, interactions and contributing factors may stay unrecognized and neglected, especially the feedback mechanisms between place based responses and impacts and the human and environmental influences out of the place is beyond the scope of my research.
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Chapter 2: Jakarta: a local manifestation of global trends
Since the integrated vulnerability framework of Turner et al. is emphasizing on the multi scalar characteristics of vulnerability, it is important to include an analysis of trends and processes happening on the global level. Subsequently I will narrow this broad view slowly down to the level of Jakarta itself.
2. 1 Global: Climate Change, Urbanization and natural disasters
Due to a high concentration of population, infrastructure, goods and commodities, cities are vulnerable towards changes in temperature (Otto-Zimmerman, 2011). Most global cities are situated on or nearby the coast, to facilitate their trade and increase their wealth. Often they are also located in low-lying areas nearby the mouths of major rivers. These locations place cities at greater risk from climate hazards, such as cyclones, high winds, floods, sea level rise, erosion and high winds (De Sherbinin et al. 2007). Climate change has a severe impact in cities of low and middle-income nations where uncontrolled growth in high-risk areas often happens, and municipal agencies often lack the capacity to cope with vulnerable areas and populations. On the other hand, highly developed and industrialized urban areas are relying on structures and systems that are highly vulnerable towards disruptions and unable to cope with climate change risks such as natural disasters.
Between 1961 and 2010, a global annual average of 129.6 million (129,563,481) people were affected by natural disasters. Between 1961 and 1970, 1 out of 138 persons worldwide were affected by natural hazards, compared to 1 out of 28 in the period between 2001 and 2010 and a more than eightfold increase in economic costs associated with natural disasters (Guha-Sapir et. al, 2012). This rise in affected people and economic costs can partly be explained by the increase in wealth and population, there is more money and there are more people on this world consequently there is more destroyed.
These economic costs differ widely between countries, even when taking into account the different intensities. The greatest losses in economic terms are from the wealthier countries, while the greatest losses in casualties are in the poorer countries. Consequently, the global ranking of disasters depends on the used indicators.
Natural disasters can broadly be classified as biologic, climate-related (hydrometeorology) or geophysical. Figure 2 shows a clear distinction which event can be classified in which
13 Between 2000 and 2009 there were three times as many natural disasters as there were between 1980 and 1989, this is mainly due to an increase in climate-related events. They account for nearly 80% of the increase, while trends in geophysical events have remained stable (Leaning and Guha-Sapir, 2013). Although there are potential biases in this increase and some of it maybe statistical and reporting artefacts, part of the trend is likely to reflect a real increase. In figure 3 the numbers and types of disasters between 1950 and 2012 can be seen.
Figure 2: Classification of disasters according to the centre for research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, University of Louvain. (Leaning and Guha-Sapir, 2013)
The data used for these statistics is from the database EM-DAT, a worldwide database on disasters widely cited in policy documents and research analyses, e.g. IPCC, World Bank, IMF, UN ISDR, etc. Due to the enormous political and economic interests in defining, measuring
14 and analysing disasters different databases and definitions exist, mainly in human aid and insurance companies. For a disaster to be entered into the EM-DAT database at least one of the following criteria must be met (emdat.be, 2014): ten or more people reported as killed, hundred or more people reported as affected, a declaration of a state of emergency and/or a call for international assistance.
As explained above climate change and natural disasters have a severe impact on cities in low- and middle-income countries. The risks for the urban poor in these cities are often even greater, exacerbated by their limited access to basic infrastructure and services (Baker, 2012). Due to rapid urbanization, cities struggle to meet the basic needs of their growing populations. Today, around 1 billion residents live in slums and lack basic infrastructure and services. As figure 4 shows that between 2011 and 2050 the world population is expected to increase with 2.3 billion people. Meanwhile the population living in urban areas is projected to gain 2.6 billion people. This means that the urban areas are expected to absorb all the population growth over the next four decades plus taking in some of the rural population. Furthermore, most of the population growth in urban areas will be concentrated in cities and towns of less developed regions. This is logical since already 78% of the inhabitants of the more developed regions lives in urban areas in 2011 while just 47 % of the inhabitants of less developed regions does.
Figure 4. Urban and rural populations by development group, 195-2050 (Heilig, 2012)
Next to these statistics about urbanisation and natural disasters it is interesting to look at the urban poor. We find that one-quarter of the world’s consumption poor live in urban areas and that this has been rising over time (Ravallion et al. 2007). By increasing economic
15 growth, urbanization has reduced absolute poverty numbers but did little for the urban poor. The poor have been urbanizing even more rapidly than the population as a whole. Urban environments can be much more efficient and effective in providing for the needs of their populations than rural settings due to their proximity of people and the higher quality of infrastructure. However, as cities grow stresses on the environment, infrastructure, economy and social networks increase. Subsequently, human vulnerability to disasters increases and new forms of ‘disaster’ and vulnerability towards disasters arise (Knox and Ramalinghan, 2012).
2.2 Asia: a concentration and intensification of world-dynamics
The global dynamics I discussed are not evenly distributed around the world. Urbanisation, population growth and natural hazards will be concentrated. Asia and the Pacific are hotspots for natural disasters. Large areas of Asia suffer from river flooding every year and the region contents some of the most active tectonic plates and volcanoes. Additional, the proximity of Asia’s settlements close to their coastlines makes them vulnerable towards many climate change related hazards as flooding and sea level rise. According to the Asian Development Bank, 410 million Asian urban residents will be at risk of coastal flooding by 2025 (ADB, 2012).
Another challenge facing the Asia region is the rapid rural-to-urban migration. Asia’s urban expansion has occurred later than in other regions but appears to be significantly more rapid. In particular China and Indonesia urban areas have moved from 11% to more than 50% in just two or three generations (ADB, 2012). The urban population in Asia increased from 17% in 1950 to 40% in 2005; by 2050 an urban population of 55% is expected. These rates are important since they imply that a major part of the future world population growth will be absorbed by urban areas in Asia. Within Asia urbanisation and population growth will be mainly concentrated in China, India and South-East Asia.
Also economically is Asia on the move. Some parts of Asia are experiencing GDP growth rates of more than 10% and import and export growth of more than 20%. The Urban areas generate more than 90% of this wealth. However this does not follow that all large cities experience positive economic growth or that these benefits are passed on to their citizens in terms of improved living conditions (World Vision, 2012). It still does imply that cities are increasingly viewed as the economic drivers and political powerhouses of their nation and disasters will have a double impact. On the well-being of the population and of the nation’s ability to recover economically. Cities act as national hubs and link smaller communities to production, trade, tourism, investment and are key sources of GDP for most countries; theses city characteristic appears worldwide but is increasingly true in Asia (World Vision, 2012). Consequently a disruption in the form of a disaster could have major consequences.
16 The speed with which towns are becoming cities, and cities are becoming greater
metropolitan areas have challenged governance structures and public spending in the region. Furthermore, as cities expand, the boundaries of local government and its responsibility have sometimes become unclear and conflicting.
The Asia-Pacific region is also the most disaster-prone area of the world and the most seriously affected one (UNISDR, 2012). Between 1970 and 2011 almost 2 million people were killed in disasters, representing 75% of all disaster fatalities globally. Most people in the region are affected by hydro-meteorological hazards. The population of the region has increased from 2.2 billion to 4.2 billion people between 1970 and 2010, while the average number of people exposed to annual flooding has more than doubled from 29.5 to 63.8 million people.
In addition to this absolute increase in human exposure towards natural hazards, also economic losses resulting from disasters continue to rise. Trends in economic exposure are increasing for nearly all sub regions and for all hazards. Most of the largest losses have occurred in middle-income countries and well-developed economies, this indicates that despite the rapid economic growth in the region also exposure towards disasters has increased. The region still needs to apply adequate resources to reduce disaster risks and protect their development gains made by economic growth (UNISDR, 2012).
Very little can be done to reduce the likelihood of disaster, particularly the massive natural disasters occurring frequently in Asia. Instead, taking action to reduce or remove the vulnerability of people, their settlements and their livelihoods towards these disasters and focussing on the creation of resilient and prepared communities is fruitful (World Vision, 2012). Taking this into account, I want to highlight the importance of ‘learning from each other’. Many Asian cities are prone to the same natural disasters, high urbanization levels and population growth. Reducing the likelihood of a disaster is in the whole area often beyond possibilities; therefore, it seems logical to investigate measures to reduce vulnerability in other area’s/cities.
2.3 Jakarta: localising global dynamics
The Republic of Indonesia is an island group with more than 17,500 islands situated on and under the equator. It is the largest archipelago in the world, has the largest Muslim
population and has the fourth largest population in the world (UN-Habitat, 2009). Indonesia is, according to the World Bank, considered as a middle income country and has an official total population of 246.9 million people in 2012 (World Bank, 2014).
As previous chapter argues, population growth, urbanization and natural hazards are mainly concentrated in urban areas in Asia, such as Dhaka, Jakarta or Bangkok. Since Jakarta was the first established city on the island Java, its development has been mainly concerned with
17 economic benefits instead of population priorities. Build in a delta where 13 rivers end in the city, the city is easily accessed by land and sea. This makes it theoretically very well placed for trade but also very susceptible to natural land subsidence (Jakarta Post, 2010a).
The problems Jakarta is facing with sea level rise are even worsened since the city is sinking at a rate of ten centimetres a year. The main causes for the phenomenon are extensive land extraction due to groundwater exploration and pressure from high-rise buildings, which are pushing parts of the city downwards. Apart from man-made factors the land was already sinking due to natural factors, such as soil compaction and the tectonic setting (Wardani, 2010, Firman et al. 2011). The highest rates of subsidence was recorded in North Jakarta, where according to figure 6 a high concentration of poor households are situated. Urbanisation dynamics in Indonesia are in accordance with general Asian trends. Future population growth will be concentrated in urban areas, especially Jakarta will be the centre stage of these urbanisation processes. Within the Indonesian hierarchy of cities, Jakarta can be considered as a primate city since it is the economic and political centre of Indonesia. The cities Surabaya and Bandung, also located on Java, rank second and third but have a fairly smaller population size.
Statistics about Jakarta as an urban area are difficult to interpret since different definitions of Jakarta’s official boundaries exist. The city of Jakarta commonly refers to the
administrative unit DKI Jakarta which entails 5 municipalities (North Jakarta, South Jakarta, West Jakarta, East Jakarta and Central Jakarta. DKI Jakarta is one of the 33 provinces of Indonesia. But the urban dynamics of the spatial city Jakarta spilled over the provincial boundaries of DKI Jakarta and incorporate several surrounding cities. As figure 5 shows, the urban sprawl of Jakarta has not been set by its official boundaries and is spreading more widely. Therefore the reference unit Jabodetabek includes also the surrounding cities and is more relevant in approaching the urban dynamics of Jakarta. Jabodetabek, also known as the greater Jakarta Metropolitan area, includes DKI Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tanggerang, and Bekasi. Since Jabodetabek is not an administrative unit and there is expected to be a high number of unregistered people, statistics on the greater Jakarta urban area are rare but the population size is expected to be around 20 million.
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Figure 5 Urban sprawl within Jabodetabek region (Samad, 2012)
The surrounding cities of Jakarta have been functioning as hinterlands and supported Jakarta’s economy. Disruptions from floods and other environmental hazards will affect the Indonesian economy as a whole since Jakarta is the political and economic heart of
Indonesia and it embodies the seaport that serves 40% of Indonesian containers where most of it pass through the satellite cities from the hinterlands (Sagala et al. 2013).
According to the poverty index of the National Statistics Bureau of Indonesia (Badan Pusat Statistik in Bahassa) 3.72 % of the inhabitants of DKI Jakarta are poor in 2013 (BPS, 2013). 3.72 percent of the DKI Jakarta population means 375.700 people. Earlier research of BPS Indonesia in 2008 concluded that DKI Jakarta has a poor population of 400.000 people and a 300.000 near poor population. This means that around 300.000 people are on the risk of being poor in case of an external shock. An external shock can be among others a sickness, the loss of a family member, the loss of a job but also a flood or other natural disaster. These numbers of urban poor need to be carefully considered since measuring urban poor is a very complex task and statistics tend to overlook different complexities behind the numbers. The Indonesian government has taken a poverty line of $1.13 per day while the World Bank poverty line is at $2 a day (Handayana, 2012), this may explain why the governmental
19 numbers are very low in comparison with what one sees when walking through the city itself.
According to the government around 12% of the Indonesian inhabitants lives below the poverty line, while according to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank half of the Indonesian population is poor (Pironti, 2012). This comparison does not say anything specific about Jakarta but shows us that the Indonesian government tends to display the status of its own country too optimistic.
Figure 6 shows us where the poorest households are situated. As you can see mostly Northern Jakarta and Eastern Jakarta are inhabited with poor households. If you compare figure 6 with figure 7 you see that the areas where urban households live are mainly
overlapping with the areas where often floods occur. Confusing in comparing these maps is that East Jakarta and South Jakarta are interchanged in names but the message is still clear. Urban poor households in Jakarta are often situated in flood prone areas.
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Figure 7 Flood areas in Jakarta, Depok and Tangerang. (Marschiavelli et al. 2008)
Indonesia, being located at the juncture of four tectonic plates is highly exposed towards geo-physical events as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. Due to the high proportion of low-lying areas in marshes and due to the tropical climate, Indonesia is much more prone towards hydro-meteorological events such as floods and landslides (RI, 2006). Lying in the tropical climate, Indonesia experiences only dry and rainy seasons that are characterised by fairly extreme changes in temperate, rain and wind.
Figure 8: Significant Jakarta Floods and Affected Area (World Vision, 2012)
Figure 8 shows us the significant floods that affected Jakarta over the last centuries. As you can see the occurrence over time is increasing but also the intensity in affected hectares increased. This table confirms the global dynamics of climate change whereby disasters, including floods, are increasing in intensity and in frequency.
Jakarta is affected by flooding every year in the rainy season, while major floods tend to occur once every five years. As shown in above table the flood of 2007 outclassed the flooding in 2002, but the flood in 2013 outclassed the flood in 2007 again.
Firman et al. (2010) argue in their article Potential climate-change related vulnerabilities in Jakarta: Challenges and current status that there is an urgent need to strengthen the
21 institutional capabilities that are prerequisite to deal effectively with climate change. The quality of government at all levels, national and local, affects the level of risk from climate change. They observe that the Jakarta city officials are aware of the impact of climate change, but that there is still a need for more knowledge on coping strategies. On the other hand, there is no effective coordination among government agencies, on local and on national level, to make the flood coping strategies more effective and efficient. Since the flood problems are exceeding the limits of the DKI Jakarta province, it is necessary to have an institution at the metropolitan level, Jabodetabek, which can plan, coordinate and
implement a development program which takes into account the sustainability in the future, especially in dealing with the effects of climate change. There should be a focus on
transportation, water resources, solid waste and spatial development and management (Firman et al. 2010). There already exists a body on this level but all authorities are still on the local and provincial government therefore the body is powerless.
A governmental solution like this would be too utopic. Due to the Indonesian corruption difficulties an efficient and effective governmental approach would be very difficult and solutions can be more easily find on the ground, on grassroots level. As Sagala et al. argue it is not sufficient to focus on structural measures since it is the vulnerability of the people, properties and infrastructure that is exposed to environmental hazards in Jakarta (Sagala et al., 2013). Structural measures and urban planning have not been able to keep up with the dynamic processes of urbanization and modernization (Wilhelm, 2012: 46). As Coljouw et al. have argued, the flood control plan in 2002 was still in line with the colonial flood plan from 1920 and often measures have been implemented while the city population and built-up area had already expanded two or three times(Coljouw et al. 2005). Nowadays there is a consensus among experts that technical solutions will never make Jakarta flood free, the focus has shifted from technical engineering towards so called social engineering. They focus on non-technical solutions that require the involvement of civil society, the emphasis lays on coping strategies that enable people to live with floods instead of aiming to prevent floods (Sagala et al. 2013, Wilhelm, 2012).
Part of Jakarta’s flood problem can be explained by its geographical exposure of natural hazards. Jakarta is prone towards floods caused by water draining through the city from the hills in the south, and also from coastal tidal floods. More than 40 percent of the city, mainly the most northern area, is below sea level. Jakarta is located in a deltaic plain crossed by thirteen rivers, and more than 1,400 kilometres of waterways constructed by the colonial Dutch. Periodical floods have been a common phenomenon during colonial times, however since recent years the severity and frequency of floods have seriously increased, due to local environmental and infrastructural issues (Coljouw et al. 2005, Van Voorst, 2013).
There are three main reasons for the increase in flood risk. (1) First, rapid urbanization has led to more extensive use of the build environment, more garbage clogging the sewage system, and a greater number of human potentially affected (Coljouw et al. 2005) (2) The
22 cities governmental services cannot keep up with the demands of the fast growing
population. The provision of housing for the poor and lower-middle class is inadequate relative to the demand. Consequently large informal settlements have grown over the years, often along waterways, natural rivers, sluices and reservoirs. Contributing to the pollution and clogging of these flood-prone areas (Sagala et al., 2013). The government also lacks to maintain the cities drainage system, hereby the system is unable to channel floodwater during heavy rains fast enough to prevent the drainage system from floods. There is also a lack in the provision of piped water; this causes indirect floods since the lack of pipe water is driving people to drill wells to access groundwater. This extraction of groundwater is causing areas of Jakarta to sink and hereby enhance floods. (3) Although the economy of Jakarta has been described as booming, poverty and income gaps retain. Despite a growth of 6.5
percent of the economy of Indonesia in 2012, inequality increased (Hussain, 2013). This means that the group of people most vulnerable towards floods, the urban poor, is increasing.
Jakarta is often called ‘City of Kampungs’, it has been claimed that about 60 percent of the city population lives in those Kampung area (Spies, 2011). The Indonesian word Kampung means originally hamlet or village, but in the urban context it is often used to describe a densely populated neighbourhood not planned by the city administration. The Kampungs of Jakarta are often characterised by limited road access, insufficient water and sanitation, lacking drainage system and a high exposure towards flooding.
This chapter has discussed how global and regional trends are manifesting itself in Jakarta and how this influences the appearance of floods. In the next chapter, I will discuss the specific features of Jakarta and its inhabitants and how this influences their vulnerability towards floods.
23
Chapter 3: Vulnerability and coping strategies in Jakarta
This chapter is based on four extensive case studies that are focused on the vulnerabilities and the root causes regarding flooding in Jakarta. Marschiavelli et al. (2008) has made in her dissertation for the university of Yogyakarta a technocratic vulnerability assessment of the people in Kampung Meluya to trace down the factors that increase and decrease their vulnerability. Van Voorst (2013) wrote her dissertation for the University of Amsterdam about heterogeneous flood perception and coping strategies after twelve months of field research in Kampung Bantaran Kali. She gives insight into the heterogeneous ways in which riverbank settlers in Jakarta experience flood risk and the reasons lying behind this
heterogeneity. Texier (2008) has made a short geographic study giving insights on how poor and middle class households were affected, and coped with the severe flood in
2007.Wilhelm (2011) analyzed in his dissertation for the University of Passau the role of informality and social capital in adaptive capacity towards floods in two Kampungs in Tomang and Mangarri. Spies (2011) investigates in his master thesis why floods in Jakarta are perceived as normal and how people in two Kampungs in east- and west Jakarta handle floods.
While comparing these different works, I will rather focus on the similarities between them than the differences. Since they all have a different focus on a different area in Jakarta comparing these works will give me a comprehensive overview of the different
vulnerabilities and capacities of Kampung dwellers in Jakarta regarding floods. 3.1 How natural are floods in Jakarta?
To estimate the contribution of natural factors in comparison with anthropogenic factors in the increase in casualties, frequencies and affected area, Texier (2008) compared the
hydrological data between 1996, 2002 and 2007 and then analyzed the evolution of land use during the same period. Her results show that rainfall in 2007 was almost equal in terms of total amount, even if it was more concentrated in time than in 2002. However, differences in rainfall alone cannot explain the extent of the flooded area and casualties, nor the increase in floodwater level. These differences can be explained by anthropogenic factors. The uncontrolled growth of urban areas has waterproofed the surface and prevents water from infiltrating during floods, causing an increased direct runoff towards the 13 rivers in Jakarta. The upper classes of Jakarta have been building numerous villas and secondary residences upstream in the past 50 years while tea plantations have settled on the main slopes of volcanoes, causing a huge reduction of forested area. Downstream, uncontrolled urbanization can be explained by two processes. First, urban development has been
promoted by the governments since 1945 and has led to the construction of high buildings, waterproofing the downstream area. In the last decade, large shopping malls and residential housing have been replacing traditional neighborhoods and reducing vegetated areas. Second, urban housing policy created an incentive for the private sector to build new residences without enough governmental control, a housing crisis followed. Consequently, people got displaced out of their traditional Kampungs and migrants from rural areas got
24 forced to live in the remaining, and often marginalized, areas. The government sees these illegal settlements as the main cause of the increase in magnitudes of floods. This seems to be only one factor among others but the poor and illegal communities are also contributing to the flood problems by some specific behavior. Further on in this chapter I will elaborate furthermore on this specific behavior and the explanations behind them.
In their analysis of the major floods in 2002, Coljouw et al. behold that the floods
encouraged a lot of criticism regarding the government. The flood was considered as the results of decades of long mismanagement and corruption. But after a relative short time and the dry period came in again, a lot of the criticism was forgotten.
Poor and informal communities do have their share in causing the increase in flood magnitude, but they are also the main victims of these floods since they often live in most affected and vulnerably places (Texier, 2008). They expose themselves to floods by living near rivers. During the flood in 2007, a lot of people refused to evacuate, hundreds of fragile improvised houses built on the riverbank were washed away and thousands more were destroyed or heavily damaged. The harsh daily conditions these people have to cope with increase their vulnerability towards floods. The very high density of populations and the narrow road network tangles evacuation. Many houses did not have a second floor, as a result many people who did not evacuate had to climb onto their roofs for safety.
Furthermore, flood victims had to cope with poor hygienic conditions during the floods and during the rehabilitation, leading to outbreaks of dengue, leptospirosis and diarrhea. 3.2 Ratio behind behavior
To understand the root causes of the flood problems it is important to understand the decision-making processes and ratio behind such behavior. Four different casestudies in different Kampungs in Jakarta (Texier 2008, Van Voorst 2013, Wilhelm 2011, and
Marschiavelli 2008) show that knowledge and perception of risk related to floods among vulnerable communities are relatively high.
One of the key informants in the dissertation of Van Voorst, a kampong leader in Bantaran Kali, says:
It is clear to all inhabitants what we want them to do when a flood occurs. We have taught them over the past years that they should pack their goods and evacuate to the shelter immediately after a flood warning. They also now that they must stay together as a group, so that officials can count who is safe and who is not, and so that kampong leaders can offer help quickly. I repeat those two messages to the community time and time again. My residents can dream such safety-constructions! But while in theory all seems safe and organized here, in practice very few obey our safety advice. Many choose to ignore our warnings; some go and play hero; yet others lock themselves in the house. It doesn’t matter what you tell people or how often out warn them of the dangers of disobeying safety
25 instructions every time we have a flood, they all insist on handling it in their own way. There is no coherent action at all! (Van Voorst, 2013, pg. 9)
This shows us the heterogeneity in responses towards floods of kampong dwellers in Bantaran Kali. While disaster response knowledge is accurate, it is not central to disaster response handling. This is shown in previous named flood related case studies in Jakarta. The flood-management policies tried to implement in Banaran Kali by the bureaucrats, are largely homogenizing people’s responses while their responses are certainly not
homogeneous. It is often thought by policy makers that their policies are ineffective due to the ‘chaos’ and ‘anarchy’ that is said to be in the riverbank communities during flood events. A survey by Muhari et al. (2014) in three different flood affected areas in Jakarta shows us decision making processes behind evacuation. The decision to evacuate depends highly on the actual perceived risk (the actual flood height and its impact on the respondents house). The community based flood early warning system does not influence this decision. The system is perceived as ineffective since information is sometimes biased and the validity of the warning is distrusted by the people downstream. This means that people will not evacuate before the flood arrives, but after the flood inundated their neighborhood and damaged their houses, or after they felt that the flood height is dangerous for their safety. Surveys by Wilhelm and Marschiavelli et al. also show that people only evacuate and leave their homes if water levels rise so that they are cut off and trapped in their homes (Wilhelm, 2011: 111, Marschiavelli et al., 2008: 43). It seems controversial to only leave your house when you are ‘cut off and trapped in’, but when taking into account the ratio behind this handling it is a rather logic than dangerous action. Floods are often perceived as natural phenomena and due to their repeating occurrence they are part of the everyday uncertainty of living in a Kampung. To leave your house behind, with all personal and valuable
belongings, (only a few people have access to banks, they often save their money at home (Wilhelm 2011: 113)) is perceived as more dangerous than the impact of a flood. Therefore in some cases, one male member of the family stays at the house to guard the property against possible theft (Marschiavelli et al., 2008: 73). Research done by Spies (2011: 41) confirms that people usually do not evacuate if it is not entirely necessary. In his master thesis he writes that several interviewees indicated that as long as they have a place to sleep, they do not evacuate their house and continue their daily household activities such as cooking and washing, sometimes standing more than knee-deep in water.
While the causes of flooding are explained rationally by Kampung dwellers, people relate flood events to the wrong doing of politicians or blame the rich for urban transformation. On the other hand sees the government the presence of informal settlements and urban poor as the main cause for the increase in floods in Jakarta.
This mismatch in perception exists due to a mismatch in understanding. On governmental level the behavior of kampong dwellers is questioned since it often increases the probability of floods, while at the other hand kampong dwellers see their own behavior as entirely
26 rational taking into account the other risks they are facing. Still the behavior of flood victims seems contradictory towards their accurate perception of risks. But when looking for deeper and daily structural constraints, the causes of this behavior seem logical. These people have to face many more risks in daily life and floods are not considered as most important, but economic, social, and political risks are. According to the research of Texier (2008) 40 percent of the interviewees mentioned fires as the principal danger against 25 percent for floods. She acknowledges three components of risk that influence the actions and decisions of the people she surveyed. (1) The first component is economic. The monthly income rarely exceeds 40 euro per family, official figures point to a fifteen percent unemployment rate among the active population of Jakarta, but more than 35 percent of the employed people have temporary jobs. This rate is often much higher in informal districts. Furthermore, the means of production are often at home, where all belongings are. When leaving your home, those people take the risk of losing their means of production. This explains why almost 40 percent of the respondents stayed at home and rather faced the flood and its associated dangers, than risked losing everything they left at home. Furthermore, often they had no other choice than living in this area since it was cheaper than anywhere else. They chose the danger of floods rather than the dangers concerning their poverty daily life. (2) Secondly, the social and societal risks can explain why informal settlers aim to stay in this area. They do not want to move from their social environment, they want to keep their social place in the community and in their family. (3) Political components also increase the vulnerability of informal settlers since they often do not have the right to stay in this settlement since they do not own a Jakartanese ID. This leads to marginalization in terms of access to resources and public services. The access of the informal settlers to the official drinking water network is limited. Therefore people often make use of alternatives as buying water (expensive) or electric pumps. Electric pumps are relatively cheap but generate low quality water, in case of a flood the government cut electricity to prevent electrocution and all the pumps are out of order. People have no choice than to use the dirty flood water and expose themselves to water-borne diseases. Illegal inhabitants are also excluded from any official waste
management system. Throwing garbage into the water is therefore their most safe solution since garbage at other places may cause diseases. Despite the safe shelter people often still experience health problems related to floods: skin diseases, diarrhea, dengue, fever or influenza.
As Texier concludes, vulnerability of informal settlers is materialized by their behavior. Their decisions are rather related to social and economic processes than hazard related processes. Therefore policy makers and NGOs should rather have a holistic focus on vulnerability than a specific disaster related focus since the disaster related focus often does not capture
realities complexity.
Different researches in different parts of Jakarta show that floods are perceived as normal, and usual. As Spies (2011) notes floods are cited as: “usual”, “Routine” and “it is common here, not really causing problems”. Wilhelm (2008) finds similar perception, kampong
27 residents call flood Biasa which means normal, and not as a calamity. Fires, the loss of a job and health problems are often perceived as more risky. Obviously, the perception of risk largely depends on the specific living conditions as well as previous experiences.
After experiencing floods several times, people do not invest much money in household items that are susceptible to flooding. Apart from a TV, which every household owns, electronic devices are rare as well as upholstered furniture (Spies 2011: 40). Other major concerns regarding floods are the loss of important documents and the loss of income, although none of the interviewees of Spies reported serious problems resulting from income failure due to floods. This is probably thanks to emergency shelters, giving free food to the people and relieving them from their biggest household expenses.
Physical adaptations on houses are common. Most houses have heightened door sills and/or installed wooden boards in front of their door to keep out garbage and mud that comes along with flooding.
The extreme flood in February 2007 inundated about 40 percent of the city, killed up to 80 people and displaced between 200.000 and 400.000 people (Texier 2008:1, Wilhelm 2011). These numbers show us that a flood is creating a relatively small amount of casualties but is affecting a lot of people. This is probably since a flood is a slow onset disaster, it can be predicted early enough to give people a safe shelter. Early warning systems appear to function well. Flood warnings are mainly communicated hierarchically along the RW/RT-structures (which will be explained in the next chapter). Nevertheless, people living close to the rivers have to be alert permanently since most small or moderate floods occur without prior warning (Spies 2011: 42).
Concluding, floods are usually not perceived as a catastrophe but rather as normal events part of the everyday uncertainty of living in a Kampung. Although flood knowledge is accurate, behavior of the most affected often increases their own vulnerability. This
behavior can be explained by rational factors but creates a mismatch between perception of causes between government and Kampung dwellers. Kampung dwellers blame expansion of built-up areas upstream as a main cause of floods while the government blames the illegal informal settlements as the main cause. Now we know about the different factors and activities contributing to the vulnerability of the informal settlers of Jakarta, it is interesting to look at the role of informality in creating or decreasing vulnerability. In the next chapter I want to further elaborate on this and argue that informal settlements should not be seen as a cause for floods which should be removed from the city but rather as an integral part of the city landscape which could be improved to decrease the effects of a flood.
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Chapter 4: Informality
In this chapter, I will offer a theoretical approach towards informality and its role in urban studies. Further on in the chapter I will explain the role of informality in creating and decreasing the vulnerability of Kampung dwellers in Jakarta.
4.1 Theoretical approach of informality
As the second chapter has shown us, a slum is generally seen as a spatial representative where global dynamics as population growth, urbanization and disaster vulnerability concentrate. When looking closer at different slums worldwide one might see that the heterogeneity between those different slums is not captured in the term slum, therefore in different cities different names got attached to those areas. In Rio one speaks about the favela, in Istanbul about the gecekondu and in Jakarta about Kampungs. Although the concepts of slums and Kampungs have been contested due to their over-simplicity and inability to grasp realities heterogeneity it is beyond the scope of this research to take into account different reference units.
By the World Bank an area is considered as slum when at least one of the following aspects is represent: Inadequate access to safe water, Inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure, overcrowding (more than two people per room), poor structural quality of housing and/or insecurity of tenure (Peszko and Anjaparidze, 2006).
According to Berner and Korf slums appear due to a mismatch between the demand for low-income labour and the scarcity of land (Berner & Korf, 1995). Integration of cities into the global society is incomplete, it does not affect the total city but only social, economic and spatial parts of it. To satisfy the demands and needs of the global society a city needs both transnational corporations, especially banks and real estate corporations, and low paid labour. On one hand the land gets more valuable and scarce and on the other hand a lot of low paid informal jobs are on offer. These pull factors create an incentive for many people to move to the city but often in developing countries infrastructure is not sufficient or transport is too expensive to live out of the city. These processes create a need for cheap housing in the inner city and due to the inadequate reach of formal government informal, and often illegal, processes appear to fill up this need. The spatial representative of these informal processes is the slum.
Furthermore, it has been argued that the informal economy is primarily serving households instead of enterprises. This results in that people working in the informal economy prefer to live close to the middle and upper class, which are often in inner-city locations. At the same time, informal employment does not generate sufficient income to afford accommodation close to their place of work in the city centre. Relocation is not an option either because of high transportation costs and it is time consuming (Berner & Korf, 1995). As a response towards this scarcity in land and income solutions are found in informality. This means that slums are not an outcome of failed urban planning but an integral part of the city, just as skyscrapers and international business districts are.
29 This view of an informal economy which provides goods and services to the formal economy at comparatively low costs underlines the idea that both economies are closely interlinked and interdependent. The concept informal economy implies that the informal economy is opposed to the formal economy. There exists a tendency, among policy makers, academics, etc., to associate informal with unstructured and chaotic (Guha-Khasnobis et al. 2006). These tendencies are dangerous since they imply state policies to provide ‘structures’ where it was assumed that none structure existed before.
The concept of informality is difficult to use since it suggests a different way from the norm, one that is not acceptable in formal circles (UN Habitat 2003, p. 100). The slum is a particular good example of this, since informal economic activities and informal housing often do not fit in within the idea/vision of a modern city, these spheres became opposed by policies. The large scale kampong clearances in Jakarta are a good example of these opposing policies. Evection and clearance are major hazards that Kampung dwellers face.
The common perception of what a slum is does often not reflect the real situation on the ground. The label slum can stigmatize an area as it reinforces preconceptions and can induce negative policies and repressive action, such as for example slum clearance (UN Habitat, 2003).
Currently, the concept of informality is not only referring to the economic sector but also to the political and social sphere. I would argue that informality is rather seen as a sphere where people find creative, and often necessary solutions, in order to cope with everyday life challenges. Informality should be seen as a sphere filling up the gap between the reach of formality and the needs of reality. Especially in disaster response and adaptive capacities is informality creating vulnerabilities but also opportunities. In the following sub-chapters I will apply this approach on informality in the context of flood vulnerability in Jakarta.
4.2 Institutionalised informality: the RW\RT-system
Informal politics and social capital are very much institutionalised in Jakarta via the RW/RT-system. This system coordinates the local level in an informal but structured manner. This system is a very good example of how people find necessary solutions for everyday life challenges.
Nowadays the Jakarta provincial government is divided into five municipalities, 43 districts (kecamatran) and 265 sub-districts (Kelurahan). The Kelurahan is the lowest level of local government in the administrative hierarchy and is headed by a Lurah. The Lurah is chosen by the Governor of Jakarta, this level is still regulated and coordinated in a formal sphere. Each Kelurahan is normally sub-divided into plus minus 10 Rukun-Warga (also called RW or community association), and each RW consists of 10 till 15 Rukum Tetangga (RT or
neighbourhood association). One RT normally includes 20 to 50 households. The heads of RW and RT are elected by the community but this must be approved by the Lurah (Winayanti
30 and Lang. 2004). The RW/RT-system was introduced in the 1950’s to integrate the local level into the administrative system. The idea was to guarantee self-organisation and collective action via the RW/RT-system but it is not considered as the formal administrative structure. This means that activities arranged by the RW or RT headmen are accepted by the formal government but not coordinated and administrated by them, therefore the RW/RT system is still an informal way of arranging the needs of the local people where the formal
government cannot reach.
The three main functions of the RW/RT-system are: transmitting information from
government to community, transmitting information from community to government, and facilitation transactions between government and citizens. Consequently they have a dual role, on the one hand they represent to community towards the government, and on the other hand they coordinate the community or neighbourhood. In this way, the RW/RT-system is an organisation which enables the government to vertically integrate in an informal way into the neighbourhood and community level (Wilhelm 2011: 88). Via this RT system, activities to improve the area and create a sense of community are enabled. For example in most RT’s a weekly activity is organised to clean-up the neighbourhood and to clear the small canals from garbage in the Kampung, or to clean the public toilet
(Marschiavelli et al. 2008: 76).
However, the importance of the RW/RT-system should not be generalized. The capacity to organize and regulate a community within this structure mainly depends on the capacity of community leaders. Consequently, the system is highly personalised and its success differs in every situation.
The system encourages strong cohesion within one RT but Kampung dwellers often do not know the people living in the next RT or in other neighbourhoods in the RW (Wilhelm 2011: 76). This strong connection within neighbourhoods is further encouraged by the dense settlement structure. Everything is seen and heard by the neighbours and people are forced to socially interact. Due to the lack of public space social interaction happens in the streets or in front of houses. Moreover, family members or people from the same home region tend to settle in the same neighbourhood (Wilhelm 2011: 91).
4.3 Informal land market
The form of self-organization enabled by the RT\RW-system is also reaching into fields that require collective solutions, such as insecure tenure. Yet, Kampung dwellers do not have legal rights to the land and their settlements, they are considered as illegal squatters. But unregistered does not imply unregulated! Usually, land is transferred based on contracts signed by the respective RW and RT headmen, informal land markets are thus highly institutionalised and regulated. Although the local level is officially represented to the municipal administration, the informal contracts are not acknowledged by the municipal
31 government. Thus the RW/RT-system is able to regulate the informal us of space.
Consequently, land clearance is a severe hazard for Kampung dwellers (Wilhelm 2011:114). As Wilhelm observed in two Kampungs, community leaders advice people to pay land taxes in order to receive official documents. These official documents, with a name and address on it, make people hope that the government acknowledges their Kampung. However these strategies have to be questioned since in several cases Kampung dwellers followed the same strategy but their settlements have been cleared anyway. Since insecure tenure is a hazard shared by all home owners of the Kampung and requires collective action, it has been suggested that it attributes to social cohesion and a sense of community. This social capital decreases the vulnerability of the people towards floods since they cooperate more.
Insecure tenure creates an incentive for people to not invest in flood prone adaptation on their house. Inexpensive adaptations as heightened door sills and/or wooden boards in front of the door are common but the more expensive adaptations are not applied since one does not know how long they can stay in the house and it is not their own property.
Although many urban poor households are located along flood prone areas, I want to argue that these locations are not only generating vulnerability but also possibilities. People settle in this area due to the possibilities the proximity of the community’s livelihood and
economic activity gives them. Some of them stay because they do not have a choice
(Marschiavelli, 2008). The Kampung allows people to live within the broader inner-city area, which means proximity towards economic activity and low or non-transportation costs, on a minimum wage. As I argued in the beginning of this chapter, slums and informal settlements should be seen as an inherent part of the city since they are part of the success of the city. Global developments demand cheap labour and consequently cheap housing in a city. Slums and informal settlements are the necessary results whereby informality fills in the gaps where formality cannot reach. However, these positive aspects should not hide that securing the economic basis is seen as the biggest challenge by many Kampung dwellers.
4.3 Informal economy
Several respondents in Bidara Cina and Kedaung Kaliangke working in rather informal jobs, such as selling food or occasionally fixing computers, stated that losing the job is not much of a problem since they can always find a new one. Generally people gaining their income from informal sources perceive the loss of a job or not getting paid work as a smaller problem than those that are having a regular job. “As long as we stay healthy we can work” says a woman (small home-based shop owner and married to an ojek driver) in Bidara Cina. It seems that if people are flexible, the city provides sufficient opportunities to make a living. However, people regularly have to cope with temporary income gaps, since income
opportunities are seldom secure (Spies 2011: 49). On the other hand, most people indicated that the loss of income is the most important impact of floods. It could be said that people working in the informal economy are more afraid of losing income while people working in
32 the formal economy are more afraid of losing their job. Within the Kampung not everyone is working within informality, an increasing amount of people is working in the low-paid down side of the formal economy.
Therefore we can say that working in the informal economy creates vulnerability since people can easily lose their job, but on the other hand it also creates resilience. People are used to the need of being flexible and can in case of a job loss more easily switch to another job. Although this field has not been researched so far, I want to argue that uncertainty and interruptions of daily life can also create opportunities. For example it has been noted that in Jakarta during a flood it is always possible for someone to bring you dry over the water to the other side of the street. Handbarrows, rafts, heightened bicycle taxis and everything that stays above the water. And of course, the higher the water, the higher the price! (De
Volkskrant, 2014) Grassroots activities like these are happening in Jakarta but it would be very interesting to find out how processes like these develop and how severe their positive externalities are.
This chapter has shown us that informality is creating vulnerabilities but also possibilities. Due to the absence of influence of a formal administrative government, people need to cooperate to get things done. The RW/RT-system is a very well institutionalized system that tries to address the needs of the Kampung dwellers. I want to argue that due to the lack of formal influence and the institutionalized RW/RT-system people know and need each other, they need to cooperate to achieve their goals. Often those goals, as for example secure tenure, are not achieved but the trying already creates a sense of community and social capital.
