When approaching for landing, Jakarta's biggest problem is already from the air
to recognize.
As the sea eats into the city's coastal neighborhoods, piece by piece of land sinks under the water.
You can even see the great wall that was rammed into the ground off the coast to keep the water out, as a protection against the tides.
Officially, ten million people live here in Jakarta, on the island of Java.
If you include the outer districts, the population is 20 to 30 million.
But this place that so many call home, the capital of Indonesia, the headquarters of a country of tens of thousands of islands and a population of 270 million, is struggling to survive.
Too many people, too much traffic, garbage, air pollution - coupled with the consequences of the climate crisis: rising sea levels, unpredictable rain.
North Jakarta
On an early Monday morning
in October, deep-sea fishermen return to the large industrial port north of the city after six months at sea.
The men get out of boats painted red and blue, wearing rubber boots and gloves, cigarettes in their mouths, and unload frozen tuna, barracuda, blue marlin, marlin.
Jakarta is a city where people have always lived with and from water, from fishing, selling dried mackerel, working in shipyards.
However, the Indonesian government understood too late that the water has long since not only ensured survival, but also poses a serious threat to the city.
Jakarta is located in a delta, its topography is flat, 40 percent is below sea level.
The city has grown significantly in recent decades, twice as many people live there as in 1975 - the infrastructure has not kept pace: drinking water and sewage systems do not reach the majority of the people, the majority do not have running water, so they pump groundwater away.
The result: the ground, muddy and soft, sinks by ten to fifteen centimeters a year.
At the same time, sea levels are rising due to climate change.
There are projections that by 2050, 95 percent of North Jakarta could be below sea level.
The city, like other megacities in Southeast Asia, Bangkok, Singapore, Manila, Saigon, is one of the fastest sinking cities in the world.
The kilometer-long concrete flood wall has been in place for several years and has already been raised three times.
Dams, large pumps, retention basins are being built.
But they can't be more than temporary.
In this story, we visit those most affected by the flooding and transformation of the megacity Jakarta.
We also meet those who can no longer hear the predictions of their city's demise.
Who went in search of solutions.
Those who want to see the devastation caused by the water can go to Muara Baru, one of the oldest parts of the city, located to the north.
The soil there gives way by up to 20 centimeters per year.
You can see this with the naked eye when you walk through the streets and alleys.
Older houses are now often more than a meter lower than the newer buildings, stairs lead down to get to the front doors: what used to be the ground floor has slid down into the earth, at basement level.
Every year when it rains, there is up to two meters of water in the apartments here, just recently, at the beginning of November.
Many people therefore store their refrigerators and electronic devices higher up, on stools, boards, or tables.
Jakarta is criss-crossed by more than 15 rivers and canals.
The huts of the poorer population stand directly on the rivers;
when the river swells, their settlements are the first to deal with the floods.
Irma, 65, lives in the Poncol district with her daughter Ita, 36. Irma bought land directly on the Krukut River 15 years ago.
She knew then that there would be a risk of flooding.
"But I couldn't afford anything else." The neighborhood of alleyways, trash on the trails where monitor lizards and cats fight over leftovers, is directly across the river from the expensive Marriott Hotel.
Augustine's feeling is not deceptive: Jakarta's waters are polluted with faeces and garbage, everything is discharged into the water.
Fishermen say they used to go out to shore in their small boats and come back with 20 kilos of catch every day.
That they only catch three kilos today if things go well.
And the problems don't stop with the water: the city is growing and growing and growing, traffic is increasing, around half of the population commutes to work downtown every day.
Many spend three or four hours a day in the car;
they get up in the middle of the night to get to the office on time despite traffic jams.
Local public transport is being expanded, but the network is still so patchy that most people cannot do without their car.
This is reflected in the air quality in the city.
Last June, Jakarta was ranked as the most polluted city in the world.
Pollution levels that cause asthma and skin diseases were 27 times above World Health Organization limits in June.
In a landmark ruling last year, a Jakarta court ruled that the government denied its citizens the right to clean air.
At what point is a city no longer worth living in?
When do you have to leave?
Sidik Purnomo says: "The burden on everyone who lives in Jakarta is high." Purnomo is a spokesman for the New Capital Authority, the agency responsible for implementing a crazy project: the construction of a new capital.
Enlarge image
Sidik Purnomo is promoting the new capital that Indonesia wants to build by 2024: Nusantara on the neighboring island of Borneo
Photo: Muhammad Fadli / DER SPIEGEL
Plans for the project have been in the drawers for decades, and current President Joko Widodo has tackled it.
The city is said to be called Nusantara, has 1.5 million inhabitants and is located on the neighboring island of Borneo, where, unlike Jakarta, there are no earthquakes and no floods.
Agricultural forest is currently being cleared with large machines, the construction work is lagging behind schedule, but Widodo has announced that the government is to move in 2024, when the center of the city is supposed to be finished.
In a café in Jakarta, Purnomo talks about renewable energies, especially solar and wind technology, from which future electricity in Nusantara is to be obtained.
Of sustainability, of green parks.
That everything in the city should be accessible in ten minutes by public transport.
It sounds like redemption from Moloch Jakarta.
Critics say: In order to stomp the city out of the ground, nature has to give way.
The government has difficulties with financing, especially now, in times of crises and currency collapse;
that President Widodo wants to erect a monument
.
"Such a new capital does nothing for the current capital," says Elisa Sutanudjaja.
She is an architect in Jakarta and criticizes that the project is elitist, most of Jakarta's citizens would not move to the new city.
“They stay in this place.
The government should spend money on them.« Initially, only about 200,000 people are supposed to move to Nusantara.
If you assume 20 million citizens in the old capital, that would be just one percent of Jakarta's inhabitants.
Sutanudjaja is one of those who don't want to give up their hometown.
She says: "We have to find creative solutions and adapt to the new realities." Adapt, again.
If you want to save the city, Sutanudjaja thinks, you have to start with those who are most exposed to the disasters.
»These are the poor in the city.« The architect proves how this can work with a house project.
In 2016, the Akuarium neighborhood in northern Jakarta was evicted by the authorities, evicting residents to the outskirts of the city where they were offered public housing.
The old district was too badly affected by the floods, so the reasoning;
built the huts illegally.
But for people who've lived in one-story little houses all their lives, the architect explains, people who are used to a strong community structure, in the middle of the city, find it hard to reconcile high-rise gated apartments with no places to meet.
The architect protested against the evictions with the residents in front of the presidential palace.
Presented a counter-proposal: Together with those affected, she planned blocks of flats, each with four floors, a total of 241 apartments.
Namely at the point from where the people had been expelled - in their old quarters.
“Yes, we ended up building high-rise apartments too.
But the difference was that we sat down with the residents.
Explained to them that their huts will not be a good place to live in the future due to the floods,” says Sutanudjaja.
In order to describe climate change to people and what it has to do with their lives, you have to use language that people understand.
Because very few are aware of why the water is rising more and more frequently.
The houses are built to withstand the floods, the dwellings are all above the flood levels.
And they are organized collectively, based on life in the old quarter.
There are wide corridors where people can meet.
One set up a kiosk in front of his apartment.
Two mothers are sitting in front of their apartments with their children.
On the ground floor there is a laundry for all residents, meeting rooms, a library.
The construction costs were around four million US dollars, financed by a fund from real estate companies and foundations.
Everyone in the house takes care of the cleaning service together.
Elisa Sutanudjaja calls it the »vertical village«.
The residents are organized in a cooperative.
They pay a small rent, the equivalent of ten euros a month, part of which is set aside to repair future flood damage to the buildings.
“Politicians have to understand that they cannot make decisions over people's heads.
Simply shipping people somewhere else against their will, that can't work," says Sutanudjaja.
»Jakarta, the districts, the quarters, everything is their city.
You are at home here.«
If you ask Elisa Sutanudjaja if that is possible: a future for Jakarta, her voice gets loud.
“The people of Jakarta aren't victims.
They are resilient, versatile, they learn.«
And then she says something else.
Namely that what works in the house project on a small scale is also possible in Jakarta and on a large scale
be.
Also in other places in the world.
Talking plainly to people about what will happen to them as a result of the climate crisis.
Involve them: what do we make of it?
What can we prevent?
And where do we have to react?
And then: get started together.
This contribution is part of the Global Society project
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