Wednesday 9 October 2013

Greater Jakarta

Learn about the population and suburbs that made the metropolitan capital spread to all directions.
 


As Jakarta’s population grew by leaps and bounds, new suburbs emerged, absorbing the one-time rural villages or kampungs. The metropolitan capital spread to all directions, first adding the Kebayoran area, then Pondok Indah, in the South, but now growing east, north, further south and west until today, Jakarta has become one almost seamlessly with the adjoining towns of Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi.
Fortunately, town planning has been such that each district is self contained where facilities like hospitals, schools, universities, shopping centers, religious buildings are all available within one neighborhood.
Yet the main problem remains since the thousands of offices in high rise buildings are still centralized so that millions of commuters who travel at peak hours in the morning and in the evening cause daily traffic snarls that are almost impossible to overcome, even with the construction of wide toll roads, overhead roads and traffic tunnels.