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“Jakarta has many problems,” said my friend Hannah Beech, The Times’ senior correspondent for Asia, “but the most existential is that it is drowning in some places for a year.”
Climate change is part of the reason: The Java Sea — which surrounds Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital — is rising. But the bigger factor is that the people of Jakarta, eager to have access to clean water, have dug thousands of illegal wells that have effectively reduced the swamps below the city. Today, 40 percent of Jakarta lies below sea level, and flooding is common.
Encroaching seas pose a threat to one of the world’s most densely populated cities, where 10 million people live in an area roughly half the size of New York City, and another 20 million live in the surrounding area. To deal with this threat, Indonesia’s popular president – Joko Widodo, in his ninth year in office – has devised a brilliant solution: He moved the country’s capital.
The new capital that is currently being built is called Nusantara. It was built from the ground up, about 800 miles from the current capital. Joko promised that the city will become a model of environmental planning, carbon neutral in a few decades.
Unlike Jakarta, which is located in Java, a region that has dominated the country’s politics and economy for a long time, Nusantara is located in Kalimantan, whose citizens have felt neglected. “Indonesia is more than Jakarta,” Joko told Hannah during a visit to the archipelago. “Indonesia is more than Java. So it is necessary to make the capital in a distant place.”
But it remains unclear whether his grand plan will succeed. Joko wants the new capital to open next year, before his second – and, by law, final – term as president ends. Not all potential successors support the plan. And it seems to be behind schedule: No residential tower has been built, and the lead architect is worried that the fast construction schedule may compromise safety.
“People want Nusantara to succeed because it means a developing country – despite all the problems caused by the legacy of imperialism, the legacy of colonialism – if the country can succeed on its own terms and can succeed. democracy and can create its own vision for itself,” said Hannah. “But that’s a very difficult thing to do.”
Read her story and see accompanying photos and videos.
New products: Today, we’re launching an iOS app for audio journalism and storytelling where you can find Hannah’s story and more. Times news subscribers can download the new Audio app.
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