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A Symbol of Economic Disparity
January 15, 2010
Diaz Hendropriyono
Washington, DC
Dubai recently unveiled the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, which stands 828 meters high, more than twice the height of New York’s Empire State building. History shows mankind has tried to build tall structures ever since the fabled Tower of Babel in the city of Babylon. In modern times, most of the early skyscrapers sprang up in New York and Chicago, including the Chrysler Building, the Empire State and the Sears Tower. As the 20th century drew to a close, other countries began to follow suit.
Malaysia built the Petronas Twin Towers, the world’s tallest in 1998. China has built many skyscrapers since the 1990s. Hong Kong has constructed at least five super-tall buildings in the past decade. South Korea is now building the country’s tallest building in Incheon.
Meanwhile, the Menara Jakarta, as one of the country’s several planned megaprojects — along with the Surabaya Sports Center, a nuclear reactor in Central Java, the Sunda Strait suspension bridge and the Center Point of Indonesia in Makassar — will begin construction in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, this year and is expected to be completed by 2012. Initially planned during the Soeharto era to be the world’s tallest structure, it was stalled due to the 1997/1998 financial crisis. The tower will stand 558 meters high. Thus it’ll be more than four times the height of the National Monument, or Monas. Surpassing in height the Eiffel Tower and the destroyed World Trade Center in New York, it will be taller than any other fully constructed building in the world at this time, save the Burj Khalifa. It will also be the tallest tower in the world, superseding Canada’s CN Tower and Malaysia’s KL Tower.
Obviously countries around the world race to build these sky-high structures for more than just functional reasons. For instance, built in the midst of the Great Depression, the Empire State lifted the spirits of Americans and symbolized humanity’s attempt to reach the impossible at the beginning of the century. The Burj Khalifa was inaugurated to show Dubai’s perseverance after the city-state’s financial troubles became international news, when it failed to pay off its debts a few months ago and was forced to seek help from the neighboring emirate of Abu Dhabi.
However, most importantly they are built to symbolize the country’s economic power and wealth.
The Menara Jakarta will definitely put our city among other popular cities with super-tall landmarks, such as Shanghai, Taipei, New York, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, and will be a proud icon of our country. If finished, it will be a vertical triumph for Indonesia. Yet whether the Menara Jakarta will generate such prestige is a matter that deserves closer analysis.
Countries with skyscrapers are all considered economically advanced. Likewise, Indonesia’s economic statistics are quite comforting. Our country’s unemployment rate has dropped from 12.5 percent in 2007 to 7.87 percent in August last year. The inflation rate is at its lowest level in a decade, at 2.78 percent. Indonesia is the largest economy in Southeast Asia and enjoyed an annual growth of 4.3 percent last year, and is expected to expand by 5.5 percent this year. With more than US$65 billion in foreign currency reserves, Indonesia is able to maintain the exchange rate of our currency against the US dollar at a level 15 percent higher than in 2008.
Unfortunately, poverty rate is still hovering at 14 percent, among the highest in Asia. What is more disappointing is that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Indeed, the ILO reported in 2008 that there had been an increase in income inequality between top executives and average employees in Indonesia for the past decade. Specifically, the country’s Gini Coefficient, which measures income inequality, rose from 0.311 in 1999 to 0.368 in 2008.
This should be a concern as we seek to build the Rp 5 trillion (US$544.5 million) Menara Jakarta. We surely do not want to create social jealousy, nor do we want to go up on the top of the tower and look out of the window only to see people living in slums around the luxurious high-rise. Even worse, we do not want the super-tall tower to end up representing the wide gap between rich and poor in Indonesia, rather than the strength of our overall economy.
The construction of the tower and the other mega projects will definitely enhance our country’s reputation on the world stage. However, as we seek out this vertical triumph, we should not forget to aim for a horizontal triumph too. First, there should be an increased focus on resolving the country’s slum problem, particularly in Jakarta. The city’s development board states that 70 percent of homes in Jakarta are self-built, and about half are slums. Second, we should also pay attention to the welfare of other Indonesians, particularly the 379,000 Jakartans who earn less than a dollar a day, as well as the other 32 million across the country living in poverty and the 76 million considered poor nationwide.
In short, vertical and horizontal developments must always go hand in hand. In this way, the Menara Jakarta and other future mega projects will appropriately represent our economic power, instead of become a symbol of economic disparity.
The writer is the founder of the Youth Initiative for Indonesian Democracy and Development (YIDD) and a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech
Taken From: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/01/15/a-symbol-economic-disparity.html
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