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Jakarta’s environment is already weighed down by the burden created by development missteps, and there is no more room for development errors, according to Governor Fauzi Bowo.

In a keynote speech delivered at the opening of the Sustainable Jakarta Convention 2009, Fauzi said he was well aware that this metropolis of some 12 million people continued to face a multitude of woes that could only get worse if left unaddressed. But several clusters of problems — financing, the lack of supporting regulatory frameworks and weak capacity building — were hindering efforts to remedy the situation, he said.

“I know that many people might feel disappointed in me because in the two years of my term not much progress has been made,” he said. “There’s a long way to go ... This is not a simple problem but difficulties won’t stop our efforts in making Jakarta a better and more livable city.”

The three-day convention gathers local and international urban development experts to map out a sustainable development path for megacities such as Jakarta.

Eamon Ginley, president director of Holcim Indonesia, which co-organized the convention with the Jakarta Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that the number of the world’s mega cities was rising fast.

“For the first time in human history, over half of the world’s population live in urban areas,” he said, adding that the need for sustainable growth of cities “has never been so important.”

The rapid pace of change meant that there was an urgent need to come up with sustainable urban environments and buildings, Ginley said.

Former Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Dorodjatun Kuntjoro Jakti told the convention that unchecked urbanization wasn’t just a problem in Jakarta. “Java is already emerging as an island of cities,” he said.

Dorodjatun said it was yet not too late for large cities such as Jakarta to move toward urban sustainability, but the city’s development planning should no longer be based on the “road” model, where spatial planning hinges on cars and road networks, but should rather focus on social and environmental aspects.

Enrique Penalosa, a former mayor of Bogota, who has been credited, along with his predecessor Antonas Mockus, with transforming the Colombian capital from one of the most chaotic cities in the world into a model of urban development and transportation, said that he believed urban sustainability begins with social sustainability. This, he said, implied that everyone was equal in the eyes of the law, and that public good came before private interests.

In his speech, Penalosa defined a good city not as one with modern buildings and wide highways, but one which was tailored to the needs of people.

“One where people want to be out of their homes, and which is good for children, for the elderly, for the poor, for the most vulnerable citizens,” he said.

Penalosa said that when shopping malls became a substitute for walkways for people to watch other people, chat and socialize, “then the city is sick.”

Sustainable cities are open and inclusive, with equitable access to mobility and availability of public spaces to improve the quality of life for all, he said.

Bogota, Penalosa said, put people as a priority and cars in second place, and now the city boasted an efficient mass public transport system using buses and dedicated bus lanes and an extensive network of smooth bicycle and pedestrian lanes as well as plenty of open spaces.

“Transport is a peculiar problem. It gets worse as societies get richer,” he said, adding that developing cities based on roads and cars have now been gradually abandoned in many advanced countries.

To deal with transportation woes, cities, including Jakarta, should restrict private car use and favor buses, a cheap and effective mass transport mode, he said.

But Jakarta’s attempt at following Bogota’s steps in building a bus lane network, has met with problems, said DA Rini, the head of TransJakarta, the operator of the busway transportation system.

She cited the company’s status as a public service firm, which prevented it from seeking wider funding sources, and the lack of integrated planning with other modes of public transportation.

“At the beginning there should be a blueprint of how the transportation system would work as a whole. So they should plan the whole system and not treat it as single projects,” Rini said. “Other local governments and other mass transportation planners should learn from our experience.”

Former Environment Minister Emil Salim said Jakarta should have its function redefined, with its main function as a seat of government kept and developed, while its other functions as a center of trade, commerce and industry should be moved elsewhere.

The chairman of the Jakarta chapter of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Eddy Kuntadi, expressed hope that the convention would be able to come up “with concepts of Jakarta as a megacity that could become the legacy we can present to future generations.”

Today, the convention will feature several speakers discussing practical innovations and opportunities toward a green and sustainable urban environment.