Unraveling the Most Influential Determinants of Residential Segregation in Jakarta: A Spatial Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation Approach

Abstract

This study involves the analysis of the residential segregation patterns in Jakarta, Indonesia, one of the largest global metropolitan cities. Our objective is to determine whether similarities in religion or socioeconomic status are more dominant in shaping residential segregation patterns in Jakarta. To do so, we extended Schelling’s segregation agent-based model incorporating the random discrete utility choice approach to simulate the relocation decisions of the inhabitants. Utilizing actual census data from the 2010–2013 time period and the Jakarta GIS map, we simulated the relocation movements of the inhabitants at the subdistrict level. We set the inhabitants’ socioeconomic and religious similarities as the independent variables and the housing constraints as the moderating variable. The segregation parameters of the inhabitants (i.e., dissimilarity and Simpson indexes) and the spatial patterns of residential segregation (i.e., Moran index and segregation maps) were set as the dependent variables. Additionally, we further validated the simulation outcomes for various scenarios and contrasted them with their actual empirical values. This study concludes that religious similarity is more dominant than socioeconomic status similarity in shaping residential segregation patterns in Jakarta.