Building the Road for the BMW: Culture, Vision, and the Extended Metropolitan Region of Jakarta

Abstract

Recent writings on Asian urbanization have stressed how the continuing outward expansion of the largest metropolitan regions has been eroding the long-standing distinction between rural and urban, particularly in terms of land use and economic structure. In this paper I examine the cultural implications of this phenomenon by looking at recent changes in the extended metropolitan region of Jakarta, Indonesia. Over the course of the 1980s, urbanization trends in Jakarta's periphery have resulted in a greatly expanded interface between urban and rural components of Indonesian society. Although this has created the opportunity for much broader popular participation in the urban economy, it may also be fostering a new perception within Indonesian society—that the primary social dichotomy lies not between the city and the countryside but between socioeconomic classes.