Less Life Space, More Economic Space

Jakarta's new spatial planning blueprint will provide more "prospective economic areas" and less green and open space. The blueprint has attracted criticisms from independent urban planning experts.

Already losing its citizens to the suburbs, Jakarta still needs to learn that life in the city is not all about economic activities. Even if we put the economy high up on the priority scale, such activities depend on opportunities for recreation. Furthermore, much of Jakarta's economy depends on the informal sector: the low-income folks who privide lunch for the city's middle class everyday. These people and activities need space in order to play the important role of supporting the city's economy.

Bianpoen said, "The city plan lacks social justice as it continuously evicts the poor to make way for the rich elite." I'd say, the government lacks vision as evicting the poor will eventually mean suicide for the rich elite.

PS: The title is inspired from John Friedmann's book, Life Space and Economic Space. I'll write more about the urban planning guru later.

technorati tags: urban, regionalism, development

"Trade on Human Terms"

UNDP admits that "free trade will not embrace the poor unless countries pursue a bold new policy agenda harnessing economic growth to
promote human development."

To deal with this issue, eight recommendations are then given:
1. Invest in competitiveness
2. Adopt strategic trade policies
3. Restore a focus on agriculture
4. Combat jobless growth
5. Prepare a new tax regime
6. Maintain Stable Exchange Rates
7. Persist with Multi-lateralism
8. Cooperate with Neighbors.

The UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Human Development Report 2006 is titled "Trade on Human Terms" and can be downloaded from here.

technorati tags: development, political-economy, trade

Philippine community radio burnt down

AMARC deplores the burning down of Community Radio Station dwRC 90.1 FM Radyo Cagayano in the Philippines

Kathmandu, July 6, 2006 The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) condemns the burning down of Radio Cagayano dwRC 90.1 FM in the Cagayan province of the Philippines. Speaking at a press conference in Quezon City, Ms. Bianca Miglioretto, Vice President of the Women’s International Network and Board Member AMARC Asia Pacific expressed grave concern over the incident. “Community radio is one way of giving a voice to the voiceless. If this voice is taken away by burning the people’s community radio station, it is a grave violation of their right to communicate,” she said. “We will start a campaign of protest to pressure the Philippine government to give justice to the people of Radyo Cagayano,” she added.

On July 2, 2006 about 2 o’clock in the morning eight men wearing ski-masks and armed burnt down the radio station using gasoline (petrol) in big bottled water containers which they poured over the equipment and the structure before setting it afire. The arsonists, some of them wearing combat boots, military type fatigues and divers’ watch often used by the Philippine military were also armed with M-16 armalite assault rifles and 45 caliber handguns. They used ropes to hogtie the victims and articles of clothing to gag them. The radio station employees suspect the perpetrators to be members of the 17th Infantry Battalion of the 5th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army. The 17th IB is headquartered near the incident site with the 5th ID is station at Gamu, Isabela Province.

The building was totally razed to the ground, including all the pieces of equipment therein. The black draft created by the flames also severely injured Joy Marcos, a staff of the station, on his face, and Arlyn Arella and Armalyn Baddua, also staffs of the station, on their feet and legs. Another staff Richard Ayudad was bruised on his neck where the perpetrators poked it with a handgun. The arsonists also took all of their mobile phone units.

The incidents of attack over free media in the Philippines have grown dramatically over the past few years, especially since Gloria Macapagal Arroyo became President in February 2001. Since then 42 journalists have been murdered, which amounts to 80 the number of journalists killed after the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos (1986). AMARC calls upon the President and the Government of the Philippines to put an end over the oppression of freedom of expression in that country with immediate effect. AMARC also calls upon the government of the Philippines to reimburse the losses suffered by Radio Cagayano due to the attack and bring to justice the arsonists.

For more information, please go to www.asiapacific.amarc.org or contact: Suman Basnet, Regional Coordinator AMARC Asia Pacific, Kathmandu, Nepal. Email: suman@wlink.com.np

technorati tags: ICT-for-development, political-economy

On the lookout for "Second Cities"

Newsweek International Edition has a special report on the world's most recent urban trends, titled the World's 10 Hottest Cities. The report puts the current buzz of "more than half of the world's population live in urban areas" into more solid & balanced context .

The report's introduction, Unlikely Boomtowns, argues that the biggest waves of people will no longer be moving towards the world's biggest cities (New York, Tokyo, Mexico City, etc), but to "second cities." It is THESE dynamic "second cities" which will be "hot" in the coming years: Fukuoka, Toulouse, Ghaziabad, Nanchang, etc. So be on the lookout for them.

Another interesting article says that even birds, animals, and plants are moving into cities! With the current rate of deforestation, pesticide usage, and monoculture, more squirrels are to be found per kilometer square in urban areas than in rural areas.

In another article, Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class, reminds us that it's not cities, nor nations, that are growing, but rather urban corridors - or regions.

The special report features a score of other interesting articles.

technorati tags: cities, urban, regionalism, geography

Less race, more class (a 4th of July post)

Marcellus Andrews says that African Americans' economic plight is less caused by racism, and more by modern-capitalism. And in capitalism, "poor men of all colors and conditions are economically disposable."

For Andrews, Blacks face a tough condition because:

the end of the American segregation system a half century ago put black people onto the blue-collar road to the middle class just when the on-ramp shut down. In the mid-1970s, the country de-industrialized. American companies off-shored steel, stopped building ships and, gradually, autos too.

OK, this is a bit exaggerating. But the point is: at that time there was not as much need for cheap, unskilled labor as before. The whites have already passed through the blue-collar road and became the middle class. The blacks are left in the hole.

Children from modest circumstance faced either low-wage work or no work at all. Just look at the fate of poorly educated immigrants today. Their influx is simply changing the color of surplus males from black to brown. The sad fact remains that America doesn't seen to care about giving these people the tools and fighting chance to help themselves.

Happy 4th of July, United States of America!

Ode to Times Square and people's right to the city

Marshall Berman, a Marxist-humanist and urbanism professor, has a new book that celebrates One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Times Square. Dissent has a good essay which is excerpted and adapted from the book here.

The essay, while entertaining and insightful, is quite long. What interests me most is the last part (scroll down to the section titled Epilogue: Reuters and Me), where Berman got thrown off the sidewalk in front of the Reuters building in Times Square, probably because he didn't look appropriate. Here're some of his thoughts:

What has made Times Square special for a century is that, to a remarkable extent, it really did belong to everybody. It enveloped the whole world in its spectacle of bright lights; it gave everybody a thrill; it was a trip where the whole world could cruise. ... the people look great, the lights look great; so I let it be, until the day one of these global corporations touched me, and told me I wasn’t allowed to stand on the street on Forty-Second Street and Broadway.

Where did these guys get the idea that they own the street? How many more of the Square’s new corporate giants share this belief? And how did they get it? ...

As I close, there are two big ideas to sign. The first big idea, which goes back to the start of the Enlightenment, is that the right to the city is a basic human right. The second, flowing from the first, is the right to be part of the city spectacle. This spectacle is as old, and as modern, as the city itself.

Pic of Reuters building in Times Square was taken from davetravel.scripting.com

Happiness, part 3 (now sex is in the picture!)

Apparently happiness is a hot topic these days!

Today's LA Times says that increasing sex from once a month, to once a week, is equivalent to $50,000 annual salary increase.

(tip via IM discussion with my shinyuu, Yoh)

technorati tags: happiness, development, poverty

What's with our hype about Arabian tourists?

Indonesia is expecting a two-fold increase of Arabian tourists. Why? I'm not so sure. But one thing certain: this hype has attracted our Vice President to make a "sensitive" remark about Indonesia's informal sex industry, although he clarified it here.

A couple of months back, an UGM economics professor delived a speech in Jakarta about how to lure Arabian tourists into the country. Although the rationale given by the organizer seemed pretty clear: Indonesia is a "Muslim" country, and there are a lot of "Islamic" historic sites which should be interesting for muslim tourists, such as Sunan Kalijaga's tomb and what not, the professor is not convinced.

In the airport, where we met, he said:
1) "To Arabs, Indonesians are their domestics, their housekeepers. I, for one, would not be interested in visiting my housekeeper's village out in the countryside..."
2) "What's more interesting for many Arabian tourists is the sex and gambling industry, and Indonesia is not very attractive in that sense."

Sex and gambling seem to be more interesting to many tourists than religious sites. And it seems that our VP understands this pretty well. However, being "Indonesian", he'll have to be more careful about remarks he makes in public.

Another cash-handout unrest

Late last week, due to unfair distribution of "living cost," hundreds of people in post-earthquake Jogja area raged and damaged a kecamatan office in Sleman.

It seems to me that our government REFUSES to learn. They keep using the seemingly politically-smart cash hand-out strategy (which since the late 1990s have taken several names, ranging from Jaring Pengaman Sosial, Bantuan Langsung Tunai, "Jatah Hidup", and now "Living Cost"), but always bumping into social unrest.

Education as scam

Roem Topatimasang said that school is opium (Sekolah itu Candu). John Taylor Gatto, however, brings it up a notch by arguing that the whole US education system is a scam, "designed to keep us uneducated and docile," and "remains unchanged to this day."

Here are some quotes from those who designed such system in the late 19800s and early 1900s:

We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes. (The Senate Committee on Education, 1888)

Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. (John Dewey, 1897)

[schools should be factories]... "in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products...manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry." (Elwood Cubberly—the future Dean of Education at Stanford, 1905)

In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands... (Rockefeller Education Board—which funded the creation of numerous public schools, 1906).

The book is freely downloadable from here.