As I walked through Khao San Road in Bangkok for the first time, I was mesmerized by the hustle bustle, lively ambience of the street: highly energetic yet relaxed, radiantly foreign yet subliminally familiar. As part of a half-day trip organized by the International Association for the Studies of Traditional Environment (IASTE) conference, I only had a little more than an hour to savor in this exuberance of urbanity. This vivacity, however, occurred only at the street level. Hovering above is the eerily empty old shop houses with dilapidated woods, peeled off paint mixed with layers of dust, one brightly colored billboard sign after another, merging inns, internets, cafes, tours and travels, English and Thai characters, and all the colors and ages of the people walking and sitting idly beneath them.
Granted, this brief observation through a tourist lenses could very well be loaded with urban problems in its day-to-day reality. Nevertheless, a quite thought emerged: architectural design did not seem to matter in urban spaces such as Khao San – or did it? Could this organically, informally created spaces be replicated formally through architectural design, or would such an attempt be labeled as yet another hyper-reality so overly discussed during the IASTE conference?
The day after, I presented my paper about Jakarta: the epitome of a privatized metropolis where long term planning of public amenities are neglected and sacrificed on behalf of short term, high-profit generating projects. In contrast with my short-lived experience in Khao San, my reading of Jakarta presented a grim image of the city divided by socio-economical classes and ethnic groups, disjointed areas and experiences that represented a demarcated society – neglectfully constructed out of casual everyday journeys around the city.
The government-planned public transportation system, focusing more on monumental constructions as means of creating an “imagined community” (Anderson, 1990), could not keep up with the demand of vast urban sprawl and population growth of the city. Instead, the patchy networks of privatized public transportations and the organically developed informal ones took over. For the privileged, the use of private vehicles became the choice, contributing to unnecessary exertion of human energy, economically inefficient traffic congestion and environmentally degrading pollution. The privatized public transportations also catered to more commercially viable areas – neglecting poorer, left over areas of Jakarta.
The informal communities, being abandoned by the formal and privatized systems, had constructed their own networks that to date had not been adequately addressed in planning and design of Indonesian cities and public places. This informal public transportation system, and to certain extent the privatized ones, created a haphazard network with a logic of their own – one that, if only partially and tentatively, resembled a rhizome, or nomadic logic, described by Deleuze and Guattari. They stood in opposition to the state, or striated logic, of the planned and formal public transportation system (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987).
How can informal community, system, and network be incorporated in formality of planned and privatized cities when they seem mutually incompatible? What makes one informality, as in the case of Khao San, different from the informality as in the case of Jakarta? What are the contributing factors to successes and failures of informalities? And in what ways do communal values affect the making of spaces and conversely, how could spaces affect the making of communities?
This is the first in a series of posts on my comparative study between Bangkok and Jakarta, initiated by Institute for Ecosoc Rights and funded by UNDP Partnership. See here for Sri Palupi's view of the same topic.
6 comments:
Hi Dewi,
Nice post. How lucky you are to be traveling to interesting places.
I'm interested in what you mean by informal community networks. Do you mean specifically for transportation? Would it be something like "angkot gelap"/black-plated vehicles that pick up passengers, i.e. shopping mall workers at after shopping hours? Would it be something like becaks and ojeks?
About your question "How can informal community, system, and network be incorporated in formality of planned and privatized cities when they seem mutually incompatible?", didn't you just answer it? If they're incorporated, then they're no longer informal, right? :) The question is, does everything has to be formalized.
Hi Muli,
You too are traveling all around and I’m sure nice places can be found wherever that may be!
In my paper for the IASTE conference, the informal community networks do specifically refer to transportation, but I suspect this network extends to other informal systems (communal, economical, etc.) although further research need to be conducted to substantiate this hunch.
Under the category of informal transportations are those owned and operated by mostly individuals with no fixed routes. They cater to individual needs and are often without licenses. Bajaj, ojek, delman, ojek sepeda, becak are some examples, and yes, angkot gelap would be under this category too.
There is also another category, which is the privatized public transportation. Under this latter category are transportations that are owned and operated by private sectors with licenses from the government. They serve routes that are determined by the private sectors, and thus these routes change according to demand and/or market. Buses, angkot, and bemo are some examples.
Most of the informal settlements in Bangkok are not designed specifically for vendors or informal houses, although in most informal communities I went to, basic infrastructure like pavements have been constructed by the government. But other than that, occupants ‘design’ and ‘build’ on ‘their’ own (in light of Mike Davis’ “Planet of Slums” most self-help constructions are not designed nor constructed by owners of the buildings), although in some cases their settlements have been redesigned and formalized through government’s programs.
The informality I’m interested in is that which lack any formalization, i.e. imposed building design and organized construction. This informality is incorporated into the city of Bangkok and still retain its informality. I find this informality very vibrant but at the same time question the role of design and planning into making this lively spaces possible (as planning is formalizing, imposing design and organizing construction).
I don’t think everything has to be formalized, but I’m wondering how to encourage informality that is in balance with the formality. The informality that is conducted with a sense of responsibility (Bangkok is mostly clean although some of the buildings would still fall under the category of slum) and the formality that incorporates informality without formalizing it. I hope the answer is not culture specific to Thai, but most likely, and unfortunately for Indonesia, it probably is.
"How can informal community, system, and network be incorporated in formality of planned and privatized cities when they seem mutually incompatible?"
This is the kernel of most problems in economics!
This informality gives individuals the opp to decide for themselves, but there needs to be a certain amount of formality (regulation) to ensure that an individual's decision doesn't impact negatively on others.
(for example it is good that ppl can choose where and what they live in, unlike what happens in communist societies - but not good that they can build villas in Bogor, which will increase flooding in Jakarta).
So what economists would normally prescribe is to create the clearest, simplest possible framework of rules concerning building developments which maximise people's choice, minimise legal / corruption fees (hence the /simple/ regulatory framework) and minimising the costs their choices will have on others.
how interesting, i wonder could you build a very simplified model / simulation from which you could derive some planning regulation principles...... v interesting indeed!
(maybe bangkok has traditionally enforced regulations which are fairly optimal already?)
John,
Yes, it's an issue of that delicate balance again - a challenging problem indeed. I would be interested to look into the economic models you mentioned. Do let me know if you have any.
I'm still going over literature on Thai culture. So far I haven't found any in relation to optimal traditional regulations. I suspect it has something to do with Buddhism and its belief in karma.
Is there a chance that being a tourist, u got a wrong impression - cos i got a /relatively/ good impression of many poor (not sure exactly how poor i suppose) kompongs in and around Jakarta -- many were quite orderly and fairly clean.
As I admitted in the post, my impression is from tourist lenses. I should also note that it is specificly about Khao San and does not necessarily reflect all of Bangkok.
Because I went there as part of a research, I visited quite a lot of slum areas in Bangkok. Not all of them are orderly and clean. Some are even worse than kampungs I've been to in Jakarta.
But in general government's 'touch' can be detected and Bangkok is definitely cleaner than Jakarta, oddly with as few trash cans as Jakarta has ;)
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