Like Obama, I have lived in Indonesia. Unlike Obama, I didn’t live in Jakarta. Thankfully, because it’s an awful place. Jakarta is a mega-city of mega proportions with mega problems. Jakarta currently is the twelfth largest city in the world with about 8.5 million residents inside the city limits. In metro-Jakarta, the population rises to more than 23 million. Now for a historical perspective, Jakarta in 1930 had a population of under a half million. Like many cities in the developing world, Jakarta has grown so fast that infrastructure development has lagged by twenty plus years. When I lived in Indonesia back in 1993-94, 60% of the city’s population lived in kampungs, the slums. Today, that number is up to 75%. And that’s deemed a success because of Indonesia’s internal resettlement programme has diverted hundreds of thousands to other points in the archipelago.

The city is actually sinking. Jakarta is sinking by 4 to 6 cm (about an inch to an inch and a half) every year. Many of the city’s flood channels are clogged with rubbish and human waste that in effect they become open sewers spreading tropical water-borne diseases like typhoid. Add to that deforestation in the foothills and the development of expensive villas for the affluent and the result is that when the heavy rains come the water simply has nowhere to go.

From today’s Jakarta Post:

Heavy rainfall in early Monday morning has inundated several roads in Jakarta and created traffic jam in at least eight areas, Jakarta Traffic Police reported.

Jakarta Police Traffic Managemenct Center said Monday rain water flooded roads in Pancoran through Pasar Minggu areas in South Jakarta with 10 to 30 centimeters of water.

In West Jakarta, water inundated a part of Jalan Joglo and Puri Kembangan intersection. Water also flooded thoroughfare in Kapuk Muara, North Jakarta and in front of Duren Sawit Hospital, Kodim Housing Complex and Cipinang Penitentiary in East Jakarta.

Traffic police also warned for traffic jam near Lebak Bulus Bus Station in South Jakarta, due to an pipe construction work.

I love Indonesia and I’d happily live there again. Just not in Jakarta.

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The National Intelligence Council (NIC) has released its “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World.” It is the fourth unclassified report produced by some of the nation’s keenest global anaylsts on developing trends in the world. From the introduction of the report:

It offers a fresh look at how key global trends might develop over the next 15 years to influence world events. Our report is not meant to be an exercise in prediction or crystal ball-gazing. Mindful that there are many possible “futures,” we offer a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, as a way of opening our minds to developments we might otherwise miss.

Some of our preliminary assessments are highlighted below:

The whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized. Not only will new players—Brazil, Russia, India and China— have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game.

The unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East now under way will continue for the foreseeable future.

Unprecedented economic growth, coupled with 1.5 billion more people, will put pressure on resources—particularly energy, food, and water—raising the specter of scarcities emerging as demand outstrips supply.

The potential for conflict will increase owing partly to political turbulence in parts of the greater Middle East.

China and India are likely to emerge atop a multipolar international system as the US economic and political clout declines over the next two decades.

I would add Brazil to that latter prediction. I would also add while a transfer of wealth from West to East is occuring there is also one from energy-poor to energy-rich. One transfer of wealth not occuring is from North to South however and I am not yet sure if a reallocation of wealth internally in the United States from rich to poor will occur or if we will continue on our present trajectory of ever-widening income inequality (it has actually narrowed modestly during the last four years but that’s from a declining stock market not from a progressive tax scheme or other redistributive policies). If income inequality does continue to widen both between North and South and within the United States then I would expect social pressures to build if not explode. I also wonder how nations like China and India will handle widening social inequality and if their own demise might not be in their socio-economic policies that favour the few over the many. Brazil has actually fared better in terms of lifting the poor out of endemic poverty though it has a long way to go.

You can download a copy of the NIC Global Trends 2025 report here (pdf). Below the fold a section of the report on Europe: (more…)

For approximately two centuries the great human divide in terms of wealth was a rural versus urban one generally plus a north (the developed world) versus south (the developing world) one. That divide still largely exists but the looming challenge for humanity in terms of socio-economic development is the rising overwhelming levels of urban blight and a growing social inequality not just between north and south but also within each sphere. In the United States, income distribution now matches what it was in 1928. The rich are far wealthier and the poor far poorer. Even in India, globalisation seems to have run its course and for a time led to a narrowing of the gap between rich and poor but now that trend has reverse itself. The rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer.

All this doesn’t portend well. From the UK Guardian:

Wealth Gap Creating a Social Time Bomb

Growing inequality in US cities could lead to widespread social unrest and increased mortality, says a new United Nations report on the urban environment.

In a survey of 120 major cities New York was found to be the ninth most unequal in the world and Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington, and Miami had similar inequality levels to those of Nairobi, Kenya and Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Many were above an internationally recognised acceptable “alert” line used to warn governments.

“High levels of inequality can lead to negative social, economic and political consequences that have a destabilising effect on societies,” said the report. “[They] create social and political fractures that can develop into social unrest and insecurity.”

According to the annual State of the World’s cities report from UN-Habitat, race is one of the most important factors determining levels of inequality in the US and Canada.

“In western New York state nearly 40% of the black, Hispanic and mixed-race households earned less than $15,000 compared with 15% of white households. The life expectancy of African-Americans in the US is about the same as that of people living in China and some states of India, despite the fact that the US is far richer than the other two countries,” it said.

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The F-Line Street Car in San Francisco

Unlike most American cities in San Francisco, we never fell for the General Motors-led assault on American streetcars (trolleys). In the post World War II boom and rush to consumerism coupled with the flight to the suburbs American cities tore up their streetcar lines. In San Francisco, the street car continues to plow along slowly running from Market and 17th Street in the Castro through Hayes Valley and into the Financial District and as part of the post 1989 earthquake urban renewal the city expanded the service up the Embarcadero and up around to Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. The streetcars are historic and we import them from other cities who shuttered their lines. The San Francisco streetcars continue to bear the original colours and ensignia of the cities they came from. We have streetcars from Boston, Louisville, Cincinnati, Milan, Zurich, Kansas City and Philadelphia among others. The streetcars are not just for tourists, they form part of our local transportation infrastructure along the city’s main Market Street thoroughfare.

And of course in Europe, streetcars never stopped chugging covering European cities from one end to the other. Quick they are not but efficient they are and they run on electrical power not fossil fuels. Now of course, the rush is to light rail, another part of our San Francisco urban transport infrastructure. San Francisco built its light rail system in the early 1970s and we are continuing to expand. Last year, the city opened the Third Street Rail T-line running down past South Beach and AT&T Park into China Basin and down to Bay View and Hunter’s Point, blighted neighbourhoods that had been dependent on bus lines. Four bus lines were decommissioned with the new light rail lines. Portland has been the other leading light rail proponent and now other cities are rushing to undo the colossal mistake made in the 1940s.

From the New York Times:

From his months-old French bistro, Jean-Robert de Cavel sees restored Italianate row houses against a backdrop of rundown tenements in this city’s long-struggling Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. He also sees a turnaround for the district, thanks to plans to revive a transit system that was dismantled in the 1950s: the humble streetcar line.

“Human beings can be silly because we move away from things too quickly in this country,” Mr. de Cavel said. “Streetcar is definitely going to create a reason for young people to come downtown.”

Cincinnati officials are assembling financing for a $132 million system that would connect the city’s riverfront stadiums, downtown business district and Uptown neighborhoods, which include six hospitals and the University of Cincinnati, in a six- to eight-mile loop. Depending on the final financing package, fares may be free, 50 cents or $1.

The city plans to pay for the system with existing tax revenue and $30 million in private investment. The plan requires the approval of Mayor Mark Mallory, a proponent, and the City Council.

At least 40 other cities are exploring streetcar plans to spur economic development, ease traffic congestion and draw young professionals and empty-nest baby boomers back from the suburbs, according to the Community Streetcar Coalition, which includes city officials, transit authorities and engineers who advocate streetcar construction.

(more…)

The urban affairs organization, City Mayors through its website is launching a new service that all residents of 34 cities world-wide to rate their mayor. Fifteen mayors in the United States and Canada can be rated. Fourteen mayors in Europe plus two in Latin American and three in the Asia-Pacific region can be rated.

City Mayors introduces Mayor Monitor (MM), which allows residents and non-residents to rate the performance of mayors and highlight their ‘best’ and ‘worst’ decisions. Mayor Monitor uses the widely understood one-to-ten rating system, where ‘1′ signifies an extremely poor performance and ‘10′ ‘an outstanding one.

Over time, Mayor Monitor will provide a valuable track record of mayors’ successes and failures as well as their popularity among residents and a wider public. The results will be published on the City Mayors website and updated monthly.

In order to eliminate multiple, fraudulent and/or organised rating by political foes and friends of mayors, all submissions are processed manually and, if deemed questionable, cross-checked.

Links to the cities are below the fold. The rating process is simple and will take no more than a few minutes, if that. (more…)