Case of Jakarta’s relocation
Mennatullah Hendawy
Introduction
Historically, the capital city of a nation has played a pivotal role in shaping its “image, representation, and identity” (Lazar, 2005). Several countries opt to relocate their capital cities for various reasons, such as in response to a revolution, post-independence, or to establish a new political agenda (de Vries WT, 2021). According to Jenkins (2012), capital relocations are undertaken for several reasons such as to achieve neutrality (e.g., Lagos to Abuja in 1991, Melbourne to Canberra in 1927, Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia in 1960), embrace a more ‘Western’ orientation (e.g., Moscow to St Petersburg in 1712), preserve national unity (e.g., Auckland to Wellington in 1865), alleviate urban congestion (e.g., Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya in 1999), ensure self-defense (e.g., Yangon to Naypyidaw in 2005), or as a measure for risk management (e.g., Jakarta to East Kalimantan, Borneo, planned in 2024?).
In certain instances, the relocation of the capital involves establishing a newly constructed site, and visualizations play a significant role in advocating for the transition to these new cities in the current era characterized by heightened visual communication. For this purpose, diverse media, computers, and digital tools are extensively employed to depict the envisioned city. It is noteworthy that contemporary digital tools utilized for visualizing new capital cities tend to accentuate and address only specific segments of the urban landscape, primarily targeting elite populations. This selective emphasis is likely employed to attract investment and portray newly planned cities in a more favorable light (see Hendawy et al., in press).
Sometimes, the visualizations of future cities promoted in public media, private design studios, universities, and public streets may not accurately reflect the everyday experiences or perceptions of the majority of their citizens regarding the future of their cities (Hendawy and Stollmann, 2020 Hendawy and Saeed, 2020; Hendawy, 2021a; Hendawy, 2021b; Hendawy, 2022). Instead, these visualizations often present a singular perspective that may be construed as an objective truth, as it is influenced by groups holding significant epistemological power (D’Ignazio and Klein, 2020). Within this context, it is not always easy to tell whose voices are represented in a visualization because they are not traditionally designed to provide much information about who made them, why they made them, how to use them, or how they came to be. Taking this perspective into account, these visualizations, while appearing to represent the experiences of the public, can contribute to marginalization, disempowerment, and socio-spatial injustices. Consequently, such effects may impede vulnerable groups from accessing essential services and infrastructure (Hendawy, 2021a; Hendawy, 2022).
In this article, I perceive the communicated images of new cities as a form of visualization. I also deal with visualization as a medium of communication used by diverse actors, such as urban planners and city officials, to communicate urban visions and designs.
Drawing on the case of the capital relocation from Jakarta to the new city in East Kalimantan, Borneo, as an illustrative example highlighting the necessity for an alternative approach to urban visualization for comprehensive communication of new planned cities, this article contends that integrating connected latent data into communicated urban visualizations—referred to as urban-visualization annotations—could render invisible information visible. This, in turn, has the potential to serve as an effective counter-strategy against exclusive and top-down urban visions, particularly if these annotations incorporate avenues for marginalized voices to dissent and actively participate in the discourse. The article subsequently provides insights into the Jakarta relocation and proposes the use of annotated urban visualizations for fostering inclusive planning.
The reallocation of Jakarta to East Kalimantan
In 2019, President Joko Widodo of Indonesia announced the relocation of the current Indonesian administrative capital from Jakarta province on Java island to East Kalimantan province on Borneo island (BBC, 2019), with Jakarta remaining as the country’s economic hub (Irfan Gorbiano, 2019). This decision is unsurprising to some, given Java’s vulnerability to the impacts of climate change (Van de Vuurst and Escobar, 2020) and its infrastructural challenges, including issues related to sewage treatment (BBC, 2019).
In line with other large-scale national urban projects, visual communication, and visualization play a significant role in disseminating and endorsing the vision of the new Indonesian administrative capital. Many of the visualizations endorsed for the new capital are produced by commissioned architectural and urban offices, primarily to highlight the government’s vision. Employing various communication channels, 3D rendering computer programs are utilized to portray the proposed image of the new capital. These depictions often convey specific environmental and design narratives, emphasizing the incorporation of extensive greenery and water features yet frequently omitting human subjects. The ensuing images (Figures 1 and 2) showcase some of the promoted visualizations about Jakarta’s rellocation.
(https://twitter.com/jokowi)
The visualizations of the new Indonesian capital are aesthetically appealing and may contribute to attracting investments for the project; however, they lack significant information. Notably, it is not apparent from these images who the designers are, which societal groups participated in conceptualizing the designs, whether they serve as formal plans or represent early-stage concepts, and what the realistic time frame or implementation costs entail. This concealed information is pivotal, as it influences viewers’ comprehension of the plans and their implications for the country’s future. Addressing this knowledge gap, communities can employ a method that can be referred to as ‘urban visualization annotations’, as elucidated in the following section.
Annotated Urban Visualizations
The urban visions disseminated in the public sphere frequently originate from those in positions of power, in many cases obscuring the needs and aspirations of marginalized and vulnerable societal groups (see Hendawy, 2022). This pattern is prevalent worldwide, particularly in contexts marked by centralized decision-making and top-down urban planning. In the field of computer science, Burns et al. (2021) emphasize the importance of rendering the invisible visible through the disclosure of metadata in visualizations. According to Burns et al. (2021), visualization biographies consist of metadata, which comprises information not directly observable in visualization but elucidates the genesis of the visualization or its current functionality. These biographies are crafted to unveil the invisible, offering additional context to enhance the understanding of visualization.
Building on these thoughts, I propose the implementation of ‘urban visualization annotation’ within the urban development field, similar to the idea of data biographies in computer science. Urban visualization annotation can be defined as an added deeper layer of information about publicly communicated city and urban visions. It is an additional, more profound stratum of information on the publicly communicated visions. This supplementary layer aids the general public in comprehending the context of the visualization and facilitates the expression of their diverse perspectives. Crucially, these annotations provide an alternative aesthetic gateway to diverse urban visions.
Similar to meta-information about data and biographies written about people, urban visualization annotations can encompass various information. For instance, some of the information that may be incorporated into an urban visualization annotation includes details about the envisioned project, such as who was or was not consulted in the design process, or information about the publicly communicated visualizations, such as the creators of the visualization, its history, the motivations behind their creation and the timeline of its creation. Additionally, an annotation layer might delve into how specific social groups, such as residents of slum areas, perceive, or do not perceive, themselves reflected in the project design and its visualization. The annotations are about communicating the information that may be clear to members of a specific society group but not others. As such, these annotations may incorporate maps, data, or photographs to present the perspectives of multiple societal groups.
Additionally, an urban visualization annotation could incorporate expert knowledge from within the community regarding features of the design and their potential impact, aspects that might be overlooked or disregarded by those in positions of authority. For instance, in the plans for the Indonesian capital, community members might observe that the plan fails to address the fate of individuals currently residing in the area, aligning with criticisms raised about the existing plan (Asia News Network, 2021). By collecting and disseminating such information, voices initially excluded from the process of envisioning the future gain a platform to identify, question, and “talk back” to those in power. Offering opportunities for dissent against power and data align with feminist theories of visualization (D’Ignazio and Klein, 2016).
Upon revisiting the visual imagery of the proposed Indonesian capital (Figures 1 and 2), various types of information are rendered invisible and lost. However, the potential benefits of making this information available through annotated urban visualizations become evident. Envisioning a scenario where individuals from the community can integrate their thoughts and questions directly into the image is crucial for a more inclusive representation.
In the image below, I abstractly show how a discussion may be ignited through an urban visualization annotation, intending to stimulate readers’ imaginations. The idea is to think about how images could be annotated to highlight information not inherently present in the images. This involves incorporating the perspectives of various societal groups to communicate information that may be evident to one community but not to another.
It is crucial to emphasize that the example in Figure 3 is not the sole or optimal method to achieve the objective of urban visualization annotations. I suggest considering urban visualizations as a medium of communication representing multiple actor perspectives. In this context, urban visualization annotations may ignite dialogue around urban projects. The objective of this article is to initiate a discussion on the importance of rendering invisible urban information visible by incorporating the often-hidden information about urban projects and the perspectives of various stakeholders in the urban visioning process of new cities. This inclusive approach aims to facilitate more informed decision-making in city development. Future research may use the urban visualization annotation to focus on what information can be communicated via them.
Urban Visualization Annotations for Inclusive Planning
As a counter-strategy against top-down planning and against exclusive urban visualizations that prioritize elite populations, as urban visualization annotations make invisible information visible, they could offer communities a mechanism to gather and disseminate information about visualizations created by elite powers, surpassing the details provided by the creators themselves. By providing a (visual) medium for diverse community groups to express their visions and integrate their thoughts and knowledge into the visualization, annotated urban visualizations could serve as a means for society groups to engage in a dialogue with the visualizations generated by bodies in power and the entities that crafted them. As such, allowing a way to question and “talk back” to positions of authority (i.e. the creators of urban projects and the visualizations (usually governing bodies)).
There exist several unresolved questions on urban visualization annotations that I aim to pose and leave open for discussion, thereby broadening the discourse on the subject. These questions encompass: What information should be incorporated? Who should contribute to the biography? What format should the biography assume? The answers to these questions are inherently context-specific and contingent upon factors such as the characteristics of the community, the context in which the visualization is promoted, and the nature of what is being visualized. For instance, the inquiries addressed by urban visualization annotations for a single building may differ from those for an entire city plan. Moreover, communities with active internet or social media usage may prefer computer-generated or digital annotations, whereas those without digital access may opt for printed or handwritten annotations. At a fundamental level, urban visualization annotations should reflect the community aspirations in ways that top-down designs fail to do. They should actively coproduce and disseminate community-centric knowledge frequently excluded from one-way planning processes.
References
- Asia News Network. The Phnom Penh Post.(2021, November 1). Indonesia Capital Bill Draws Concerns about Democracy. .https://www.phnompenhpost.com/international/indonesia-capital-bill-draws-concerns-about-democracy.
- BBC News. BBC.(2019, August 24). “Changing Places: Why Countries Decide to Move Their Capitals”. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49406700.
- Burns, A., On, T., Lee, C., Shapiro, R., Xiong, C., & Mahyar, N. (2021). “Making the Invisible Visible: Risks and Benefits of Disclosing Metadata in Visualization.” To appear in the Proceedings of the 2021 Visualization for Social Good Workshop.
- D’Ignazio, C. &, F. Klein, L.(2016). “Feminist data visualization”. Workshop on Visualization for the Digital Humanities (VIS4DH), Baltimore. IEEE.
- D’Ignazio, C. &, F. Klein, L.(2020). “Data feminism”. MIT Press.
- De Vries, WT. (2021). “Urban Greening for New Capital Cities. A Meta Review”. Front.
- Sustain. Cities 3:670807. doi:10.3389/frsc.2021.670807
- Hendawy, M., Riad, R., Elgredly, S. H., (in press) Visual politics of a mediatized urban age: Tracing what the press news makes visible about urban planning — Case of the new administrative capital city in Egypt. Nature Cities.
- Hendawy, M., 2022, Spatio-Visual Co-constructions: Communication and Digitalization of Urban planning in a mediatized world – Cairo as a glocal Case. Ph.D. Thesis, TU Berlin, defense date: 5 August 2021, Grade Summa Cum Laude.
- Hendawy, M. 2021a. “Imaging Power: Planning visualizations and the co-construction of spatio-visual injustice” [presentation].
- Hendawy, M. 2021b. [In]visibilities: The Academic City versus Ordinary Cities – Mediatizing Planning Knowledge in Egyptian Universities. ARCHPLAN special issue with Prof. Patsy Healy as Guest Editor.
- Hendawy, M. & Stollmann, J., 2020 The Entanglement of Class, Marriage and Real Estate: The Visual Culture of Egypt’s Urbanisation, Urban Planning Journal.
- Hendawy, M. and Saeed,A. 2020, Beauty and the Beast: The Ordinary City versus the Media-tized City, Case of Cairo, Urbanisation journal
- Irfan Gorbiano, Marchio, Karina M. Tehusijarana, and N. Ardi. The Jakarta Post, August 27, 2019. “Jokowi Picks East Kalimantan”. The Jakarta Post.https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/08/27/jokowi-picks-east-kalimantan.html.
- Lazar, D. (2005). “Capital Cities, Cultural Representation, And National Identities”. Berlin-Washington, 1800-2000: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Van de Vuurst, P. & E. Escobar, L. (2020). “Perspective: Climate Change and the Relocation of Indonesia’s Capital to Borneo.” Frontiers in Earth Science 8 (2020): 5.
- BBC News. BBC.(2019, August 24). “Changing Places: Why Countries Decide to Move Their Capitals”. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49406700.
- Burns, A., On, T., Lee, C., Shapiro, R., Xiong, C., & Mahyar, N. (2021). “Making the Invisible Visible: Risks and Benefits of Disclosing Metadata in Visualization.” To appear in the Proceedings of the 2021 Visualization for Social Good Workshop.
- D’Ignazio, C. &, F. Klein, L.(2016). “Feminist data visualization”. Workshop on Visualization for the Digital Humanities (VIS4DH), Baltimore. IEEE.
- D’Ignazio, C. &, F. Klein, L.(2020). “Data feminism”. MIT Press.
- De Vries, WT. (2021). “Urban Greening for New Capital Cities. A Meta Review”. Front. Sustain. Cities 3:670807. doi:10.3389/frsc.2021.670807
- Hendawy, M., Riad, R., Elgredly, S. H., (in press) Visual politics of a mediatized urban age: Tracing what the press news makes visible about urban planning — Case of the new administrative capital city in Egypt. Nature Cities.
- Hendawy, M., 2022, Spatio-Visual Co-constructions: Communication and Digitalization of Urban planning in a mediatized world – Cairo as a glocal Case. Ph.D. Thesis, TU Berlin, defense date: 5 August 2021, Grade Summa Cum Laude.
- Hendawy, M. 2021a. “Imaging Power: Planning visualizations and the co-construction of spatio-visual injustice” [presentation].
- Hendawy, M. 2021b. [In]visibilities: The Academic City versus Ordinary Cities – Mediatizing Planning Knowledge in Egyptian Universities. ARCHPLAN special issue with Prof. Patsy Healy as Guest Editor.
Acknowledgment
- I would like to thank Tamara Al Masadeh for her assistance in formatting the article as a part of her internship at Impact Circles e.V. in Berlin.
About the Author
Dr. Mennatullah Hendawy1,2,3 is an interdisciplinary urban planner working on the intersections of cities, media, and technology toward equity and sustainability. She is an assistant professor at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. She is also affiliated with the University of California Santa Cruz in the USA, Impact Circles e.V., and the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) gGmbH in Germany. Hendawy received her Ph.D. in 2021 from the faculty of Planning Building Environment at TU Berlin in Germany, graded: summa cum laude. In her Ph.D., she explored the mediatization of urban development in Cairo as a local yet global case. In 2015, Hendawy completed an MSc. in Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design from Stuttgart University with a focus on urban policies. Hendawy holds a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Department of Urban Planning and Design (class of 2012).
- Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
- The Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS), UMass Amherst, MA, USA
- Impact Circles e.V., Berlin, Germany
