Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said that Jakarta’s 360 slums represe\nted a major obstacle standing in the way of the city’s development. According to him, the city’s biggest problem was widening social disparity. “I have to admit the biggest problem in the city is how to handle the slums. Imagine you are standing on top of a high-rise building on Jl. Sudirman and look out over the slums in Penjaringan, Pademangan, Tanah Tinggi and many others, and you will see the widening gap between the elite and the poor,” he said after attending a celebration for Trisakti University’s 48th anniversary in Grogol, West Jakarta on Friday. The governor added it wouldn’t be hard to create a comprehensive policy to clean up the slums, but that a humane approach was required. “A compassionate approach is absolutely needed to allow us to feel what they are feeling and to show our empathy so that the policy can benefit residents in the slums and the city,” he said. Jokowi said his administration would develop 200 low-cost apartment buildings in the coming years to accommodate slum inhabitants before it started developing the slums. “By resettling them to low-cost apartments and developing the monorail and mass rapid transit [MRT], the city will have more open green spaces and will be able to cope with the traffic jams and floods,” he said.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 17:31:40 +0000
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