Rumah susun, or walk-up flats, is one form of urban renewal project chosen by the Indonesian government to rehouse the urban poor who live in slum areas. The idea of the project is to provide slum dwellers with better accommodation, ie rumah susun, which is located in the same area or an area nearby the demolished slums. By doing so, they can still follow the same livelihood and at the same time their quality of life is improved. In Jakarta, Tanah Abang, Kebon Kacang, and Kemayoran housing estates, to name but a few, are urban rehousing projects which have aims as mentioned above. As relocation projects, they all have the same method of exchange of property. Houses in slums are valued to a certain amount of money by government authorities and slum inhabitants are given compensation money. With that money the slum dwellers can buy units (in Kemayoran units are not only for sale but also for rent) in the multi-storey flats at prices determined by the government. There is always a gap between the amount of compensation and the price of units in the new housing project which causes the slum dwellers to have to seek mortgage loans from a bank (BTN, Bank Tabungan Negara or National Savings Bank). The obligation to pay monthly instalments becomes a new burden for slum dwellers and in the end chases them from the projects provided for them. It is ironic indeed.
However, in contrast, rumah susun Pulo Gadung did not follow that main stream pattern. Slum residents of RT 09 just swapped their houses in the kampung with units in the walk-up flats, a system known as "tukar guling". This means that they did not have any monthly instalments burden and allowed this project to meet its aims, for the low-income groups. In addition, rumah susun Pulo Gadung was also designed like the houses in the kampung: there were no internal divisions inside the units, ie bedrooms and living rooms, except for bathroom, balcony and kitchen. In addition, communal areas were also provided for residents. Further, as this rumah susun used a module system it enabled kampung dwellers to have multi-units which could be used for dwelling and renting. This design is an advantage, and allows slum dwellers to continue kampung sociality while they also obtain additional income. Can the kampung dwellers sustain their social relations in the new environment such as rumah susun? This thesis endeavours to answer this question.
This thesis examines the social relations among the residents of the rumah susun Pulo Gadung, East Jakarta. In general there are two types of residents, the owner occupiers and the tenants. The first were ex-kampung dwellers of RT 09, kelurahan Pulo Gadung, while the latter were people from elsewhere who chose the rumah susun as their place of residence.
This thesis argues that moving from kampung to rumah susun will not necessarily break down or weaken the kampung residents' pre-existing intimate social ties. It is true that the move to the rumah susun may create social problems which can promote conflict among the residents as a result of different views of, for example, the concept of the Residents' Association. However, the examination of neighbourly activities such as exchange of greetings, social visits, going out together, borrowing things, delivering food, and chatting about personal problems reveals that communal ties are still alive in rumah susun Pulo Gadung. Through these activities the residents maintain their social relationships in order to achieve rukun (social harmony), the value of life that has long existed among the Indonesians. On the other hand, a person who did not observe these connections of neighbourliness runs the risk of being labelled sombong (arrogant), a pejorative designation. The use of private space (in the residents' apartments) and public place (communal areas such as parks, corridors, and pathways) confirm that the layout of the rumah susun did not affect community bonds. This thesis also shows that the two kinds of residents, owner and tenant, and social characteristics of residents, such as religion and the type of occupation have an affect on the integration of the social life in the rumah susun. The majority of residents, who were Moslem, coloured the sociable neighbouring in the community life. It is found that residents who had informal sector occupations, notably owners, may stay in the rumah susun every day (eg. warung owners). By contrast, those who worked outside the rumah susun the whole day, particularly tenants (eg. hawkers), were less integrated to the rumah susun life. Overall, the status as owners brought the opportunity to be involved in social life in the rumah susun as owners also had pre-existing social networks in the former kampung. Some tenants integrated into the rumah susun through their links to owners who were their landlords. These social networks are important in social integration as they may be used by their members to mobilise labour, for example in slametan and birthday parties.
Pulo Gadung provides a case study of one model of urban renewal which is aimed also at improving the welfare of the poor. The thesis examines the lessons learned from this unique development project. |