Toward more integrated planning in Jakarta : the case of Rasuna Said Avenue

Abstract

The spatial quality of cities, in regard to their openness and friendliness to pedestrian, varies widely. It ranges from the automobile dominated metropolis like Los Angeles to the pedestrian oriented environment like Boston. Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is in many ways similar to Los Angeles. Its predominant ribbon development pattern is inefficient, fragmented, unfriendly, and unattractive. Taking an area in Jakarta called Kuningan as a case study, this thesis focuses on the multi-story non-residential strips along the area's major thoroughfare, Rasuna Said Avenue. General characteristics of the area as a whole and of the individual property are analyzed. Observations of these characteristics show that the unfriendly environment along Rasuna Said Avenue is primarily caused by the wide social gap in the area, namely between the rich and the poor kampung people. However, current development trends indicate that a transformation towards a more socially homogeneous society is underway in Kuningan. More and more middle and high class properties, both residential and non-residential, are built, displacing the kampungs. This increases the chance of creating a pedestrian friendly environment as people from similar social classes are more receptive towards each other. Design ideas to improve the existing fragmented urban fabric are therefore based on the assumption that this social uniformalization is inevitable. These ideas are presented on two levels: the macro level which talks about Kuningan as a whole and the micro level which focuses on the non-residential properties along Rasuna Said Avenue.