Causes of urbanisation in Indonesia More than one-third of Indonesia’s urban growth is due to natural population increase. The population reached 100 million in 1962 and doubled to 200 million by 1997. In the early 1970s, the birth rate was high at 5.6 children per woman, but it dropped to 1.2 per cent by 2015. In 2023, nearly 4.4 million babies were born, almost the population of Melbourne. Few restrictions on rural–urban migration led many rural poor to move to cities, often into slums, leaving families behind. Recently, about 20 000 foreigners per year have been obtaining work permits in Indonesia. Investment, both local and foreign, mainly goes to large urban areas due to available workers, transport, water and electricity. President Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia from 1945 to 1967, aimed to make Jakarta like Paris and New York, building broad avenues, highways, electric railways, luxurious housing, high-rise buildings, universities and industrial estates. The ambitious investment during this period increased the rate of urbanisation as rural people flooded into Jakarta to be part of this burgeoning metropolis.
FIGURE2 Selected south-east Asian city populations, 1950–2030 projected
PHILIPPINES
THAILAND
Davao City
SOUTH CHINA SEA
BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
MALAYSIA
Medan
MALAYSIA
Kuala Lumpur
SINGAPORE
Palembang
0
250 500 km
INDONESIA
Ujung Pandang
Jakarta
World city populations 1950–2030 Year Population 1950
Semarang
Surabaya
Bandung
15 000 000 10 000 000 5 000 000 1 000 000
1990
TIMOR-LESTE
Denpasar
2015
INDIAN OCEAN
2030
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2014). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, CD-ROM Edition.
SkillBuilder discussion Communicating 1. Identify where the largest city in Indonesia is located. 2. Discuss any spatial associations you can identify on this map. 3. Study FIGURE2 . Identify the cities that have become megacities (greater than 10 million people).
TOPIC15 Changing nations – urbanisation and migration 455
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