While urbanization is raising living standards and creating opportunities for many, others remain marginalized and excluded from growth and prosperity. Most cities in Indonesia are experiencing poverty, inequality and social exclusion to some extent. This is caused by the mass migration of people from rural to urban centers as they seek livelihoods and services. All too often people fail to attain these things once they arrive.
Rapid growth in urban areas and wealth structures had essentially commodified social life, which in turn has marginalized the most vulnerable groups. This marginalize group have also been excluded from the politics and decision-making process in shaping their environments, from the building of public spaces, to local resources and services. Government responses to climate hazards are promoting large-scale infrastructural interventions, but some of the most practical and innovative solutions are being devised at the community-level.
The Silent Eviction
Kampung Kota (urban village) is a mix environment consists of residential neighborhood as well as working place. Kampung Kota acted as an intermediary agency of urbanization. It is a provider of communal space of a heterogeneous social settlement (social cohabitation). Kampung Kota is part of traditional social system and through kampung, people connected with urban traditional system. This relationship allows migrants to get a job (temporally or permanently) with the kampung residents as a liaison. Most of this job comes from the less competitive businesses such as catering, garment, food vendors, with a very low wage but does not require pre-qualification even experience.
One of the area which caused by climate hazard is Kampung Kemijen. Kampung Kemijen located in the north coast of Semarang near Tanjung Mas port and has been impacted of port’s reclamation since 2000s. Land subsidence rate in this area is more than 8cm/year. Drainage system and road increased almost 20–30 cm each year and this caused most of the housing burden below the road because the people couldn’t effort to renovate their houses. Almost all the brick walls (without plastered) in Kampung Kemijen porous because the sea water is often rise (flood) and windy (salty). The wall becomes moist, less healthy and become perforated.
The bigger agenda of city development has caused marginalized community, indirectly, evicted as city residents. They are losing their control for a city development because of lack participation. Local community, in fact, should take part in more community activities to make themselves known to avoid persecution.
Climate change adaptation required collaboration from different stakeholders in cities. The community should not be thought of as only a beneficiary of the service, but part of the service, contributing their local knowledge and ideas to determine how it should be built and run. Community involvement is the key process of climate change resilience. As communities are already being affected by climate change, they know what the problems are and can suggest solutions, with the knowledge of what local resources are available and what know-how exists in the area. The involvement of the community could help better anticipate loss and damage, and in severe cases, loss of life, while reducing poverty and improving the quality of the environment.
This short essay was written as a submission for IHS Urban Management & Development programme in January 2017
