compactness in urban design and Kampongs

City compactness aims for community sustainability, with its atributes.. activity concentration, population densification, public transport intensification, social welfare, and so on. From earlier studies until now, we can conclude that there is no single universal solution for making an ideal urban area. What we can do is study recent theories, how its been implemented, and look at the results in that. from this we can enrichen our knowledge to make a strategy for every unique case we face. so thats what we will be trying to do.

In this post, I will try to summurize a research paper by one of my lecturers, who did many of his master studies in Japan. he is one of the lecturers at UGM that majors in urban design and planning.

This research like my previous post studies a case in my hometown, Yogyakarta. it was the 7th most dense city's in the world in 1999. imagine that! i thought it was just a small city like any other. i was right about the "small" part, but it is much dense than any other.

We need to be aware that designing developed countries and developing countries need different aproach, where developing countries like Indonesia have a mix environment, formal activities and non-formal activities. Jakarta, the capital of this country has many times been reffered as a big village because of its high mix of informal sector.

People who come to big cities bring with them culture. living horizontally in high dense areas where in developed countries people are used to living in vertical buildings. the social and educational gap in developing countries is high, where in developed countries in not so high, developing countries still rely deeply on discussion and more soft approach unlike developed countries depend more on law which is more trusted. in developing countries funding is minimum for design, so informal expansion and development races in head of formally planned and built development.

Kampung defined as living suburban area in city which grows naturally, effected by its own strong cultural background and also the strong environment of the big city.The kampung has an ability yo provide very low income shelter, control its own enivironment, and has its own social pattern, therefore it is needed to aproach this as a single topic besides as an integrated element of the city itself. since '95 there have been efforts from the goverment with its "Kampung Improvement Programs", but until now it is still far from the parameters of sustainable and compact environment. There have been no sustaibale and continuing improvements that many experts want to see.why is this.?

Kampung is a good form of mix-use activities in big cities, therefore it is still seen as an opportunity for the entry point of sustainable urban development.Kampung has that dualistic of formal and informal, residential and bussiness activities.

In the case of Yogyakarta, Government seem to pay more attention in suburban areas when it comes to planning for development rather than using the Kampung as a start point to enhance the city. Many reasons I suppose.. its easier to build on empty land than to organize something that already exsists. The KIP which originally started on the base idea of building infrastructures that generates higher activity and higher income has not proven itself to be effective, in fact many have degraded and not been followed up by other programs from the goverment nor the community itself. I havent read the complete case right now. But for the moment I can imagine the reason for this is because it was only partially built. One street reconditioning and several small fixes might not be able to solve a problem of the whole Kampung in social-economy aspect. It might have been better to spend the same amount on one small carefully planned pilot project which serves as a catalyst for organic positive development. But the KIP does have good aspects on it, at least on the sanitary conditions in the Kampung. Good enough to increase health, but not good enough for socio-economic and environment development.it just aint fast enough.

I think it would be a good idea if the Kampung Improvement Program be trated as a very very veeerrryy early stage before a Kampung development program is to be made integrated with the city development program.

A proposed aproach which is called Kampung Oriented Development is basically trying to make sustainable development in the case of Indonesian city’s where Kampungs are a part of the growing cities which have always been second class and been tried to get rid of. The character of the Kampung such as self supported environment, where the public has its own rule and culture, the mixed use of residential and non residential buildings set in a walkable range, and the capability to make community programs and events in those small spaces.

Improving Kampungs quality and make it a part of the development of the city, integrating it with future plans, making a seemless melt and changes in rhythm with the growing city can make the development seem more natural and humane, trying to solve problems from the root, strengthen the existing pattern to find a way to make and grow a new set of urban patterns. Even though sometimes these kampungs are built on illegal land use and often make conflicts when being moved, the social-environment pattern that unintentionally formed is that of a mixed-use compact environment that has close contact with the surrounding growing city and is seen as an opportunity to make the foundations and start point of development in cities of Indonesia.