Uploaded on 2017-02-25 by Tri Emil Alim

Not quite sure about the photo, should I upload or not? Anyway, I upload the photo I took on my Honeymoon in Singapore as my number one liveable city that I know. Because I only can list the city that I know, and I’ve only been in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, my cities will be only inside those countries. These are my five most liveable cities that I know: 1. Singapore 2. Kuala Lumpur 3. Bandung 4. Denpasar 5. Jakarta My five most important characteristics that makes a city liveable: 1. Widespread availability of goods and services (incl. health care, education, etc) 2. Low risk (Safety/crime, stable economy) 3. Climate (hot/cold) 4. Effective and efficient infrastructure (low traffics, availability of public transportation) 5. Local government performance I’m not quite sure on step 3, should I explain the status of each cities with those (my) characteristics or should I pick one that I’m currently living? I’m assuming that I only need to take one city, so I’m choose Jakarta because I know this city better than other city in the list. I grew up in Jakarta, I was born and raised there, and after working and travelling to a lot of other cities (including overseas), I realize just how bad Jakarta is. I’ll describe Jakarta using five characteristics I’ve decided earlier. 1. Widespread availability of goods and services (incl. health care, education, etc) Jakarta have a good availability of goods and services, in Indonesia, Jakarta is probably the best city from this perspective. As the capital of Indonesia, I think it’s supposed to be like that. 2. Low risk (safety/crime, stable economy) From this point of view, Jakarta have a bad safety point, but have a good economy stability if compared to other cities in Indonesia. Economy is growing fast in Jakarta, sometimes I think too fast because the government can’t keep up with the situation to provide better infrastructure to support this growing economy. In a long run, I believe the safety issue in Jakarta will get better, as the police now showing better performance than they used to be. Economy wise, I believe the new Minister of Finance, ex-World Bank executive, Sri Mulyani will keep the Indonesian economy stable and resilient. 3. Climate Obviously, if you ever been to Jakarta, you will feel like you’re in hell. From 10 AM to 4 PM, going outdoor in Jakarta is a terrible decision. This is not only because geographically low with no mountains, but also because the pollution of transportation multiplied the heat in the city, making it too hot to be bearable at day. To make Jakarta more sustainable in terms of climate, I think Jakarta local government need to add more trees to the city to lower the temperature. 4. Effective and efficient infrastructure (low traffics, availability of public transportation) Again, Jakarta is very bad at this one. The government can’t keep up the growing economy in the city. Cars are booming, yet roads stays the same, making traffics worst every day. Public transportation is also stagnant from time to time. The solution is very clear, roads needs to be built and widened. And more public transportation with better safety and better time management will reduce the traffics too. 5. Local government performance. Jakarta local government performance has been poor for a long time. Fortunately, since the new Indonesia President Jokowi and Jakarta governor Ahok in charge, things get better. Both MRT, and LRT are now being constructed throughout Jakarta. These megaproject gives hope to us Jakarta people for a better Jakarta with lower traffics.