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Saving a sinking city: Jakarta

Indonesia's capital Jakarta is sinking but how easy is it build a new one from scratch?

Jakarta is facing all sorts of problems - deadly floods, land subsidence, extreme pollution, notorious traffic and overcrowding. Indonesia’s outgoing president has come up with an extreme solution: moving the country’s capital a thousand kilometres away, to the middle of the rainforest.

Will the new city be a futuristic utopia and a model for sustainable urbanisation - or an eye-wateringly expensive, ecologically disastrous ghost town? Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Indonesia reporter Astudestra Ajengrastri travels to the island of Borneo to find out if the ambitious plans will live up to reality.

Presenter: Astudestra Ajengrastri
Producer: Olivia Humphreys
A Reduced Listening production for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service

(Photo: Workers dredging mud using heavy machinery from the riverbed that divides downtown Jakarta before the rainy season to avoid regular flooding, 30 September, 2021. Credit: Bay Ismoyo/AFP)

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27 minutes

Last on

Sun 6 Oct 2024 21:32GMT
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service East and Southern Africa

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