University of Indonesia Jakarta Urban Blog highly  recommends  Issue 92: April - June edition of Inside Indonesia . With the ten year anniversary of the May 12, 1998 events at Trisakti University and the Jakarta riots just passing the current issue of Inside Indonesia is well worth spending some time with. …> go to site From the Introduction by Gerry van Klinken: “Indonesia has made an amazing transformation these last ten years. Too often this story is buried among the bad news. The... Read Full Story

                   Jakarta, Trisakti University MAY 12, 1998   TEN YEARS - NO JUSTICE   Hari ini kami datang bersama bunga dan sejuta pekik sebagai tanda kasih serta keteguhan kami demi keadilan  …………..  karena kami yakin bahwa Reformasi merupakan keharusan   Merah Putih setengah tiang bersaksi atas Darah, keringat, Air mata, Rasa Takut, dan rasa ingin berontak bercampur mejadi satu ………… Ratusan dari kami yang Cedera puluhan dari kami yang Ditembaki atas kesewenang-wenagan... Read Full Story

Jakarta From CNET Asia Bill Gates scheduled to visit Jakarta on May 8 …> go to article Budi Putra May 7, 2008 16:59 “Microsoft Corporation founder and chairman Bill Gates is scheduled to visit Indonesia on May 8 to 9, 2008. According to Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Aburizal Barkrie, Gates will be visiting Indonesia to reciprocate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s tour of the Microsoft headquarters in Seattle last year. Gates will address a plenum of the GLF (Government... Read Full Story

              Jakarta   There are now posted on YouTube 15 videos from my recent stay in Jakarta. You can access them here: Jakarta Urban Blog YouTube       There is also a link to these videos at the bottom of my Multimedia page.  Read Full Story

  At the Citayam rail crossing Whatever is said about Jakarta NEVER let it be said that it is not an interesting place.  I have returned from three weeks of walking and driving the streets of Jakarta.  I have been busy with jet lag and reverse culture shock. That is MORE shocked to be home than to be in Jakarta. Odd, I know. I must be part Jakartan. I take that with a bit of pride and a bit of insanity. So it is. It is time to turn to the news.  This week has been busy and there is a lot... Read Full Story

 Trisakti Monument, Trisakti University, Jakarta Turun ke Jalan! This is the third part of my review of Chapter 4, The Violence of Categories, in Abidin Kusino’s book Behind the Post Colonial Architecture, urban space and political cultures. I end where Kusno begins: the economic crisis of 1997-1998, the student demonstrations, and the fall of Soeharto. In this coming month of May the tenth anniversary of those events which took place in Jakarta will pass. Ten years ago Jakarta was in... Read Full Story

Taman Angrek, Jakarta                    West Jakarta   I have left Jakarta. Three weeks of eating the Jakarta air and being saturated with advertising (promising much but delivering little) has been interesting to say the least.  But just in time anyway for MENTAL DETOX WEEK. At my family’s house, just outside of Depok, TelKom Indonesia, has been out of order for the last six days. I had internet access on one of those six days. Just a blank screen and a message that my laptop was “not... Read Full Story

                          There are few green spaces in this city. My Green Map of Jakarta lists only 38 sites. Most are small fragments of parks of just a hectare or two or less or they are attached to hotels. Street vendors, prostitutes, drug addicts, the poor, and the homeless crowd much the public green space. My map shows no connectivity between any of the green spaces dispersed over metropolitan Jakarta. Of the two largest green spaces listed on my map one is the campus of the... Read Full Story

  detail from above Detail from Shiva, the destroyer and god of bad habits, The National Museum, Jakarta Here, yet again, is another Mad-Max-Road-Warrior vehicle looking like a chopped and heavily modified Vespa… for two. This was parked when I came across it so I do not know if it runs now or how fast it goes or if it is loud. Probably does all three or did at one time. And you would definitely take your chances in that second seat. What is striking is that I felt like I had seen this... Read Full Story

  Friends A city really is a collective of individuals. Some, a few here, have it better than others. Some, most, are just trying to make a life for themselves getting by the best they can in the circumstances they find themselves in. This city can break your heart a thousand times a day. It can madden you with its indifference, frustrate you with its poor planning and ramshackle condition, drive you crazy with talking, talking, talking, with out anything being done. Its poverty is stunning... Read Full Story