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Indonesia Plans to Move Capital From Jakarta to Borneo, Cost Estimated at $33 Billion

posted by martyb on Monday August 26 2019, @11:19PM   
from the can-you-say-land-speculation? dept.

takyon writes:

Jakarta Is Crowded And Sinking, So Indonesia Is Moving Its Capital To Borneo

Indonesian President Joko Widodo says his country will create a new capital city on the island of Borneo, revealing new details about his plan to move the central government out of Jakarta. The capital's current location faces a number of problems, including the fact that it's sinking.

Widodo's announcement Monday comes months after he said he wanted to move the capital, seeking a place that can offer a break from Jakarta's environmental challenges as well as its relentlessly gridlocked traffic.

While rising seawater levels from climate change are a widespread concern for island and coastal areas worldwide, experts say Jakarta has played a central role in its own predicament. "Jakarta's problems are largely man-made," NPR's Merrit Kennedy reported earlier this year. "The area's large population has extracted so much groundwater that it has impacted the ground levels, and many surface water resources are polluted."

Jakarta has a population of around 10 million, with 20 million more in the greater metropolitan area.

Also at NYT and CNN.

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Original Submission

• Re:What do the Borneonians think about this? Re:What do the Borneonians think about this? (Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday August 27 2019, @04:03AM (1 child)

  by c0lo (156) on Tuesday August 27 2019, @04:03AM (#885934) Journal

  It could be a great economic opportunity for people in those cities.

  Sure.
  Just don't forget to kiss the orangutans [grida.no] goodbye, the majority of the 104,700 still in existence are located on the Borneo island.

  --
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  Parent

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• Re:What do the Borneonians think about this? (Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Wednesday August 28 2019, @04:36PM

  by PocketSizeSUn (5340) on Wednesday August 28 2019, @04:36PM (#886871)

  Did you know that the Orang Hutan is the Bahasa indonesian name for the Orangutan?
  It literally means 'Person' 'Forest' and since the 'H' is silent in Hutan the pronunciation is the same.

  My guess is 'someone' has purchased large tracts of land in the area where the resulting city would be developed.

  Parent