Reader Response to : "Explosive Growth, Asian Cities" Draft 4 (Final Draft)

In the article “Explosive Growth in Asian Cities: Bright Ideas to Seize the Urban Moment”, Khanna (2015) reports that Asian cities have become the centre of the world’s urbanisation trend within the past decade. The author observes that these cities are experiencing a population influx, and reactive policies to population growth and global warming are becoming ineffective. Khanna states that South-east Asian cities are assuming control with capable governments, enterprising citizens and local infrastructure innovation. She further mentions that the governments need to be productive to build a deep-rooted generative legacy as they face complicated challenges in delivering basic necessities for urban productivity. She concludes that South-east Asian cities are proving that their potential is greater than the difficulties they face. I feel that this might be true only to a certain extent because some of the efforts by the members of the public are often short-lived, thus making the urban advancement in South East Asia countries rather slow. For example, the internet connectivity in Jakarta are not reliable or fast enough due to the poor infrastructure (Schonhardt, 2014). Also, Khanna should further discuss the difficulties that the various governments face with the policies that have been implemented by them.

After reading the article, I am not convinced on how the innovations such as the Qlue app, a group sourcing smartphone application that permits residents to report instant neighbourhood issues like flooding and waste accumulation to the authorities, could help in the development of Jakarta. That is because the write did not provide concrete examples of how the strategies implemented by the government in Jakarta were effective. However, I find it interesting that through a smartphone application, the locals are able to communicate with the authorities to improve their neighbourhood in terms of defects and cleanliness. The government representative is required to respond with a photo report so that the users are aware of the completion of the request (Menur, 2015). This mobile application shows great promise in improving the quality of life but the government are not making broadband connection a necessary action (Jong, 2014). Therefore, it is almost pointless to implement such innovation if many users are facing a lot of problems with internet connectivity (Harianto, 2015).  

Since there is no proper internet connectivity in Jakarta, investing in ‘smart’ features in an infrastructure should be made priority.

Replicating the infrastructure plan in the Philippines can be the solution for the difficulties to combat the policies being implemented by the government in Jakarta. Khanna states that the Philippines is introducing free Wi-Fi in 997 cities in infrastructure by November 2015. With this in place, citizens will be able to get online easily. They will then be well informed of the situation in the country. These types of investments which are underway in the Philippines should be imitated in Indonesia as the citizens are making use of social media to improve their region. With that, the difficulties faced by the governments after implementing such policies will be greatly reduced. Despite the innovations, it is currently difficult for Indonesia at large and a city such as Jakarta in specific to implement appropriate plans like the goal to attract investors. Foreign companies face long processes in setting up an operation as they have to go through lots of agencies to attain the required business permits (Shaffer, 2015).

In conclusion, Khanna’s article presents the potential of some of the South-east Asian cities very well. However, she should further discuss the challenging issues the government face with the policies that will be introduced by them. Communication between the government officials and the locals can be further improved. Also, policies in bringing investors to the country should be reviewed to provide growth in the country. All will benefit from the country’s success only if the problems are settled swiftly.

References

Harianto, T (2015, September 17). Qlue - Make valuable complains. Android Play Store, review section. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.qluein.android&hl=en

Jong, H.N. (2014, November 13). Broadband access not a priority. The Jakarta Post. Retrieved from http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/11/13/broadband-access-not-a-priority.html

Menur, A. (2015, September 22). Qlue, the app that keeps officials in Jakarta accountable. Yahoo! News. Retrieved from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/qlue-app-keeps-officials-jakarta-accountable-075702447.html

Parag, K. (2015, June 11). Explosive growth in Asian cities: Bright ideas to ‘seize the urban moment’. Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/explosive-growth-in-asian-cities-bright-ideas-to-seize-the-urban-moment

Schonhardt, S. (2014, August 13. Indonesia’s youth frustrated by slow internet connections. Indonesia Real Time. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/indonesiarealtime/2014/08/13/indonesias-youth-frustrated-by-slow-internet-connections/

Shaffer, L. (2015, March 16). Why Indonesia struggles to attract foreign investors. CNBC. Retrieved from http://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/16/why-indonesia-struggles-to-attract-foreign-investors.html