My grandmother’s house was surrounded by low fences with a one-meter-tall gate as an entrance. Then there was a long path with exotic fruit trees and flowers before the porch, before the front door. The house itself was surrounded by rambutan garden. It was an ideal preferred environment and territory for the family. At least that is how I remember that place from when I used to live there and the weekly visit later on.
Stereotypically the locals usually having a lot of kids, because they believe more kids give you more financial opportunity, and less access to education. Most of the generations who were born before the 80’s are fulfilling the hard labor market for the textile factories surrounding, which was started to operate at the 80’s. Due to lack of education, their lands usually being sold in little pieces to new settlers anytime they need money. As the parents get older, the remaining piece of land at the end will be divided for eight to nine children, so each kid will have small piece of land to build their house among the new settlers. Hence the rising of the density, resulted in smaller living area, and bigger environmental problems.
The village has changed physically and mentally, as I saw when I paid visit earlier this year. The wetland was converted into residential area, creeks have been used for untreated wastewater disposal, trees and birds are disappeared, and bunch of new settlers occupied more spaces. Once an ideally preferred environment and territory, now have less adequate physical setting as a preferable place to live. However, generations of local people who grew up in the village for decades still have the well-developed cognitive maps, positive feeling, as well as connection, both social connection to the community and to the land. In the meantime, conversation about forced eviction was getting more intense throughout the years. Local people predict eviction might happen anytime soon, and it will never be easy.
One of the solution offered by the government to avoid tumultuous on the day of forced eviction is by relocating the local people to a high apartment building with thousands of people living there. Here is when the problems of The Pruitt-Igoe Housing project replicates.
Forced eviction is a big problem in big cities throughout Indonesia, especially Jakarta. The relations between government and developer, plus lack of knowledge about social, psychological and pro-urban-poor economy system on physical removal, resulted in violence. As human is a territorial animal who are attached to a certain physical space, most of the local people refuse to be removed from their roots. Meanwhile the government never learn how to make a good urban planning to help transform a village to become an urban area without messing with the local people’s territory. Violence and human right abused have been used to overcome this situation. However, the local people usually give a good fight and government will face a hard time. Local people will fight well in their own territory the familiar place where they have control. In their territory, people also have a strong sense of community, cooperation, as well as social commitment to reach the same goal among the settlers: to remain stay in their own land.
It will not be easy to force local people to leave their territory and their root as they will suffer the loss of connection to the land where they feel accepted. Only in their own territory human and animal can do what they want, and functioned the most effective. More than that, losing the preferred physical, social, psychological environment will also cause them losing their social interaction among friends and bigger family circle. Meanwhile, the high-rise apartment buildings from the government designed with many intrinsic problems.
One of them is the absence of buffer zone. Human needs transition to move from private space to public space, thus a preferred territory needs to have semi-private and semi-public space, or at least one of them as a social buffer zone. As mentioned in earlier, my grandmother’s front yard can be seen as semi-public space, and the porch as semi-private space. Those two elements are luxury for the apartment designed for the relocation project. Government apartments usually around 30 floors high or more, consists of a row of tiny living areas with parallel entrances on the corridor.
This design gives a minimum transition from public space to private space, which often known as wasted space or defensible space. Without defensible space, the occupants don’t feel any responsibility to the corridor because they see it as a public space. The lack of ownership means no one will take care of the corridor unless the building has its own cleaner, but we talk about cheap housing here, with lack of services. The absence of caring on the corridor shown by the condition on the hallway of one of the cheap apartment that I visited couple years ago, it was dirty and smell like urine.
This situation creates to a lose-lose situation for the local people who become unrooted anywhere, they lost connection and territory to their land, and can’t cope with the new space. If only government help them with pre-familiarization to the new place, and change a little bit of the apartment design to give a buffer zone, it might work better.
Adjustment on the entrance gives more space for social buffer for a better transition from public space to private space by giving a semi private space. This little tweaks will give more vigilance to the occupants, make them caring the site more, and improve their well-being. Positioning window will help residents to have a general check towards the public space to give then the concept of transitioning.
However, I believe better option is to have a better urban planning with a pro mindset to poor urban citizen, to help keeping their preferable environment and territory, but also fit with the transition from a village to urban area.
Reference:
Lecture on Coping: territory, November 9, 2016
Humanscape, Chapter 8, Coping strategies: choice and control
The village has changed physically and mentally, as I saw when I paid visit earlier this year. The wetland was converted into residential area, creeks have been used for untreated wastewater disposal, trees and birds are disappeared, and bunch of new settlers occupied more spaces. Once an ideally preferred environment and territory, now have less adequate physical setting as a preferable place to live. However, generations of local people who grew up in the village for decades still have the well-developed cognitive maps, positive feeling, as well as connection, both social connection to the community and to the land. In the meantime, conversation about forced eviction was getting more intense throughout the years. Local people predict eviction might happen anytime soon, and it will never be easy.
One of the solution offered by the government to avoid tumultuous on the day of forced eviction is by relocating the local people to a high apartment building with thousands of people living there. Here is when the problems of The Pruitt-Igoe Housing project replicates.
Forced eviction is a big problem in big cities throughout Indonesia, especially Jakarta. The relations between government and developer, plus lack of knowledge about social, psychological and pro-urban-poor economy system on physical removal, resulted in violence. As human is a territorial animal who are attached to a certain physical space, most of the local people refuse to be removed from their roots. Meanwhile the government never learn how to make a good urban planning to help transform a village to become an urban area without messing with the local people’s territory. Violence and human right abused have been used to overcome this situation. However, the local people usually give a good fight and government will face a hard time. Local people will fight well in their own territory the familiar place where they have control. In their territory, people also have a strong sense of community, cooperation, as well as social commitment to reach the same goal among the settlers: to remain stay in their own land.
It will not be easy to force local people to leave their territory and their root as they will suffer the loss of connection to the land where they feel accepted. Only in their own territory human and animal can do what they want, and functioned the most effective. More than that, losing the preferred physical, social, psychological environment will also cause them losing their social interaction among friends and bigger family circle. Meanwhile, the high-rise apartment buildings from the government designed with many intrinsic problems.
One of them is the absence of buffer zone. Human needs transition to move from private space to public space, thus a preferred territory needs to have semi-private and semi-public space, or at least one of them as a social buffer zone. As mentioned in earlier, my grandmother’s front yard can be seen as semi-public space, and the porch as semi-private space. Those two elements are luxury for the apartment designed for the relocation project. Government apartments usually around 30 floors high or more, consists of a row of tiny living areas with parallel entrances on the corridor.
 |
| There’s a directness from social space (corridor) to private space (living area) without social buffer |
This design gives a minimum transition from public space to private space, which often known as wasted space or defensible space. Without defensible space, the occupants don’t feel any responsibility to the corridor because they see it as a public space. The lack of ownership means no one will take care of the corridor unless the building has its own cleaner, but we talk about cheap housing here, with lack of services. The absence of caring on the corridor shown by the condition on the hallway of one of the cheap apartment that I visited couple years ago, it was dirty and smell like urine.
This situation creates to a lose-lose situation for the local people who become unrooted anywhere, they lost connection and territory to their land, and can’t cope with the new space. If only government help them with pre-familiarization to the new place, and change a little bit of the apartment design to give a buffer zone, it might work better.
 |
| Changing the entrance position to create transition area |
Adjustment on the entrance gives more space for social buffer for a better transition from public space to private space by giving a semi private space. This little tweaks will give more vigilance to the occupants, make them caring the site more, and improve their well-being. Positioning window will help residents to have a general check towards the public space to give then the concept of transitioning.
However, I believe better option is to have a better urban planning with a pro mindset to poor urban citizen, to help keeping their preferable environment and territory, but also fit with the transition from a village to urban area.
 |
| Example on how Jogjakarta Provincial Government help village to keep preferable environment while transforming to urban area without relocating the locals |
Reference:
Lecture on Coping: territory, November 9, 2016
Humanscape, Chapter 8, Coping strategies: choice and control
Thank you for sharing your story with us. It reminds me of the same things in my homeland China. It seems that the problem of destroying a village and turning it into an urban area is universal. The problem of displacing residents is even severer. I didn’t quite understand it before. The residents are paid back a lot of money. They are moved from their blighted houses to modern apartments with better conditions and better services for free. They may not be moved very far away, but just somewhere else that is close to their previous dwellings. Why aren’t they willing to accept this offer? I also think of another story. A boy who was born in a poor family finally fought against his “fate” and moved into a big fancy house in a big city. He wanted to bring his parents to his home and give them a better life. But his parents refused to do so and said that they had been living in their old poor home for their whole lives and don’t feel like living at any other places. The house was poor but it was everything to them. The mechanism working behind all these phenomena is the idea of “territory”. Territory makes people feel safe and keep in touch with familiarities, being informed and being capable of controlling things that might occur around us. The attachment to their old living places makes people feel more or less threatened in a new environment. The older the people are, the more attachment they have established to their previous territory, and the more distressed they will feel when they are displaced. When the attachment, or the sense of belonging, is strong enough, it may transcend other appealing factors such as living qualities, job opportunities, etc.
ReplyDeleteI feel so related to your blog. Thanks for sharing. It brings me back to my hometown and makes me think of my grandmother. She spent all her life in a small village. Recalling my memory, I do not remember she went out of the town except very few times of visiting families. Once she lived in an old siheyuan and now a brand new big house at the same location. Both have a big courtyard and a long narrow path from outside to the courtyard. I can tell she loves this part of the houses very much. She even participated in the design of the gardens in the yard. Trees and flowers are arranged by herself. She spent a lot of time in taking care of the vegetation every day. When her friends visit her, they would sit in chairs and talk to each other in the courtyard. My grandmother is an open and lovely lady. However, she does not like to go out. We tried to persuade her to move into the house in the urban place. We also asked her to travel with us. She is always saying she would go nowhere but just stay with her yard. Until today, I begin to understand her. She spent all her life to build the cognitive map of this town and her houses. It is certain that she would feel uncomfortable even fearful when she go to a new place, especially for her age. The yard is just like her territory. She knows everything there and can expect what would happen. This semi-public zone create a sense of responsibility and ownership for her. Considering her age, she really need this feeling of being needed.
ReplyDeleteThere may be reasons than this. However, I am so glad that I can know some of them. I used to feel upset that I cannot make her live in a better house or bring her to discover new things. But now I realize that what I think is good is not always what my grandmother want.
Your blog reminds me of another phenomenon--the "villages-in-the-city" in Chinese cities. Instead of being demolished and replaced, these "villages" survived temporarily during the rapid urban expansion, because the local government don't have enough money to compensate and relocate the indigenous villagers. At the same time, they started to accommodate the large influx of migrant workers from more rural areas. Now these villages become "migrant enclaves". Yet, the future of these villages is still unknown. However, we cannot ignore the indispensable role of these villages in social cohesion. For one, it provides a "familiar" environment and a transitional place for the migrant workers, which prepares them for the new city life. Also, it provides a "territory" for them to maintain their primitive relations and social networks, which mitigates the possibility of social disorganization. In this sense, though regarded as "slums", the existence of the "villages" is necessary at this stage.
ReplyDelete