The plan to build a new capital

“Jakarta has many problems,” says my colleague Hannah Beech, The Times senior correspondent for Asia, “but the most existential one is that it is sinking in some places by as much as a foot a year.”

Climate change is part of the reason: The Java Sea – which surrounds Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital – is rising. But an even bigger factor is that Jakartans, desperate for access to clean water, have dug thousands of illegal wells that effectively drain the swamps beneath the city. Today, 40 percent of Jakarta is below sea level and flooding is becoming more common.

The encroaching sea threatens one of the world’s most densely populated cities, which is home to 10 million people in an area about half the size of New York City, and another 20 million in the surrounding region. To meet that threat, Indonesia’s popular president – Joko Widodo, in his ninth year in office – has come up with a bold solution: he is moving the country’s capital.

The new capital, now under construction, is called Nusantara. It will be built from the ground up, about 800 miles from the current capital. Joko promises that within a few decades the city will be a model of environmental management, climate neutral.

Unlike Jakarta, which is in Java, the region that has long dominated the country’s politics and economy, Nusantara is in Borneo, where residents have overlooked themselves. “Indonesia is more than Jakarta,” Joko told Hannah on a recent tour of Nusantara. “Indonesia is more than Java. So we have to make the capital in a place that is far away.

But it remains unclear whether his grand plans will succeed. Joko wants the new capital to open next year, before his second – and by law final – term as president expires. Not all of his potential successors are behind the plan. And it seems to be behind schedule: no residential towers have been built and the chief architect is concerned that the fast construction schedule could jeopardize safety.

“People want Nusantara to succeed because it means that the developing world – despite all the troubles that have come their way from the legacy of imperialism, from the legacy of colonialism – that a country can succeed on its own terms and become a successful country. could be. democracy and can create its own vision for itself,” said Hannah. “But it’s very, very challenging to do.”

Read her story and watch the photos and videos that go with it.

A new product: Today we launched an iOS app for audio journalism and storytelling where you can find Hannah’s story and much more. Time news subscribers you can download our new Audio app.

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