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Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

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Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#11

Post by ghaff »

skx001 wrote: post #4

Alternative Link: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/jakarta-world-s-most-p... Key Facts: Number of megacities, urban areas with 10 million or more inhabitants has quadrupled from 8 in 1975 to 33 in 2025. Jakarta is now the world’s most populous city, with nearly 42 million residents. The current population of Indonesia is 286 million. In 2019, Indonesia said it will be moving its capital to Nusantara, a new city…

I also imagine a lot of people who are admiring these megacities have never been to one. Jakarta has oceans of scooters and, when I was there to visit some customers with our country manager, she had a driver. With some exceptions like Singapore, SE Asian cities are horrible to get around.

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#14

Post by ecshafer »

ghaff wrote: post #11
skx001 wrote: post #4

Alternative Link: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/jakarta-world-s-most-p... Key Facts: Number of megacities, urban areas with 10 million or more inhabitants has quadrupled from 8 in 1975 to 33 in 2025. Jakarta is now the world’s most populous city, with nearly 42 million residents. The current population of Indonesia is 286 million. In 2019, Indonesia said it will be moving its capital to Nusantara, a new city…

I also imagine a lot of people who are admiring these megacities have never been to one. Jakarta has oceans of scooters and, when I was there to visit some customers with our country manager, she had a driver. With some exceptions like Singapore, SE Asian cities are horrible to get around.

Other than Singapore. I am not sure why SE Asian cities aren't going as all in on mass transit like China. Jakarta has a single subway line for 42 million people. They have some light rail line and buses. If you compare this with Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing its really night and day.

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#15

Post by bryanlarsen »

jeffbee wrote: post #10
bryanlarsen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada has been building housing at a much higher rate than the US in the last 2 decades. Not enough, but more.

Hrmm. What data source can I see to demonstrate this? I looked at a chart I have referenced before that shows nationwide USA housing starts over the last 20 years ranging from 2 to 8 per 1000 people. Then I searched for one for Canada and found one suggesting 1-2 per 1000 since 2005. And, evidently, the situation in Canada as developed/deteriorated to the extent there's a whole subreddit for the canadian housing cris…

Looks to be averaging around 250,000 per year over the last decade. That'd be over 12 per 1000. https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/housing-starts

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#16

Post by jeffbee »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #15
jeffbee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hrmm. What data source can I see to demonstrate this? I looked at a chart I have referenced before that shows nationwide USA housing starts over the last 20 years ranging from 2 to 8 per 1000 people. Then I searched for one for Canada and found one suggesting 1-2 per 1000 since 2005. And, evidently, the situation in Canada as developed/deteriorated to the extent there's a whole subreddit for the canadian housing cris…

Looks to be averaging around 250,000 per year over the last decade. That'd be over 12 per 1000. https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/housing-starts

Yes so it looks like the Reddit people are committing major chart-crimes, showing quarterly data as such, rather than annualized rates, and not mentioning it. It looks like this is a source of truth: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=341001...

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#17

Post by decimalenough »

I used to spend a lot of time in Jakarta for work, and it's an underrated city. Yes, it's hot, congested, polluted and largely poor, but so is Bangkok.

Public transport remains not great, but it's improved a lot with the airport link, the metro, LRT, Transjakarta BRT. SE Asia's only legit high speed train now connects to Bandung in minutes. Grab/Gojek (Uber equivalents) make getting around cheap and bypass the language barrier. Hotels are incredible value, you can get top tier branded five stars for $100. Shopping for locally produced clothes etc is stupidly cheap. Indonesian food is amazing, there's so much more to it than nasi goreng, and you can find great Japanese, Italian, etc too; these are comparatively expensive but lunch at the Italian place in the Ritz-Carlton was under $10. The nightlife scene is wild, although you need to make local friends to really get into it. And it's reasonably safe, violent crime is basically unknown and I never had problems with pickpockets (although they do exist) or scammers.

I think Jakarta's biggest problems are lack of marketing and top tier obvious attractions. Bangkok has royal palaces and temples galore plus a wild reputation for go-go bars etc, Jakarta does not, so nobody even considers it as a vacation destination.

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#18

Post by filloooo »

ecshafer wrote: post #14
ghaff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also imagine a lot of people who are admiring these megacities have never been to one. Jakarta has oceans of scooters and, when I was there to visit some customers with our country manager, she had a driver. With some exceptions like Singapore, SE Asian cities are horrible to get around.

Other than Singapore. I am not sure why SE Asian cities aren't going as all in on mass transit like China. Jakarta has a single subway line for 42 million people. They have some light rail line and buses. If you compare this with Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing its really night and day.

Democratic governments are weak on deficit spending, especially poor ones, the debt from their tiny stretch of high speed rail almost became a scandal.

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#19

Post by ghaff »

ecshafer wrote: post #14
ghaff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also imagine a lot of people who are admiring these megacities have never been to one. Jakarta has oceans of scooters and, when I was there to visit some customers with our country manager, she had a driver. With some exceptions like Singapore, SE Asian cities are horrible to get around.

Other than Singapore. I am not sure why SE Asian cities aren't going as all in on mass transit like China. Jakarta has a single subway line for 42 million people. They have some light rail line and buses. If you compare this with Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing its really night and day.

Probably a combination of overall wealth and government policies/stability/priorities. I'd probably add Hong Kong to the list of cities with pretty good public transit but, overall, it's pretty bad in that area of the world relative to cities that you'd generally consider to be "good."

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#20

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

skx001 wrote: post #5
metalman wrote: post #3

Canada has less people, even with a 10% increase in the last 4 years through imigration, some of which is from Indonesea presumably including a significant number from Jakarta, where the civil infrastructure must be epic

The West just refuses to build anything. Whereas in Asia its not uncommon to build entire cites from scratch.

Why spend billions building when you can just keep raising rents on existing infrastructure?
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