It is estimated that the construction of Nusantara will cost $38 billion, with 20 percent of that coming from the Indonesian coffers...But the vast majority of the metropolis – 80 percent of it – is to be financed by private investments. Everything that actually makes a city a city...And that is currently where the greatest hurdles lie: The investors are not showing up — Der Spiegel

Indonesia expects to begin construction in the second quarter on apartments worth $2.7 billion for thousands of civil servants due to move to its new capital city on Borneo island, an official said late on Tuesday.

Authorities have already started building basic infrastructure in the area, with an aim to start relocating some government administration and civil servants in 2024. — Reuters

The Indonesian government is involving three international consulting firms in developing the masterplan of the country’s new capital city, which is to be located in East Kalimantan.

[...] American engineering company AECOM, consulting firm McKinsey & Company and Japanese architectural and engineering firm Nikken Sekkei would design the city, which is to feature the latest technology and be environmentally friendly at the same time. — The Jakarta Post

President Joko Widodo announced Monday that officials had chosen an area in East Kalimantan province, on the island of Borneo, for the as-yet-unnamed capital. Construction on the 450,000-acre site would start next year, and people would move in beginning in 2024. [...] Critics of the plan have warned that the cost of moving the capital could be untenable. [...] What’s more, shifting civil servants and their families to a new city in Borneo will not stop Jakarta from sinking, they say. — Washington Post

It is a surreal urban bubble, where normal life unfolds at an abnormal altitude. To access ground level, residents drive their cars down a ramp. A tall metal fence runs around the perimeter to make sure no one falls or drives off. Peer beyond the fence and you can spot the city’s landmarks below. — The Guardian

Building codes and standards in many countries require engineers to consider the effects of soil liquefaction in the design of new buildings and infrastructure such as bridges, embankment dams and retaining structures — The Guardian

Jakarta is perhaps the truest realization of a post-colonial cosmopolis. Many former colonial capitals stage a rivalry between quaint traditional centers and desperation-driven peripheries. But Jakarta can be understood not as a dialogue with its former foreign overlords but rather as a fiercely insistent projection of Indonesian independence. — Places Journal

Since 2000, the world’s second-largest megacity, Jakarta, has seen its population swell by a staggering 34 percent. Though the city proper is home to just 10 million, the urban zone is home to 30 million [...]

“Jakarta is the largest urban metropolitan area in the world without a metro,” he [Deden Rukmana] says. “And a metro is the most crucial element of transportation for a megacity. There’s no way it can exist otherwise.” — Inverse

Jakarta sinks an average of three inches a year, and parts of the coast are going down as much as 11 inches a year [...]

In an attempt to halt the damage, authorities are building a gigantic wall off the coast, measuring 25 miles (40 kilometers) long and 80 feet (24 meters) high, National Geographic reports. To fund the $40 billion and 30-year-long project, the city will also create 17 artificial islands, on which developers can build luxury homes, offices, and shopping malls. — qz.com

Ask a cyclist what it’s like to ride in Indonesia’s capital – a sprawling megalopolis of 10.2 million people...More than likely, they’ll tell you it’s outright dangerous...Car-free days may be popular, but there is almost no [cyclist] infrastructure... [However, there] is hope among cyclists that bike lanes will become a priority after the city’s [mass rapid transport] system is finished in 2019. In the meantime, several young innovators are taking matters into their own hands. — The Guardian

“There was a time when you could not be poor enough, or rural enough, to want to live in a bamboo house,” says Ibuku founder Elora Hardy.

A former print designer for Donna Karan, Hardy now leads an Indonesian firm that creates innovative, luxurious structures out of cheap, sustainable, plentiful bamboo. In a talk at the TED conference last week, Hardy wowed the audience with spectacular images that defy traditional notions of house shapes and construction. — qz.com

A major force within contemporary Indonesian architecture, the soft-spoken man is recognized as the helmsman of a generation of independent architects, yet hardly anyone outside his native country knows his name. Locally celebrated but internationally undiscovered, Matin was one of the first Indonesian architects to establish an independent practice after the fall of Suharto in 1998. — MovingCities