THE CONCEPT OF LIVING CITY: URBAN REBORN FOR KEMAYORAN, CENTRAL JAKARTA

In April 1985, when the government decided the present Airport of Sukarno Hatta as the main gate of Jakarta, the history of Kemayoran as an airport was ended. This also ended up the era when there was less development in Kemayoran surrounding due to the restriction to build tall buildings in the airport surrounding. In 1988 -1994, Nation Secretary formed a board to manage the redevelopment process of ex airport. As a result, Kemayoran has been transformed into multi-family housing, walk-up flats and urban kampung which now are coexisted among high-end apartments, enclosed malls and sidewalks five foot festival markets. However, owing to the strategic location in the heart of central Jakarta, Kemayoran now enter into the era where some parts have undergone the process of rebuild. They easily identified through the emergence of collection of expensive places proposed by developers. This tendency endangered the existence of complex, multi-dimensional urban fabric generated through conventional plans with modest public investment and catalyst effort of ordinary people. This paper raised the issue on how to enhance the existence potentialities of Kemayoran that consist the economic diversification and growth, the expansion of local economy, informal gathering, and diverse communities. Through recognition and celebration of the complexity and diversity, which Jane Jacobs wrote, we propose the concept of “living city” for Kemayoran. In this concept, the assets are already in places would be reinvigorated and reborn in order to stimulate a place-based rejuvenation that add the long evolving and existing strengths instead of replacing them.