A Street Market in Jakarta

By
Nina Suwarno
Master's Student of Spatial Planning, Department of Infrastructure and Regional Planning, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden
ninasuwarno@hotmail.com


Tanah Abang is one of the oldest market in Jakarta, it goes back as old as almost 300 years old, it began the activity with animal market. The activities still exist until now, but today's main business is textile as it's well known as far as the African countries. Nevertheless, the attraction were not only attract foreign entrepreneur, but also local entrepreneurs, which means urban migration. Thus many people from outside Jakarta are trying their luck in the area and make the area looks like in the following pictures:

Picture 1: Blue cars are the public transportation, it moves very slow, around 1km/h. The street vendors are not only using the sidewalk area but also eating the more than half of the road width. Thus, the pedestrian are not using their own space but using the vehicle space instead, forcing the cars to move slower.

Overview of market


This condition happens during business hour, usually it starts at 8 o'clock in the morning until around 4 in the afternoon.
The following picture will shows what they sell:

 


Picture 2: they sell everything, from used things, to brand new things. From food to animals, in this picture shows they sell used eyeglasses next to rifles as well as soft drinks

View of stalls


Picture 3: this is inside the tents, they sell, they sell fruits until daily needs, such as cloth, shoes, utensils etc, mixed with fruits as well as food vendors.

Interior view of stalls


Picture 4: in other part of the street, they also sell firecrackers.
The various type of the public transportation is also an additional diversity of informal sector, as shown in the picture, trishaw, (becak)

carts


There are more things happens, pictures only will not tell the whole story of the informal activities in Jakarta. I will try to cover all these things in my thesis.

(Please contact the author with comments or questions. She would love to get advice and suggestions.)