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Saving a sinking city: Jakarta

Saving a sinking city: Jakarta

Indonesia's capital Jakarta is sinking but how easy is it to build a new capital city?

The Documentary Podcast · BBC World Service

October 1, 202426m 29s

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Show Notes

Jakarta is facing all sorts of problems - deadly floods, land subsidence, extreme pollution, notorious traffic and overcrowding. Indonesia’s outgoing president has come up with an extreme solution: moving the country’s capital a thousand kilometres away, to the middle of the rainforest. Will the new city be a futuristic utopia and a model for sustainable urbanisation - or an eye-wateringly expensive, ecologically disastrous ghost town? BBC Indonesia reporter Astudestra Ajengrastri travels to the island of Borneo to find out if the ambitious plans will live up to reality.