JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, is polluted, overcrowded, and it is literally sinking. So the government decided to build a new one from scratch - a futuristic city powered by renewable energy, full of parks and trees and run by advanced technology. That's the vision. But four years in, many Indonesians are still skeptical. NPR's Above the Fray fellow, Katerina Barton, has the story.
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KATERINA BARTON, BYLINE: Inside Nusantara's trash and recycling facility, a crane sorts through piles of garbage and plastic bottles.
KATHLEEN MORA BERTA: Before the garbage is transported here, we already implement the waste segregation.
BARTON: Kathleen Mora Berta is one of the project officers of the waste treatment plant.
BERTA: And the second is the recycled one.
BARTON: She's proud to be among the many young and energized civil servants who are running this emerging city. It's an experiment, an effort to build a more sustainable city, and many things are being done for the first time.
Is it hard to, like, teach people to segregate their trash 'cause they've never done that before?
BERTA: Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty hard 'cause it's pretty new in Indonesia.
BARTON: She's 24. She was one of the first people who moved here two years ago, and she says life has been a little challenging.
BERTA: For example, just finding foods itself is difficult. Even up until now, we don't have much options. But I think that's the good thing about working with Gen Z - we don't need much (laughter).
BARTON: Yeah.
BERTA: Maybe Wi-Fi (laughter), but yeah.
BARTON: Wi-Fi because there's not much else to do for fun here. There's no malls or movie theaters yet. And that's because the city's main focus has been getting the government buildings completed, including an ornate presidential palace at the city center.
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BARTON: Many tourists come here to see the progress. They walk along avenues lined with trees and office buildings draped in hanging plants. It's different from the skyscrapers of Jakarta. It's a city built deep in the forest of Indonesia's Borneo island. But four years into this multibillion-dollar project, there's concern that progress has been slow. The core city center is home to only about 10,000 people. The target is to have more than a million in the next four years. That's why foreign media and critics say Nusantara could end up being a ghost city. This touches a nerve of Basuki Hadimuljono.
BASUKI HADIMULJONO: Yeah, that's not fair.
BARTON: He's the head of the Nusantara project. He says he's not worried about the timeline.
HADIMULJONO: 2028 will be the declaration of the capital city for Nusantara. And then also, we start now to move the civil servant until 2028.
BARTON: And he says, once the president moves here in 2028...
HADIMULJONO: All of the economic activity also will...
BARTON: Move here.
HADIMULJONO: ...Move here.
BARTON: The problem is, there's still a lot to get done before then. The toll road that leads into the city?
HADIMULJONO: It not yet finished yet.
BARTON: There's no school here yet, but the high school?
HADIMULJONO: Now under construction.
BARTON: And the judicial and legislative buildings?
HADIMULJONO: They start building and will finish on 2027.
BARTON: But despite Basuki's optimism, he's also facing complaints from the Indigenous populations who have long lived here, like the Balik tribe in the Sepaku Lama village. One of them is Samsia. As we walk on her farm, little ducklings scurry around. Samsia, like many Indonesians, just has one name.
SAMSIA: (Non-English language spoken).
BARTON: She was born in this village 45 years ago, and her parents and grandparents farmed on this land. As we walk around, she points out her rice paddies and other crops. Local journalist Niken Sitoningrum translates.
SAMSIA: (Non-English language spoken).
NIKEN SITONINGRUM: (Non-English language spoken).
SAMSIA: Cassava. Banana.
SITONINGRUM: Banana (laughter).
BARTON: Samsia and her husband, Pandi, tell me they're worried that this could all go away when the city starts to expand. They were told they would have to sell their land to the project.
SAMSIA: (Non-English language spoken).
BARTON: "I want them to stop so I can keep farming," she says.
PANDI: (Non-English language spoken).
BARTON: Pandi says, "Maybe the government can compensate me for my plants or even my house. But my memories? My history? Can the government replace that?" And he asks another question.
PANDI: (Non-English language spoken).
BARTON: "They already have a capital city. Why build a new one?" Officials hope moving the capital will relieve some of the growing pains of Jakarta, which is now the most populous city in the world, with more than 40 million people. But Nusantara is expected to be home to just 2 million people by 2045. So will it be a ghost city? Probably not. Will it be a capital city for everyone? That's the question. For NPR News, I'm Katerina Barton in Nusantara, Indonesia. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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