Norihisa Shima

Research on Non-Engineered Housing Construction Based on a Field Investigation in Jakarta

In recent years more and more houses of the low- and middle-income group in Indonesia have reportedly been affected by earthquakes. These houses are mostly non-engineered because most of them are designed and constructed without the involvement of professional engineers or architects. Clarifying the construction process of these non-engineered houses is the key to improving their seismic resilience. In this article, the authors examined how non-engineered houses are constructed in Jakarta. Most of the data used in this study is based on questionnaire surveys in two residential areas. After clarifying the background of the two surveyed areas and physical characteristics of non-engineered houses there, the authors examined how non-engineered housing construction is implemented through the analyses of construction scale, types of informally organized construction sectors and the relationship between homeowners and the sectors. The results indicate that non-engineered construction varies in scale and technological level depending on the type of construction sector, and offer basic knowledge that leads to further study for improving the seismic resilience of non-engineered houses.

New Directions in Urban Regeneration and the Governance of City Regions

Cities should be recognized as social, economic as well as environmental systems formed through networks of cities, towns and villages rather than as isolated entities. Conceptualized as such, they are often called city regions. Central cities of city regions, which we call regional cities, play a decisive role in regional as well as national development. In an age of globalization, competition among such city regions is one of the major driving forces in their on-going transformation. Globalization may strengthen the sustainability of some city regions through enlarging their economic bases, or may weaken their sustainability through the loss of industrial competitiveness or loss of geopolitical importance. Indeed, regional cities are now at a crossroads of whether they decline or are regenerated under the impacts of globalization.