| Martin van Bruinessen, "Poor migrants in Bandung:
settlement and employment", Paper presented at the International Workshop "Western Java in Development Perspective", Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology, Leiden, 11-15/9/89.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Poor
migrants in Bandung:
Sukapakir Sukapakir
is the real but appropriate name of a poor urban kampung in southwestern
Bandung. It is one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods of the
town now, although some forty years ago it was still a largely rural
district. On the fringes of Sukapakir, one finds even today a few sawah
fields, planted with kangkung (a sort of spinach) and watered by the
little streams that function as drains and into which various industries
and thousands of households have deposited their waste. Another little
plot of sawah, surrounded on all sides by dense habitation but unused
because of a legal conflict, has been turned into a garbage heap, adding
at once color and desolation to the neighbourhood. There are no other
open spaces left, apart from where houses have recently been torn down
to make place for a new road. The houses are very densely packed; hardly
any space remains unused. Only two or three houses still have a tree and
a few plants in front, otherwise there is no greenery left. What used to
be front- or backyards have also been built over; some houses moreover
have a makeshift second floor added to them, something uncommon in
Bandung. The average house, initially built for one family, now lodges
three to four households. Not surprisingly, three out of four adults
living here are immigrants to Bandung; most of the remaining fourth, the
children of immigrants. Most of them originate from various parts of
West Java, much smaller numbers from Central Java and Sumatra. Their
arrivals were in many cases directly connected with the political and
economic upheavals of the past half century. Sukapakir is like a living
museum of West Java's social history of the past half century, as seen
from the lower rungs of the social ladder. Its people's life histories
exemplify the successes, and especially the failures of Indonesia's
development programmes. Migration to, and population movement within, Bandung The general history of migration to Bandung is relatively well-known (see Hugo 1977: 81-92), and does not need to be repeated here in detail. During the final two decades of Dutch rule, the expansion of government services and considerable private investments made Bandung a booming city, attracting both Chinese and indigenous Indonesians in large numbers. It developed the typical dual structure of many colonial cities: Europeans and those most closely associated with them lived in comfortable brick buildings surrounded by gardens in the cooler northern part (north and east of the central business district of Braga), while the indigenous Indonesians mostly lived in the less wholesome south, in makeshift dwellings of wood and bamboo matting. This dual structure has stayed with Bandung, although it is now an Indonesian elite that lives in the north - along with numerous expatriates. The social distance is still acutely felt; although many in the south now also live in brick houses, the north is still often referred to as "daerah gedongan" (the zone of the brick buildings), and ordinary social intercourse with its inhabitants is unthinkable. The social and economic disruption of the Japanese occupation seems to have driven many West Javanese villagers to the cities and to have accelerated the growth of Bandung even more. The indigenous population almost doubled in three years (from around 200,000 to some 400,000). After the Japanese surrender in 1945, there was a heavy influx of Dutch, who were just released from internment camps in West Java. Half of the 60,000 Europeans living in the city by the end of 1945 had not lived there previously. They had taken refuge in Bandung's northern part under the protection of the British army there because of the resurgence of Indonesian nationalism. Many Chinese, feeling equally threatened if not more, had followed in their tracks. South Bandung, on the other hand, was largely controlled by radical nationalist pemuda organisations, preparing for a takeover of the entire city. Following a British ultimatum, the nationalists evacuated all of south Bandung in March 1946, setting fire to parts of it to prevent their stockpiles falling into European hands. This event, later known as Bandung lautan api ("the sea of fire of Bandung"), was one of the most dramatic in the revolution. Virtually all the indigenous inhabitants, almost half a million, left the city, and for a year and a half south Bandung remained a dead city (Smail 1964: 147-57). Many stayed in the southern parts of Kabupaten Bandung, hoping for a quick return, but most people probably went back to their villages and towns of origin, and only after several years began drifting back to Bandung. The city received another heavy influx of immigrants in the early 1950's, as a result of the Darul Islam rebellion. Clashes between the rebels and the Indonesian army, and reprisals on the part of both sides against suspected villagers, made the countryside unsafe, especially in the kabupatens Tasikmalaya and Garut and the southern part of the kabupaten Bandung. The number of refugees reaching Bandung in those years must have been around a hundred thousand. After the late 1950's, however, the population growth of Bandung petered off, and has in fact remained remarkably low ever since. Net migration into the kotamadya has been negligible or even negative since 1961 (the first post-independence census). It has repeatedly been observed by demographers that migration contributes much less to the growth of Indonesian cities (with the exception of Jakarta) than it does in most other Asian countries. This is not because Indonesians are relatively immobile, as has sometimes been assumed, but because there is almost as much population movement out of the cities as into them. Graeme Hugo, especially, has emphasized the importance of commuting and circulatory migration, two forms of population movement not detected by the censuses (Hugo 1977, 1978). Life- time migrants probably constitute but a relatively small portion of the total number of migrants entering the cities. Between the censuses of 1961 and 1971, the population of the kotamadya Bandung grew at an annual rate of 2.21%, only slightly above the growth rate for all of West Java (2.09%). During the period up to the 1980 census, this rate remained the same, although the average growth rate of West Java rose to 2.66% during the same period. It was, incidentally, not only Bandung that recorded a growth rate below that of the province as a whole during this decade. The same is true of three other major West Javanese cities: Bogor recorded 2.60%, Sukabumi 1.48% and Cirebon 2.51%. If we could assume the natural growth rate in the cities and the province to be the same, this would suggest net out- migration from the cities. There is much to say against that assumption, however. It is likely that the family planning programme has been more successful in the cities than in rural areas, leading to a lower birth rate (but what about the death rate, with better health care in the city?). On the other hand, the age pyramid of Bandung's population shows people of the reproductive age brackets to be highly over-represented, which should result in a higher than average birth rate.[3] In the case of Bandung, there is another reason why the population growth is so low in spite of (highly visible) immigration. The city has since long sprawled across the administrative boundaries into the adjoining districts of the Kabupaten Bandung, especially along the major traffic arteries. The growth in these districts has been well over the provincial average, as shown in Table I. If we define a "Metropolitan Bandung" by adding these districts to the Kotamadya, we find that this metropolitan area as a whole experienced annual population growth rates of 2.31% between 1961 and 1971, and of 3.01% between 1971 and 1980 - higher than the provincial growth rate, but not dramatically so. If this growth rate is maintained, Metropolitan Bandung will have close to 5 million inhabitants by 2000. These figures certainly do not mean that new migrants to Bandung mainly settle in the kecamatans surrounding the kotamadya. Many districts in the kotamadya (Sukapakir being one of them) keep drawing high numbers of immigrants, some of whom sooner or later move on to other districts or return to their villages. Houses and rooms are usually rented for one or two years at once, and many tenants move elsewhere when that period is up. There are very complex patterns of population movement within the kotamadya and the metropolitan area, many of the moves reflecting fluctuations in economic fortunes or social ambition. The unsuccessful tend to concentrate in certain specific districts, just like the better-off do. Since many of the typical immigrants' jobs (itinerant vendor, becak driver, prostitute, beggar) are more likely to yield income in the heart of the city, newcomers tend to concentrate in the popular districts closest to the city centre. Their arrivals are counterbalanced by moves of older kotamadya residents (notably civil servants and factory workers) to new housing complexes in the kabupaten area. The age distribution of the kotamadya population is one clear indication of the high proportion of recent migrants in it. The 1973 survey by LEKNAS found that more than half the rural-urban migrants in Java were between 15 and 24 years old.[4] We find this age bracket highly over-represented in Bandung, even more so than in Jakarta. The 1980 census shows the following age distribution: Indonesia West Java Kodya.Bandung Jakarta 0- 4 13.20% 14.95% 13.01% 14.24% 5- 9 13.85 15.04 12.38 12.70 10-14 12.07 12.18 11.92 11.47 15-24 19.28 18.42 25.35 24.77 25-49 29.70 28.87 27.95 29.93 50+ 11.89 10.54 9.39 6.89
This means that the number of persons in the 15-24 age bracket is approximately 100,000 higher than would be the case if Bandung had the same age distribution as all of West Java. The census shows no significant difference between the sexes in this respect. Many of these immigrants are of course students, but the latter alone cannot account for this high number. There are apparently many young migrants of other categories in Bandung. The age group over 50 is under-represented (though not as much as in Jakarta). This reflects the fact that many pensioners have retired to cheap housing complexes outside the kotamadya boundaries, and that many former migrants have returned to their villages. The population movements within the kotamadya (from one district to another as well as across the kotamadya boundaries) are to some extent reflected in the available statistics. The statistical yearbooks of Bandung give detailed figures on the numbers of persons moving into and out of each kelurahan and the origins of the immigrants.[5] These statistics are based on registers kept at the RT level. In theory, every immigrant is registered by the head of the RT in which he or she settles, and when they move elsewhere their departure is registered as well. In practice, because many newcomers stay initially with relatives or acquaintances, they are not recorded as immigrants but as temporary guests (tamu) or not at all. The style of book-keeping varies from RT to RT, but in most districts immigrants are under- recorded. I have come across people who had lived in Bandung for years but had not yet been registered as immigrants. These RT registers are then compiled and summarized in a number of steps at the higher levels of RW, kelurahan, kecamatan, wilayah and finally kotamadya. At each step, new copying or counting mistakes are introduced. The error margin in the final data is quite high. Random errors may to some extent be compensated by averaging over a number of years, but the serious systematic errors due to inadequate recording of arrivals cannot be eliminated.[6] The data of Table II therefore give at best bottom estimates for population movement; the real numbers may be several times higher. It is clear, nevertheless, that the urban population is far from stable: in half the kecamatans newcomers (in the three- year period) make up around 10% of the population. These figures of course tell us nothing about the net inflow of people. Since the data on arrivals and departures are so clearly incomparable (cf. note 3), we cannot use these statistics to study population movements in greater detail. The figures on population growth of the various kecamatans are the best indication available. The most reliable data are those of the censuses and the voters' registrations (in which all individuals are counted, not just those of voting age). Both are better than the registration figures, but there are quite serious discrepancies between them, due probably to their different treatment of recent and temporary urban residents (and to inevitable mistakes).[7] I have therefore only compared the two most recent counts of each type and calculated the rate of increase in the intervening period (Table III). I have the impression (from sampling a number of RTs in the eastern and southern parts of the city) that on the whole the voters' registration figures represent the actual situation better than the census results. Where both types of data yielded too different growth rates, I used population registration figures as a check to eliminate obviously wrong data.[8] The growth figures thus established are summarized in Map II. Within the kotamadya, both the northernmost districts and the extreme southwest - until recently still partly rural - show more rapid population increase than the average natural growth rate. These are the districts where the successful have been building new houses, leaving the more crowded districts closer to the centre. The north is known, of course, as the elite district par excellence, but there are also several urban kampung areas that must contribute much to the high growth rates there. We notice an unambiguous decrease in Bandung Wetan (which comprises the major business and shopping districts) and Andir (with its airport, industries and markets). In these two kecamatan, residential areas have been reallocated to other purposes. Most of the other kecamatan too show lower than natural growth rates, which must be the result of a net population movement across the kotamadya border. The picture of differential growth in the kotamadya would probably be much clearer if we had data on smaller units than the kecamatan, but unfortunately the present division in kelurahan was only made after the 1971 census took place. It should be noted, once more, that the kecamatans with the lowest growth rates are not necessarily those with the lowest proportions of immigrants. This is already apparent from a comparison of Tables II and III. From random interviews with street vendors and becak drivers in various parts of the city, I received the impression that these particular categories of migrants are especially concentrated in the kecamatans Andir, Bojongloa, Lengkong and Cibeunying, all of which have low growth rates. Several parts of these kecamatans have such high population densities that growth is hardly possible. They are attractive to recent migrants, however, because the rents of rooms tend to be lowest here, and there is a continual turnover of people. Moreover, there is a strong tendency for migrants from the same village or region to cluster in the same neighbourhoods. A newly arriving migrant usually seeks out relatives, co- villagers or other acquaintances, and expects them to provide help with housing and employment. He or she is in turn expected to lend similar services to people arrriving later. This reinforces the concentration of (recent) immigrants in a number of densely populated districts in the city. Population density appears, in fact, to be closely related to the proportion of immigrants in the population. The population density varies widely within the kotamadya, the elite districts in the north of course being least dense, and depressed lower- class districts in the south having the densest populations (Map I). Figures per kecamatan still veil wide internal variations; in this case it was fortunately possible to calculate figures for the kelurahan level (Table IV). All of the kelurahan with densities of 300 persons per ha (30,000/km2) proved on inspection to have many relatively recent immigrants among their population.
One kelurahan, Jamika (in Bojongloa, Tegallega), stands out for of its
fantastic density of well over 900 persons per ha, more than double that
of the next densest kelurahan. Unlike other kelurahans, Jamika has no
hospitals, factories or large open fields, but this is only part of the
explanation of this high density. The area is fully built up, and over
the past decades, ever more people have been squeezing into the same
number of houses. One of the most populous and poorest parts of Jamika
is Sukapakir, the neighbourhood I have chosen for my case study. Settlement of Sukapakir up to 1965, a brief history Even a small area like Sukapakir is far from homogeneous, both in physical outlay and in the social composition of its population. One part differs at first sight from the rest: the houses, although more or less aligned in six parallel rows, back to back, are crudely built and closely crammed together, the alleys between them always full of people because there is too little room inside. This used to be an old graveyard, and for that reason only the desperate and the really marginal were initially willing to settle here. Ironically, it was one of the first parts of Sukapakir to become built up.[9] By 1930, several poor squatters had erected huts on the fringes of the graveyard. Most of them were Javanese from the Cirebon area: itinerant tukang patri (tinkers repairing buckets, making drainpipes, etc.), masseurs, longser artists (giving circus-type performances), and perhaps other, less respectable professions. A few of these early settlers are still around, but it is hard making sense of their memories. The challenge of this magically dangerous environment, haunted by snakes and ghosts, is foremost in their stories. Only in the course of the 1950's was the graveyard entirely cleared and built up - which was accompanied by numerous exorcist rituals, for many of the settlers suffered attacks of spirit possession. Another early settler, just south of the graveyard, was Pak Cucu, a Sundanese born in Bandung (his grandparents had come from Garut).[10] Cucu worked in a Dutch pharmaceutical factory, and built in 1929 his own house in what was then wasteland. He probably selected this place because he had married a woman from the Cirebon area (and because his father-in-law taught him the magical skills necessary to ward off the evil spirits and the snakes). And so it went on; some people left, others took there place, and the group of huts on and around the graveyard gradually expanded. Most of the newcomers in those early years had, like Cucu, in some way or other connections with the first Cirebonese settlers. Because the group consisted of a mixture of (Cirebon) Javanese with Sundanese, the neighbourhood came to be nicknamed Sendawa, which could be explained as an acronym for "Sunda & Jawa" but also means "saltpetre" and had definite derogative overtones. The name is generally used now, though its negative conotations have not worn off. None of the settlers in Sendawa seems to have been of peasant backgrounds, and most had rather marginal jobs; this explains perhaps why many of them were early attracted to radical nationalism. In the 1930's, it is told, the settlement was raided several times by Dutch police looking for "troublemakers". Many of the young men here joined the revolutionary pemuda organisations in the first year of the independence struggle, and took part in minor clashes with the British and later the Dutch. Several of them later joined the Barisan Sakit Hati rebellion, a protest movement of former guerillas who had not been incorporated into the regular Army because of insufficient education, and who refused to be demobilized. This movement, rather left-leaning, was initially (1948) active around Subang and Sumedang, and was later pushed to the Cirebon area, where it held out until 1955.[11] All Cirebonese, in fact, had returned to Cirebon after the evacuation of Bandung in 1946, and they did not start coming back until 1948-49. Although several other newcomers, from various parts of West Java but mostly former Bandung residents, also settled in the neighbourhood, the group in Sendawa remained socially separate, somewhat suspect both to the surrounding population and to the new republican government. Their association with the Barisan Sakit Hati (henceforth: BSH) and the alleged involvement of some in semi-legal activities provided a rationalisation. Suhana, a Sundanese who was born not far from Sendawa in 1929, and knew the community well, remembered with a certain pride how he had taken part in the arrest of several former BSH members, who had returned to Sendawa. Suhana too had joined the pemuda revolution, but had become a member of the Siliwangi division (although his father was a KNIL soldier, and an elder brother had even joined Westerling's APRA troops against the nationalists). In 1950 he had taken part in the suppression of the RMS rebellion in the Moluccas, but afterwards he returned to Bandung and found a civilian job, while formally remaining in the Army. Some time in the early 1950's, he acted as a guide to an army unit raiding Sendawa and pointed out sixteen alleged BSH members or collaborators, including the then head of the RT, Maman. All of them were tried and given prison sentences (varying from 2 weeks to a year). The people of Sendawa did not take this affair lightly, and Suhana was later severely beaten up. Maman, who had also been arrested, retained his popularity, and was several times re-appointed as the RT headman. Meanwhile new groups of immigrants were arriving. Some were from neighbouring districts of Bandung, and related to the original owners of the land (some of which was sawah, some wasteland). Most conspicuous, however, were people from Garut, fleeing for either the Darul Islam or the regular Army (or for both). Unlike the Cirebonese, these people brought some money with them, and some of them moreover found jobs in the rapidly expanding public and private sectors of the city. They bought land in the area south of Sendawa, built proper houses and erected a mosque. There were then roughly two groups living in the area, culturally and politically at odds with each other. Sendawa was perceived as leftist, a-religious (or highly syncretist) and associated with all sorts of shady activities, while its self-righteous southern neighbours were outwardly pious and tended to have more regular jobs. Further immigration into these districts tended to perpetuate this existing pattern, for settlement was quite selective. Maman, the RT headman, was originally a tukang patri, but had become, in the 1940's already, a secretary at the kewedanaan of Tegallega (which comprised Sukapakir). Because of his influential position, newcomers from the Cirebon region sought him out for help or protection and became his clients (many had perhaps earlier relations with him). He is said to have provided provided protection and new identity papers to more than a few people on the run, who temporarily stayed in Sendawa. Who wished to settle here needed his consent. Tinkers from Cirebon made up the major core of the inhabitants of Sendawa, many of the others had nondescript jobs: scavengers, one or two beggars, small traders in second-hand goods. Kosim, the chief bully, was said to be a pimp and a fence of stolen goods; some of the women worked as masseurs (though not as prostitutes). Among the newcomers were also poor Sundanese (in many cases married into the Cirebonese community, and engaged in the same sort of jobs) and, remarkably perhaps, several poor Chinese as well, who did not seem to be discriminated here. Sendawa was given a new nickname, negara beling, "trash country" - which seemed to refer both to the scavengers' trash piles and to the people themselves. The newcomers in the kampung further south were typically from Bandung or Garut, and were relatives or acquaintances of the first settlers there. They carefully kept a social distance from their neighbours in Sendawa. Several of them had first met each other through religious organisations. Many sympathized with the Islamic party Masyumi, and the people of Sendawa accused them of secretly supporting the Darul Islam. The political tensions at the national level during the 1950's exacerbated the tensions between these two parts of Sukapakir. During most of the Sukarno years, the Sendawa group retained the political ascendancy in the neighbourhood, because of the association of its leaders with the PNI; the most vocal Chinese here became a Baperki activist, and a few people joined communist front organisations.
The conflicts decreased when, towards 1960, the area was split up into a
number of RT, because the population had increased so much. Sendawa and
the area south of it hence were administratively separated. Due to the
balance of power at the national level, however, PNI sympathizers
remained dominant even in the south. Kosim, the bully of Sendawa,
remained the head of local security in the entire area. Several times he
and his men raided the mosque, accusing the pious of holding secret
political meetings there. Such incidents caused much hard feeling, and
when in 1965-66 the tables were turned, some private revenge seems to
have taken place. Although there were very few confirmed communists
here, dozens of men were accused of being indirectly
"involved" (terlibat) in the PKI or the Untung coup. The RT
headmen were replaced, and an Army captain, vaguely affiliated with the
mosque, became the head of the RW comprising both Sendawa and the area
directly south of it. He has retained that position to this day, in
spite of many attempts (including those by a lurah) to have him
replaced. Four lives The foregoing was necessarily schematic and therefore gives too orderly a picture of migration. By looking a bit more closely at four early immigrants, two from each of the RT studied, we may get a better idea of the state of permanent flux in the community. Engkar was born in a village near Cirebon around 1915. His father, a petty village official, embezzled money and disappeared when he was two or three years old. It was generally assumed that he had run off to Deli, as then did so many who had reasons to disappear. In his teens, Engkar went to Bandung to look for work; after some time he unexpectedly found his father, who had been living on the Sukapakir graveyard all those years, and had become a reasonably successful dukun. The father had adopted a young boy from Garut, Dodo, as his son and was not too pleased to meet his own son. To Engkar's regret, his father refused to teach him his ilmu (magical skills), which were quite valuable assets, handing them down to Dodo alone. (Dodo later became a quite popular dukun too; his widow, who claimed to have inherited Dodo's ilmu, was still alive during my stay, and received clients from all over the city). Engkar, though staying in Sendawa, had to make his own living in a variety of irregular jobs. In the revolution, he joined API, one of the pemuda organisations, and was several years active in the guerilla in the south of kabupaten Bandung, where he met his wife. Through friends of those days, he found a job in the ammunition factory in Kiaracondong (East Bandung). With his regular income, he became one of the elite of Sendawa. He could build a row of houses there, living in one himself and renting the others. In 1962 he was, because of some irregularities, thrown out of the factory, and had find other ways to make a living. After some small-scale trading in kecap (soy sauce), Engkar switched to building materials, because he knew several building subcontractors (quite a few people in Sendawa worked in construction occasionally). His joining a PKI- affiliated mass organisation helped him expanding his contacts, and his business flourished. The events of 1965 brought a serious reverse in his fortunes. He was immediately arrested in October, but because he was small fry, his wife could buy his freedom after a few weeks by selling one of their houses. Since then he kept being harrassed. Each month he had to report (like the others who were "terlibat") to the KORAMIL, the local military command post, and each time he had to pay money. Sometimes he was extorted, under the threat of being rearrested. His business too declined dramatically, for most contractors were reluctant to buy from him. In the seventies, he returned to Cirebon for a few years, but failed starting a new life there, so that he came back to Sendawa, where at least there were a few relatives and people who respected him. By the time he died, in 1981, only a part of his last house was left; the rest had been sold. Only a daughter lives there now; two other daughters live with their husbands in Bogor and Majalaya (kabupaten Bandung). His two sons, who are in their late forties now, also faced gradually declining fortunes. One ran up a large debt and had to sell his house. He rents a place elsewhere in town now, where until recently he worked as a tailor. The other moved to Cililin, a nearby town, where he also set up as a tailor. The cheap mass-produced clothing flooding the market has all but pushed them out of work. Wawan was born in the Gebang district of Cirebon in 1930. When still a baby, his parents took him to Bandung and settled in Sendawa. His father was a tukang patri, his mother added to the family income as a masseur. The father would be gone for days or weeks, and Wawan remembers that during the occupation his mother always carried him with her when she massaged Japanese gentlemen. In 1946 (the evacuation of south Bandung), the family returned to Gebang, leading a very precarious existence. His father taught him soldering, but there was not much need for that work in Cirebon then. Wawan had various irregular jobs as an unskilled worker but remained unemployed most of the time. He married several times within a few years, with village girls from Gebang and Majalengka. In the early fifties he came to Bandung a few times, staying with an uncle in Sendawa, who was also a tukang patri, then went back again to Cirebon. His seventeenth wife, whom he married in Majalengka in 1962, was a forceful personality, who persuaded him to seek more regular income. They came to Bandung together, settling in Sendawa again, and Wawan started driving a becak. Finding this work too hard, he took up soldering again, receiving help from his uncle, who had more contacts. A few building contractors whom he got to know sometimes called him to make drainpipes and gutters. It would seem that he had various other sources of income on the side, on which he prefers to remain silent (during my stay, he sold illegal lottery tickets, and there was a prostitute living in his house). His fortunes fluctuated considerably: at one time he could buy several houses and a whole plot of sawah, both of which he let out. He had to sell everything to pay for medical aid when three of his children fell ill and finally died. Work, moreover, was increasingly slack in the 1970's because new synthetic materials had started replacing zinc and tin. Wishing to make a new start, the family moved to Sumedang, because Wawan had heard that in the villages there, a tukang patri still could make a decent income. That proved true, but the children did not enjoy life in the countryside, so that in the early 1980's Wawan and his family returned, buying a cheap house in Sendawa. Although still calling himself a tukang patri, Wawan received only a single order during my stay. Most of the time he was just sitting at home, making a little money from the lottery. Ikin was born in Garut in 1920 and first came to the Bandung area in the late 1930's. He married a woman in Cicalengka and lived there for several years; during the revolution he joined the Hizbullah there, the major Islamic struggle organisation, and was later incorporated into the Siliwangi division. When the latter retreated to Yogyakarta, he remained behind because his wife was pregnant. They settled in Nyengseret, an urban kampung area in south Bandung. During most of the 1950's he worked as a carpenter, and spent most of his time in the Cilacap area in Central Java. In 1960 he bought some land in Sukapakir and built a few houses there, into one of which he moved himself. Together with a few other people from Garut, he built a mosque here, as a symbolic gesture to counter the evil influences from the negara beling. The mosque is affiliated with the puritan Muslim organisation Persis, which has become Ikin's major network of social contacts. His children were sent to a Persis school elsewhere in town rather than to the nearby state school. Ikin continued working as a carpenter, but left Bandung less frequently since. In 1970 he became amil lebe (the religious official registering marriages and carrying out the rites for the deceased), and for the past decade this has been his only (very modest) source of income. Although his children help supporting him, he had to sell his other houses and land. Six of his children-in-law (originating from Garut, Tasikmalaya, Ciamis, Cianjur and Sumedang) have come to live in the house, each in a room with a separate entrance; two more rooms are let to unrelated tenants. None of the sons and sons-in-law has a regular income, although only one is permanently unemployed. Others earn irregular incomes as construction workers, barber, tailor and from a small warung.
Husen too was born in Garut, in 1925, and received a pesantren education
there. I 1948 he came to Bandung to marry a distant relative, whose
parents had lived in Bandung for some years. The next year he took his
wife back to Garut, because he owned sawah there. In 1950, Darul Islam
units killed several people in his village, and he fled to Bandung,
trying various jobs, mostly petty trading. He joined Persis and followed
its weekly training courses; due to these contacts, he bought some land
in Sukapakir and built a house there. In 1961 he contributed some of his
land as waqf to the mosque. Before it was completed, however, he
returned to Garut because the Darul Islam rebellion was over. He did not
live in peace very long there. There were many reputed communists in his
village, and after the Untung coup, much mutual killing took place. He
fled back to Bandung, selling his last plots of sawah, and took up
selling fruits again, in one of the markets. His business gradually
declined, and he had to gradually sell all of his excess land in
Sukapakir. In 1975, he closed his market stall, which had become a
losing proposition, and since then he has exclusively devoted himself to
his work for the mosque, where he occasionally preaches. Three married
children, living elsewhere, and a young brother-in-law (living in) help
the family, with two young children, survive. Immigration since 1965 Many of those living in the area in the 1950's and early 1960's have meanwhile died or moved elsewhere. Many of the later immigrants, too, moved on within a few years. The present population therefore does not adequately (and certainly not proportionally) represent the various consecutive waves of immigration into Sukapakir. Nevertheless, it still gives us a general idea, since of each wave of newcomers, at least some have remained. The data that follow below are based on my sample of two RT's, RT A around the Persis mosque, and RT B in Sendawa. Table V shows, for those present residents on whom I have sufficient data, their regions of origin and the year of their first arrival in Bandung. Most of them did not immediately settle in Sukapakir but elsewhere in the city; the time of arrival in Bandung, however, is more relevant. For the most recent migrants (the periods 1975-79 and 1980-83), Table VI gives more detailed information, including their present jobs. It is not difficult to distinguish a certain pattern in the migration into these two RT's of Sukapakir. Among the immigrants settling here since 1965, a few new clusters are conspicuous.[12] People from Cirebon and Garut kept coming, attracted and helped by the groups already here. The next identifiable group were from the Tegal-Brebes districts on the northcoast and from Purwokerto further south - both just across the border of Central Java. Culturally close to the Cirebonese, they settled in or near Sendawa. They formed a cluster not only in the sense of settling close to each other but also in adopting the same job, as itinerant vendors of mie baso (noodles with meatballs). Most were of rural backgrounds, but landless. They came as single males, learning from each other how to make meatballs. At first they regularly went back to their villages; marrying there, they brought their wives to Bandung and gradually became more permanent residents. But they tended to invest their savings in land in their villages of origin. Several have already returned, others coming and taking their places. A somewhat similar group, though coming more recently, and in larger numbers, consists of young men from Majalengka, almost all of whom have become vendors of baso tahu (a combination of fish balls with beancurd in spicy sauce). They have maintained close ties to their villages of origin, where many in fact own land. Some live more or less permanently in Bandung, with their families, but others divide their time between the village and Bandung; their work here is only an additional source of income. Groups of two to four young men rent a room together and live as frugally as possible, saving for investment at home. This group has a high turnover, but keeps growing in numbers. A third cluster consists of some forty beggars, almost all from one village in Indramayu. One of them lived in Sendawa from the early 1950's; she was gradually joined by a few co-villagers, and during the past fifteen years there has been a quite significant influx. Most of them had been landless agricultural workers, who lost employment at home because of the introduction of more sophisticated techniques or simply because they were growing too old. There was no longer sufficient room in Sendawa to house them all, so that around 1980 they moved to a row of ramshackle huts on the edge of the garbage heap. Fourth, a smaller number of migrants from Kebumen may be mentioned. One of their number (who has been the head of RT B for some time) has an influential position in a major modern factory, and has found jobs there for five others of this group. Several more are still distantly related to him, and this seems to be the major reason why they settled here rather than elsewhere in the city. There is a fifth distinct group, not originating from any one specific region but practising the same profession and somewhat socially isolated: that of prostitutes. In 1983-4, there were some twenty prostitutes living in the two RT's studied, almost all of them in Sendawa (since then, their numbers have further increased). There had been a few individual prostitutes living in the area before 1965, but only around 1970 did the first start practising their trade in Sendawa itself. The turnover in this group, understandably, is higher than in the other clusters, but its size goes on increasing, and they contribute significantly to the total income of Sendawa, since most of their earnings are redistributed here.
Beside the strong correlation between region of origin and type of
employment, illustrated by the first four clusters mentioned, attention
should be drawn to another interesting observation: unemployment is
quite low among the recent arrivals. While forty men in the sample had
been unemployed for more than a half year by the end of 1983, only one
of them had arrived in Bandung after 1975. This reflects the fact that
new immigrants who do not find a job rapidly enough tend to return to
their village very soon, or move on elsewhere. Half of the unemployed
were over forty years old, had had jobs for which there was a decreasing
demand or too much competition (spray-painter, welder, tinker, other
construction jobs, tailor), and had been unable or unwilling to find (or
adapt to) another type of employment. Movement out of Sukapakir It is much harder, of course, to say something of the people who have moved out of Sukapakir during the same period, although I have been able to interview several of them when they came to visit relatives or former neighbours. The outflow is quite significant; during the 11 months of my stay, 30 households (i.e., 9% of the total number) moved out of the two RT's of my sample. Half of them moved elsewhere in Bandung, ten of them in fact remaining in the vicinity. One family migrated to Sumatra, in the hope of finding better employment there, another family became (very lowly paid) gardeners on a small plantation near Bandung. The other 13 families returned to their own villages. Of the last group, five returned because of economic failure in Bandung, another two because of other problems in the city, one for unclear reasons. Four claimed to be "tired" and to prefer a quiet life in the village (which means that they had at least accumulated some savings). Only one family had clearly positive reasons for its return: the husband was offered a job as the village secretary. Many more residents have plans to return to their villages in the near or more distant future. But as often happens, the return is postponed year after year. Most of the baso tahu vendors from Majalengka, for instance, see this work as temporary. They are saving money to invest in some enterprise in their villages: some wish to buy more land, others to open a shop, or to buy a minibus. Many in fact live only part of the year in Bandung and continue to attend to their affairs in the village. Interestingly, a credit co-operative that some of them have founded, and that chiefly serves as a source of capital for their urban trade, is based in the village of their origin and holds its members' meetings there. For others, the village is a place to retire too when they have become too old or too tired to continue working in the city. Declining incomes in many jobs and the rising cost of living in the city tend to make the village a more attractive alternative. Syafruddin, for instance, was born in Garut around 1920. Although his family owned some land, he refused to become a farmer and joined the Dutch Indies Army instead. He lived through the Japanese occupation as a trader, and in the revolution immediately joined the republican police in Garut. Later he was transferred to Bandung, and from 1959 on he lived in Sukapakir. When he was pensioned (1970), he started a krupuk (cassava crackers) factory in his house, with five workers. After a few years, however, rising cassava prices and heavy competition pushed him out of the market after a few years. Because he still had school going children, he needed other sources of income. For the first time in his life he took up farming, on his family's land in Garut. He has been going there regularly, for weeks on end, while his family remains in Bandung. When the youngest daughter leaves school (she studies at an academy for paramedics), he intends to retire to Garut for good. Rahmat is a somewhat different case. Born in Cicalengka in 1940, he came to Sendawa in 1960 and has lived by various means, including some gentle extortion. For several years, he has also been running a little brothel in Sendawa. In the period of the first mysterious killings (1983), he temporarily disappeared to Cicalengka, where he took up farming. Since then, he has lived part of the time with his wife in Sendawa, part of the time in Cicalengka, and he keeps talking of settling permanently there. Because of the attractive (although modest) income of his little brothel, however, he has kept postponing this move until there are more pressing reasons.
Many, perhaps even most, of those who still have relatives or land in a
village, make contingency plans of eventually moving there when the
advantages of city life in terms of cash income will be outbalanced by
the rising cost of living. Besides the cost of living, there are several
other 'push' factors at work that should not be neglected. Several
parents (especially in RT A, which generally has more 'bourgeois'
values) are worried about the influence of the environment on their
children and would move out rather sooner than later if they could
afford it. Ibu Sumyati, for instance, desperately wants to leave
Sukapakir because her youngest son has joined an increasingly violent
youth gang and uses drugs. She blames it all on the environment (which
in turn sees her son as one of the most kurang ajar kids around). Being
born in Bandung, she has no village to return to, but she keeps urging
her husband (a former schoolteacher who has no pension because he was
"terlibat") to move to Bogor or some other minor town. "Patron-client" relations In their adaptation to urban life and economic survival, migrants depend very much on informal dyadic relations of the kind often termed "patron-client relations". The vertical relations of dependence and obedience that Jackson (1978) subsumes under this term represent but a fraction of the entire range.[13] Many of these relations are hardly or not ar all hierarchical, although they are always based on differential access to scarce resources: housing, employment, contacts, skills. It is also misleading to contrast them too starkly with traditional authority relations, since primordial loyalties (kinship, regionalism, ethnicity, and religious affiliation) are often an important ingredient of them. The clustering of migrants from certain regions in specific habitats in the city and in specific jobs shows the working of one of these types of patron-client relationships. For a newcomer to the city without any contacts it is almost impossible to find employment. Most migrants seek out a relative or a co-villager, if there is any, and demand his help in finding lodging and employment. The presence in the city of a few successful migrants from a certain village is, in fact, one of the important "pull" factors working on their co-villagers. Three of the four most recent immigrants from Kuningan in my sample, for instance, came to Sukapakir because someone from their village set up a krupuk factory there, and invited them to come and work for him. At least some of the immigrants from Kebumen were drawn to the city because their relative Sukarman has an influential position in a factory and was expected to find them employment there. In some cases, migrants can appeal to the traditional responsibilities of notables from their region of origin. There are a few notables from the Sumedang region, for instance, who own several houses in Bandung (not in Sukapakir), that are put at the disposal of young immigrants from their kabupaten; one has bought a number of becaks in order to give some of these migrants a job (against the payment of a rent). It is more common, however, for the migrants to engage in a relation with someone of the same social status but with more experience and contacts. The tukang patri in Sendawa, for instance, all have learnt their skills from one of the two first men to practise this trade, Maman (who had learnt it in a Dutch tinned food factory) and Tarmedi, Wawan's uncle. These "patrons" had relations with small building contractors, and when they received a large job, they would take some of their "clients" (all of whom were from the Gebang region in Cirebon) along. Once someone had learnt soldering and owned his own tools, he became virtually independent of his "patron" and could roam the city by himself in search of work, carrying his tools over his shoulder in a pikul. In due time, some established their own contacts that at times brought in larger orders. Maman and Tarmedi remained highly respected elders, however, who continued to refer to all other tinkers as their anak buah (clients). Their role as patrons was not restricted to the job of soldering alone. Maman, because he was a secretary of the kewedanaan and the RT head, could and did lend a variety of other important services (usually against payment), while Tarmedi had a reputation as a powerful dukun. The patron-client relationships among the baso tahu vendors are more one-dimensional and short-lived. Several of those now living in Sukapakir had at one time or another a number (varying from two to ten) of anak buah, usually from their own or a neighbouring village. These "clients" usually lived in their houses, had to help preparing the fishballs and spicy sauce, and to go around the city with pikuls or carts owned by the "patron" in search of customers. The profits were divided equally. Making baso tahu is easily learnt, however, and most anak buah started for themselves as soon as they had saved enough to buy their own pikul or cart. New migrants took their place, and soon made themselves independent too. As the number of baso tahu vendors in Bandung, and therefore competition, increased, patrons of this type disappeared; none of the former "patrons" has clients anymore. Most complain of declining profits because the market is over-saturated. The recent newcomers to this job are typically close relatives or friends of earlier vendors, and their co- operation is more egalitarian. There are no recognised elders of the baso trade. The rapid change in composition and taste of baso tahu in Bandung is related to the short distance between generations in this trade. Up to the mid-1950's, baso tahu was made of pork, and its production was a virtual Chinese monopoly. Several indigenous Indonesians, who had worked for Chinese patrons, started for themselves; there are still two vendors in Sukapakir (one Javanese, the other Sundanese) who make baso tahu with pork. To strict Muslims, this is of course unacceptable food; it is probably not accidental that is was a few men from Garut (the most "santri" part of West Java) who first experimented with fish instead of pork. For almost fifteen years, almost all vendors of this licit baso tahu were from Garut. Towards 1970, the first men from Majalengka learnt the trade from patrons from Garut. They handed it down to numerous other men from their region, who now probably make up the majority of baso tahu vendors in Bandung. The recipes have meanwhile diverged so much, that baso tahu of Majalengka had a distinctly different taste from the Garut variety. Itinerant vendors (and also becak drivers, beggars, etc.) also often depend on another sort of patron-client relationship, especially since their free movement has been seriously restricted by the city authorities. All hope to find one or a few good tempat nagog ("place to squat"), where they can safely stand and find many buyers. Schoolyards, markets, cinemas, hotel and hospital entrances are some of the most favourite locations. A fixed place in front of a shop (after closing hours), or any other place where they will not be expelled are second choices but also desirable. Access to such places is strictly limited, and one needs a connection with the persons controlling them (usually security guards) for a valuable permission. The permit, though unofficial, has to be paid for, but this is not a purely economic transaction; not just anyone can buy it. The vendor is often a friend or a relative of a friend of the security guard, or they have something else in common. Although the term "patron" seems hardly appropriate here, both parties think of the transaction as a form of help or favour (from the security guard to the vendor). There is even less verticality in the relation between the vendor and his regular customers or that between him and the suppliers of his raw materials. Significantly, the parties in these relations are both called the other's langganan. A vendor's langganan buys from him rather than a competitor; in exchange, he receives the better tidbits, is never overcharged, and may often buy on credit. When the vendor buys fish or flour from a supplier who is his langganan (or whose langganan he is, which amounts to the same), he is certain to receive good materials and good service. Langganan relationships are beneficial to both sides: the seller is assured of regular sales, the buyer of good quality and reasonable prices. All categories of traders, therefore, try to establish as many langganan relations as possible. And not traders alone: becak drivers too, and even beggars and prostitutes have their langganan.
A special form of langganan relation, and of vital importance to those
concerned, is that between construction workers and mandors (labour
subcontractors).[14]
The mandor is a middleman between building contractors and the labour
force; his role is to procure the necessary numbers of the various sorts
of construction workers at the time that they are needed (cf. Garna
& Sudarmo 1982, Firman 1989). He has a more or less lasting
relationship with a pool of workers on whose work he can rely and whom
he can call upon when needed. Obviously, at any one time only a part of
this labour pool can be mobilised; many workers therefore have relations
with more than one mandor. For a large project, the contractor usually
needs to employ several mandors; some big mandor may in turn rely on
lower-level mandors to find the needed categories and numbers of
workers. The relation between a mandor and his anak buah is often based
on primordial ties: they are frequently from the same village or region,
and in many cases there is even a family relationship. Common present
residence may also be a factor: Thoha, a small-time mandor who grew up
in Sendawa, says that when he had some work to do, he took along a
number of local friends, preferably his fellow players in the
neighbourhood soccer team. Some of the tukang patri also have had
relations with mandors living nearby, with whom they had little else in
common. For the construction workers, relations with a mandor are
essential, for it is practically impossible to find employment
independently. Those in Sukapakir have been umemployed for more than
half the time during the past years, but they all stayed at home then,
waiting for calls (panggilan) from their mandors rather than going out
to seek work themselves, which they claimed was useless. Employment Table VII shows that most people in Sukapakir have rather marginal occupations. Only some ten percent of the men are employed in the formal sector, another ten percent are long-time unemployed, the remainder carve out an existence in a variety of activities that are often collectively called the 'informal' sector, jobs in which there is no regular employment, no fixed working hours, no fixed wages, no contractual arrangements, etc. Half of these are itinerant vendors and becak drivers, the prototypical 'informal sector' jobs. Among the most recently arrived immigrants (Table VI), these two jobs are even more dominant.[15] These are not necessarily economically unattractive jobs; a becak driver, as long as he remains healthy, may earn more income than a factory worker, and the average itinerant vendor brings more money home than a schoolteacher. The other important category of "other workers" includes construction workers and a variety of lowly skilled technicians such as welders and spray painters, some of whom have regular employment in small repair workshops but most of whom work on call only, depending on middlemen to find them a piece of work. The classification of women's work is more problematic, since almost all women spend a considerable part of their waking hours on household chores. Those listed as "housewives" had no important independent income-generating activities. Many of them, however, also significantly contributed to their husbands' economic activities: a mie baso vendor's wife helps her husband preparing the baso, buys some of the ingredients and cleans his cart besides taking care of biological and social reproduction of the family. Most of the factory workers are employed in the textile industry, many of the "other workers" in small food-processing home industries. The largest category of independently employed women are the petty traders, most of whom run little warungs (stalls) in their houses, selling edibles, cigarettes, soap, etc. Others sell cooked food (rice, vegetables, sweetmeats, prepared fruits) in the neighbourhood - women seldom go out on to the major streets as hawkers. For a variety of reasons, the incomes of many if not most Sukapakir residents declined, at least in real terms, during the early 1980's. Due to a general fall in construction activities, most construction workers remained unemployed for long periods between successive stints. Most of the technicians, too, complained of sharp declines in piecework, due perhaps to the primitive repair workshops' gradually being replaced by ones with sophisticated machinery. The city government banned becaks and itinerant vendors from the major streets, and announced that the becak had to disappear entirely, while vendors would have to rent stalls in market complexes. This in itself caused a sharp decline in income for most of the hawkers and becak drivers, who now could only work the secondary streets and kampungs. Those who transgressed the ban, entering or even only crossing the forbidden zones, had their becaks or carts confiscated and at times destroyed by a brutally operating special police units. If at short notice they could raise enough cash, they could redeem the becak or cart, otherwise they would have to wait for their trial several months later. All merchandise was definitively lost. The ransom to be paid increased from Rp. 5 thousand to Rp. 16 thousand during the year of my stay. Several of my neighbours almost went bankrupt because of these confiscations; those who carefully obeyed the ban claimed income losses of 20% or more.[16] The city government proposed vendors and becak drivers to change their professions, but no concrete help in doing so was ever given to anyone in my sample. In the few years that have passed since, only two of the becak drivers in my sample have found other employment; one died, two (aged around 45) have simply given up work, one returned to his village, two moved elsewhere in the city, and the remainder persist in their old jobs, complaining of further decline because a new minibus service has taken many of their passengers away from them. The two who changed their profession became a petty market trader and a small-time pimp. Of the itinerant vendors, many have returned to their villages (only to be replaced by others); I know of none who found himself a new urban job. The factory workers might seem, at first sight, to represent one of the possible development prospects for this neighbourhood. After all, Bandung's textile industry is still expanding and penetrating foreign markets. The expanding volume of production, however, is due to technological innovations only; it would seem that the total labour force employed has decreased rather than increased. Moreover, the factories are said to prefer young females freshly recruited from Central Java, being more docile, over older Bandung residents. The number of Sukapakir residents working in the textile industry has decreased rather than increased over the years. Several people in my sample once worked in textile factories but lost their jobs because of layoffs or the closure of obsolete factories. One consequently became a becak driver, the others itinerant vendors or housewives. The few people who were, due to personal contacts, recruited into another modern factory notwithstanding, there is little prospect of industrial employment for the average Sukapakir resident. The few home industries in the area - little workshops producing krupuk, fried onions, metal buckets, tin containers for grocery stores, stickers, name-cards and printed sweatshirts, and finishing simple golden jewellery for a Chinese store - are fighting an uphill battle against more sophisticated competitors and, apart from the goldsmiths, continually face a shortage of capital. Two of them have closed shop since I left, no new ones have been established. The only income-earning activity that has visibly increased since 1984 is prostitution. I already mentioned a becak driver who has become a pimp; in fact, it is his wife, a former prostitute who had grown too old for her profession, to whom he owes this new enterprise. In 1983-84, two prostitutes were renting a room in their little house but practiced their trade elsewhere. Now he has rented another little house, where three prostitutes can receive their guests. Wawan, the former tukang patri whose vicissitudes were related above, erected a second floor on his house in 1985, and told me, somewhat ashamed, that he had then four girls living in, who received guests upstairs. Selling illegal lottery tickets had become, he felt, too risky; many other agents had been arrested and had received heavy fines. Renting rooms by the hour was the safest and securest source of income available to him. One other family has two girls living in, who occasionally receive paying guests. The two older brothels in RT B have expanded their capacities. Rahmat's has nine rooms instead of the earlier four, although most of the time only four girls live in; he also rents the rooms to girls from outside. It is perhaps symbolic for the increased economic importance of prostitution to the neighbourhood (resented by many though it is) that the re-election of the RT head in 1988 was celebrated in Rahmat's brothel. One of the worrying aspects of the employment situation is that hardly anybody in my sample has been able to switch to a different, more promising type of employment, although many have felt that their present jobs offer no lasting future. Quite a few Sukapakir residents have had other jobs before their present one, but in most cases these were of a similar kind. The changes that I came across in the life histories tended rather to be from more to less secure forms of employment. Shop assistants or factory workers became itinerant vendors, but itinerant vendors rarely if ever become anything else; at best they switch to other commodities. Although there has been much talk of employment generation, no one in my sample has benefited from official efforts in this direction.[17] A few young men followed (free) courses at the Ministry of Labour's job training centres (Balai Latihan Kerja) but claimed that there was no demand for the skills they were taught there (brick-making, car repair, etc) - a consequence of the fragmentation of the labour market. It is not sufficient to have skills; one also needs contacts to make an entry into another sector of the labour market.
While there is little lifetime mobility between different types of jobs,
the situation for intergenerational mobility is only marginally better.
All parents are convinced of the importance of education for their
children, and many make great sacrifices to send them to school. Only
very few, however, can afford to let their children continue their
education beyond the first grades of secondary school. Most, sooner or
later, need the children's contribution to the household income and take
them from school. Many children, therefore, get into similar jobs as
their parents. Among the second generation in my sample there are,
nevertheless, relatively more shop assistants, office clerks,
technicians and factory workers than among the first generation, which
suggests a slight change towards more stable employment. This is offset,
however, by relatively higher unemployment (or hidden unemployment)
among the second generation. Conclusion Sukapakir and many other urban kampungs like it represent a sector of the economy and a way of life that many Indonesian officials consider as impediments to modernity, and would like to have disappear rather today than tomorrow. When some results of my research were published in a popular weekly (Tempo, 27 Oktober 1984), a top bureaucrat proposed to have the entire neighbourhood torn down and its inhabitants collectively transmigrated - a highly idiosyncratic variant of war on poverty.[18] Fortunately, other counsel prevailed, and some infrastructural investments were made in the area, somewhat improving the physical environment. The city's discouraging policy towards the informal sector has somewhat relaxed, although the disappearance of becaks and hawking remains the ultimate objective. The positive contributions of this sector of the economy are by and large ignored. Not only does it provide a livelihood to a large segment of the urban population, it also provides cheap and adequate services to other urban dwellers at the place where they need them. Since itinerant food vendors have been banned from the city centre, people working there have to go further distances to find food, and pay higher prices for it. Although the productivity of this sector is low, it also contributes significantly to productive investment. To many enterprising villagers, it represents the only available means of capital accumulation. By channeling money from the urban to the village economy, it contributes to rural development, and thus puts a brake on rampant urbanisation with its consequent social and economic dislocations. ---------------------------------------------- Appendix: Tables Table I KOTAMADYA
BANDUNG AND SURROUNDING METROPOLITAN AREA:
Source: Census results
Table II REGISTERED
VOLUME OF ARRIVALS IN BANDUNG'S KECAMATANS
Source:
Total arrivals in each kecamatan after Data Kotamadya Tingkat II
Bandung, Tahun 1976, Tahun 1977, and Tahun 1978. These yearbooks
list for only a fraction of these arrivals their origins (within or
outside the kotamadya). On the basis of these fragmentary data,
estimates for the numbers arriving from outside were calculated.
Table III POPULATION
OF BANDUNG'S KECAMATANS, ACCORDING TO THE
Sources:
Table IV POPULATION DENSITY OF THE KOTAMADYA BANDUNG IN
1980,
Sukajadi Cicendo Andir Cidadap Coblong Bandung Wetan Cibeunying Astanaanyar Bojongloa Babakan Ciparay Bandung Kulon Regol Lengkong Batununggal Kiaracondong ----------------------------- Source: Surface of the kelurahan after: Kotamadia Bandung dalam angka 1981 (Biro Statistik Kotamadia Bandung, 1982). Population figures of the 1980 census.
Table V IMMIGRANTS
TO BANDUNG RESIDING IN SUKAPAKIR,
*
This table lists only those migrants whose year of first arrival in
Bandung could more or less reliably be established. The numbers of each
row therefore do not add up to the totals in the final column; many of
those from Indramayu, for instance, could not tell when exactly they had
first arrived. Table VIPRESENT
ADULT SUKAPAKIR RESIDENTS ARRIVING IN BANDUNG SINCE 1975,
In addition, one family of Bandung origins that had lived in East Java for twenty years, returned to Bandung and settled in the area in 1979. Its adult members were 2 males (pensioner, shop assistant) and 3 females (shop assistant, 2 housewives)
Table VII PRESENT CHIEF OCCUPATIONS OF SUKAPAKIR RESIDENTS A. Men
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||