Saving a sinking city: Jakarta

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.

Presenter: Astudestra Ajengrastri
Producer: Olivia Humphreys
A Reduced Listening production for BBC World Service

(Photo: Workers dredging mud using heavy machinery from the riverbed that divides downtown Jakarta before the rainy season to avoid regular flooding, 30 September, 2021. Credit: Bay Ismoyo/AFP)