CANALS TO STREETS: POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES ON THE URBAN TRANSFORMATION OF COLONIAL BATAVIA

Abstract

Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city, is constantly improving its infrastructure. Besides being filled with buildings, Jakarta is now very colorful with roads and various modes of transportation. The highway is a city facility that serves as the development’s orientation. Whereas in its history, Batavia, as the forerunner of Jakarta, was once a canal city. Canals were an important part of city life in the 17th century, functioning as a source of transportation, pleasure, defense, and water supply, among other things. The Batavia canal city, on the other hand, is no longer visible. Jakarta is today a congested city with clogged roads. The purpose of this study is to describe Batavia’s transformation during the colonial period and identify the factors that influenced it. A historical-postcolonial approach was employed in conjunction with the descriptive qualitative method. Data was acquired through critical discourse analysis by tracking historical data from archives in the form of maps, images, artwork, and textual sources. According to the conclusions of this study, Batavia evolved from a canal city to a street city. The transformation was due to the failure of the colonial rulers in managing the canal system and the euphoria of the new invention of transportation technology. The discovery of material technology and transportation modes has changed the lives of the Batavian people which in fact created an asymmetrical power in their society. This exploring the transformation become the knowledge and consideration to promote the sustainability of the city of Jakarta.