The lure of a rising Asian metropolis? No traffic

Indonesia is building a new, green city in the jungle. Its future is far from certain, but new residents like living there, far from the madding crowd

In a remote corner of the island of Borneo on a recent Monday, a runner breezed down the middle of a freshly paved six-lane road. There was no traffic. Nearby, a gigantic eagle-like bird, made of thousands of copper bars, was perched on a hill.

This is the heart of Nusantara, a new, green metropolis rising from scratch from a forest in Indonesia.

But three years after officials broke ground on the city, the prospects of what was billed as Indonesia’s future capital are cloudy. Only a fraction of civil servants who were expected to move in have done so. The future of the water supply is in doubt. Residents still have to commute for hours to go to a mall or a movie. Many Indonesians now call it a ghost city.

Still, tourists regularly visit Nusantara, many taking TikTok videos of themselves in front of the 250-foot-tall and nearly 600-foot-wide monument to Garuda, the mythical bird that is Indonesia’s national symbol. Most drive in from neighbouring cities in East Kalimantan province. Others fly to the airport in Balikpapan, a two-hour drive away.

As for the city’s residents, many are young transplants from other parts of Indonesia and see themselves as pioneers of a new way of urban life.

Fachri Syamdoni Nawik, 26, a data consultant, moved in March. “It’s cool to be the history maker, right?” he said.

Nusantara aims to be a “10-minute city,” meaning that anyone should be able to reach their destination within 10 minutes by walking, cycling or using public transportation. Residents ride electric shuttle buses and are permitted to drive only cars that are deemed to be environmentally friendly. It is a revolutionary concept for Indonesians who grew up battling the vortex of traffic in places like Jakarta, the current capital.

“I had never seen any part of Indonesia like this before,” said Adji Pramono, 48, the assistant director for food and beverage for the Swissotel hotel in Nusantara.

Adji, who was born and raised in Jakarta, said he would never return to work in that city, where had to wake up at 4 am in order to reach work at 8. “It’s like I met people every day, and they were always angry,” he said.

The vibe in Nusantara, he said,
is different.

This reinvention was part of a pitch by Joko Widodo, when he was president, to move the capital 800 miles away from Jakarta, which is sinking into the Java Sea. Nusantara means “archipelago” in old Javanese and is a nod to the diverse islands and people of Indonesia.

But critics say that Nusantara, with an estimated cost of roughly $30 billion, symbolises the hubris of Joko, who launched many infrastructure projects, including a debt-ridden high-speed train line on the island of Java.

His successor, Prabowo Subianto, has yet to visit Nusantara after taking office last year and has cut the development budget. Recently, he appeared to cast doubt on the city’s future, saying that it would continue as a “political capital.”

I stayed at the Swissotel, one of two hotels in Nusantara and the only one with an international brand. Chrestian Pesik, the general manager, said that nine foreign ambassadors had stayed at the hotel recently and were exploring the possibility of opening embassies.

“People who don’t know the journey of this city might close their eyes and say, ‘This is going to be a ghost city,’” said Chrestian, 40. “But when they come here, they can feel that the city is growing.”

When I asked what people do for fun here, he replied, “We run!”

The day I arrived, organisers were wrapping up a 50-kilometre, or 31-mile, trail race. Nusantara, known as IKN in Indonesia, appears to be the default venue for many races in East Kalimantan.

Part frontier outpost, part campus town, it remains unclear whether Nusantara will grow into the metropolis Joko envisioned. Officials say its current population is about 155,000, but the area surrounding the Garuda monument and the new presidential palace is home to only 10,000 people, the vast majority of them construction workers.

Nusantara is projected to cover nearly 1,000 square miles, or roughly twice the size of Los Angeles. For now, the area is mostly trees. Vast empty spaces dominate. There are limited options for restaurants and groceries, although a traditional market is being built. And for all of its greenery, there is very little shade, making the midafternoon heat unbearable.

Electricity is supplied through a combination of solar power and the power grid, but the long-term goal is for the city to run fully on clean energy.

Putri, 23, a civil servant, graduated with a degree in electrical engineering last year and moved to Nusantara in June. She said that she made new friends easily (“Most of us are in our 20s!”) and that she never gets bored because she gets to attend food festivals and plant trees every month.

Many residents said their quality of life was better in Nusantara.

Fachri said he lived rent-free in a 10th-floor apartment, which was provided by the government. He has a flat-screen television hooked up to Netflix and, for the first time, air conditioning in his bedroom. Outside the apartment, there were three bins for separating trash. He described his current accommodation as the nicest place he has ever lived in. Downstairs, there is a gym, plus places for soccer and table tennis.

Nusantara wants to be “liveable and loveable,” according to its visitor centre, which was largely empty when I was there. These are ambitious goals, but critics argue the city is hurting the environment. Conservationists say thousands of acres of mangrove forests, the habitat of the endangered proboscis monkey, have been destroyed.

The construction of the toll road connecting it to Balikpapan, the closest city, has cut off crucial water sources and led to increased flooding there,
said Mappaselle, the head of the Balikpapan Coastal Working Group, an environmental group. Mappaselle, who goes by one name, said officials had not released an environmental impact assessment report.

Bambang Susantono was the head of the Nusantara Capital City Authority until he resigned in 2024. He said Joko pushed for much of the construction to be completed before Joko left office that year, but Bambang felt that accelerating the timeline could create problems. He said he was conscious about what happened after Brazil built Brasília, the new capital that is now surrounded by slums.

“Developing a city is developing a community, and not only the physical things,” he said. “Because otherwise you are going to have a city without a soul.”

One potential problem for the city is water. The dam built on the Sepaku River means that the city is “safe until 2030,” Bambang said. Beyond that, officials would need to build another dam or pipe in water from other rivers.

On a recent Monday evening, several tourists posed for photographs in the parks. One of them was Puput Rianti, 23, who was taking wedding pictures with her fiance.

She travelled from Penajam, a town 30 miles away, and said she would love to live here. “We want to feel the progress,” she said.

Throughout the city, the cranes continued to move. Andrinof Chaniago, Indonesia’s former minister for national development planning, who initiated the relocation of the capital, said that worries about the project’s fate were unfounded.

“It’s impossible to turn back now,” he said. “Cancelling it would only make everything that’s been built go to waste.”

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)