GUNAWAN TJAHJONO
Department of Architecture
Faculty of Engineering
Universitas Indonesia

On street school student mass fighting repeats every school season in Jakarta, and recently also in other big cities in Indonesia. Such incidents disturb the passersby, cause traffic jam, and jeopardize the surrounding business activities. The events add negative impression to the many infamous images of Jakarta.

Although the events are the outcome of many factors, open space decrease as a result of horizontal density increase appears to become a strong modifying one. Territorial claim, group pride, provokers, and shorter school time are other dominant modifying factors. Reduced open space with augmented population density around school districts will threat personal space and thus enhance the opportunity for physical conflict among the youth. Changing land use from residential to commercial has amplified the crowding effect, the consumptive attitude of, and the tension among, the school age students. Removing schools from urban centers to remote areas for the commercial centers becomes a common but improper practice between the authority and the developers.

The promotion of over 3000 person per hectare of high density living is now the prime target of developers in Jakarta as a result of rocketing land price in strategic areas. As the law requires any housing development provide public facilities including school, architects insert school at unthinkable level, at the sixth or even thirteenth floor of the apartment to kill the existence of school in the complex.