This paper seeks to challenge the dominant paradigm on housing only as an standarized object for living. For the urban poor, urbanity is conceived as petromax that attracts them to come to the city striving for fortune. What really matters is how they could get access to space or “a piece of land” (lahan) in the city,which may not mean it housing let alone home. A house is imagined as a shelter that lets them engage with economic activities within. It does not have all the basic facilities needed to raise a healthy family as understood and believed by politicians, bureaucrats and those in the property business. The research method used in this projects in order to discover the metaphysical phenomena of invisible housing is a grounded method. The idea of invisible housing is uncovered through an emic approach of investigations to the respondents. Findings have shown that the urban poor perceive urbanity as space of existence. Open lahan or open urban land (such as on river bank) perceived as “no man’s land” for them to utilize.
This study explores housing problem concerning the most widely perceived idea of housing needs that heavily influenced by the technical and macro-scale level as well as the units’ tenure and occupancy which is mainly perceived as owning and renting. On the other hand, the housing cannot be seen as such due to the existence of different context of the problem and the various aspirations of occupants. This research highlights the other kind of occupancy phenomenon among Indonesian who can get access to and live in a housing unit without owning or renting – by living and staying with their relatives. In particular reference to Balikpapan East Kalimantan, this study concerns the modus of this specific kind of house occupancy and aims to reveal the housing processes as well as aspirations of the house occupants who live and stay together.
Famous for its large rivers, Kalimantan is one of the islands in Indonesia that is characterized by a river-cultured society, where lanting or floating dwelling is one of various types of river settlements that represents a unique but also complex relationship between man and river. Despite their existence being in line with the historical development of river cities in Kalimantan, today’s urban lantings have come to be stigmatized as slums, due to society’s biased perspectives, and the dominance of the planning paradigm that is oriented towards “modern” land-based urban planning. Using the qualitative historical analysis method in the case study of lanting dwellings in Sintang, West Kalimantan, this study interprets the analytical dimensions of the complex relations between space, power and resources, which changes over time. Exploring the political-economic and ecological history shows the long journey of lanting’s existence that gave understanding of today’s lanting conditions, as well as understanding about the development of the cities themselves. This study concludes that the concept of river cities or waterfront cities in Kalimantan should be understood in a broader sense, beyond merely aesthetic and environmental considerations. Riverine settlement has deep historical roots in many Kalimantan cities and also represents complex relationships between city-hinterland and river-related urbanization process under the political-economic and ecological changes. Thus, consideration of the diachronic aspects of city-river relations should be an important basis for planning future Kalimantan cities.
The vast island of Borneo, in the heart of Southeast Asia, is an island famous for its large and powerful rivers. Along with their tributaries and numerous smaller rivers, they represent a key factor in communication and transportation. Sintang is one of the riverfront cities located in the middle stream of Kapuas river in West Kalimantan. In the midst of a rapid urbanization process,’lanting’or floating houses, the legacy of culture and architecture of past Sintang, are still present and needed by the community. This paper discussed the way of life of lanting community in the midst of vast urbanization of the city. Through the grounded-theory method, this study found that lanting has a significant role as a linkage between the rural and urban community. We elaborated the concept of linkage and depicted the transition process of rural-urban society and the role of river community in the urbanization process of Sintang city.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.