The city that is soon to rise out of the jungle makes its presence felt several kilometers before arrival. It lies a two-hour drive from the nearest airport, through nowheresville on the island of Borneo – past oil palm plantations, over hills and through tiny villages on a narrow road. Until at some point, visibility grows a bit hazy and the surrounding foliage begins turning gray from construction dust.

The road is full of potholes from the numerous cement mixers and trucks that pass through, transporting rebar, paving stones and gravel to the building site. The first cranes come into view, along with excavations into the reddish soil – and more and more men wearing steel-toed shoes and construction helmets.

They are busy building Indonesia's future capital city. Welcome to Nusantara.

Indonesia has been dreaming of a new start with a new capital city in a location of its choosing since it became independent in 1945. Of a city more or less in the middle of the country, emphasizing the unity of its populace. With 274 million people, Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world by population and the largest Muslim country. It incorporates 17,000 islands, encompasses hundreds of languages ​​and ethnic groups and expands across three time zones. Thus far, though, the country's economic and political power has been concentrated on the island of Java.

That's where the current capital city of Indonesia is located, with the metropolis and its surroundings home to 30 million residents – a city that attracts most of the attention, yet one that many feel is no longer representative. Jakarta has been struggling for years with extreme air pollution, vast traffic jams and flooding. For a long time, the ground level was sinking by up to 20 centimeters per year because the aquifer is being pumped dry and the sea level is rising. A sinking capital.

But does that mean that Indonesia really needs a brand new one?

The man who set out to fulfill the dream of a new city and turned it into a real project is named Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, the current president of Indonesia and former mayor of Jakarta. In 2019, he announced that construction on the new capital was commencing and the government would ultimately be moving. To Nusantara, which essentially means "archipelago."

The new capital will be located on the island of Borneo, he promised, 1,300 kilometers from Jakarta. It is to become home to 2 million people on an area measuring 560 square kilometers, one-and-a-half times the size of Munich.

Nusantara is to be a green city, surrounded by rainforest and powered by renewable energy – a city of which the Indonesians can be proud. No traffic jams, plenty of public transportation options and lots of paths for walking and cycling. A high-tech city with intelligent wastewater systems and perhaps, at some point, flying taxis. A place where digital nomads would be happy to settle.

Towering over everything is to be a presidential palace in the shape of the Garuda, the golden eagle that is the national emblem of Indonesia. "We want to build a new Indonesia," Jokowi said in his announcement many years ago. "Indonesia is more than just Jakarta."

Autopic city.

A city that seems a lot like a monument to an outgoing president.

The Nusantara project is difficult to separate from Joko Widodo's final days in office. He became well known as the "infrastructure president" for the many roads, ports and rail projects he has built during his tenure, and he is generally well-liked by the populace. His entire second term has ultimately been consumed by pushing forward the construction of the new capital, with the project even anchored in Indonesian law. The pandemic, unsurprisingly, completely ravaged the original timeline, and current surveys indicate that more than half of the population is now opposed to the project. But Widodo continues to hold fast to his goal.

Indeed, the plan calls for the first ministries to move to the city this year and for the government palace to be inaugurated – in precisely the same year that Widodo will be leaving the presidency behind. Indonesian voters went to the polls this week to elect a new president, with Widodo unable to run for a third stint in office due to term limitation laws. Was he hoping that the new capital would be a kind of monument to his leadership? And does it really make sense to spend so much money on a new city when a tenth of the country's population still lives in poverty?

TheMoney

Shift change is at 7 am Construction workers climb into the shuttle buses that will take them back to the container town where they are living, and they greet the workers who are just arriving to start their own shifts. The mist blanketing the construction site is slowly lifting and the spotlights the men used to work through the night are switched off. As happens every day, the cool of the night will soon be replaced by the heat of the day. In East Kalimantan, the equatorial province that will ultimately be home to Nusantara, the climate is tropical and humid. It's even warmer here than in Jakarta.

A few tourists have gathered at Point Zero, the marker initially placed to designate the future location of the city. Rostati is also here, along with her family. She is from the area and says: "I'm pretty proud that the new city is being built here. But it's impossible to finish it within five years."

A man in a green shirt strides rapidly past the gathered tourists: Agung Wicaksono, the deputy for funding and investment. It is his job to secure investments for the new city.

Wicaksono received the call from the government – ​​“from the very top,” as he says – just over a year ago. He was told that he was badly needed. He says he is "just a salesman," but he is also perhaps the most important person engaged in the project. Because before the earthmovers can do anything at all, the accounts must be full.

On this morning in early February, Wicaksono has an investor from the US in tow, a representative from a company in New York wearing mirrored sunglasses.

It is estimated that the construction of Nusantara will cost $38 billion, with 20 percent of that coming from the Indonesian coffers for basic infrastructure, government buildings and the residential structures into which government officials are soon to move. Wicaksono refers to them as "the pioneers." Everything that is currently under construction at the site is covered by the state.

But the vast majority of the metropolis – 80 percent of it – is to be financed by private investments. Everything that actually makes a city a city – apartments, restaurants, shopping malls, cinemas, theaters, bars, hotels, business centers and office space. And that is currently where the greatest hurdles lie: The investors are not showing up.

Wicaksono is doing his best to convince the CEOs of large companies in both Indonesia and abroad, but it has been slow going. The Japanese technology conglomerate Softbank has pulled out. Countries that have professed interest, such as Saudi Arabia and Singapore, haven't yet signed any contracts. Recently, a government representative from the United Arab Emirates paid a visit.

Wicaksono hopes that the city ultimately becomes one that everyone loves. But for that, people are necessary – people who will fill the plans with life.

Uncertainty, of course, tends to frighten off investors, and this week's election was a source of uncertainty. Once Jakowi is gone, nobody can be sure that his successor will pursue the project.

Just how important the Nusantara project is for Joko Widodo can be seen in a deal he made with a former political rival, Prabowo Subianto, who lost two previous elections against Jokowi. Prior to Wednesday's election, he was widely considered a frontrunner, and with the first results now in, it appears that he has secured enough of the vote to avoid a runoff. In the hopes of just that result, Jokowi placed his eldest son Gibran Rakabuming, at his side as the vice-presidential candidate.

For many, the move was scandalous – and not just because incumbent presidents aren't supposed to interfere in election campaigns. But also because Prabowo, a former military general, has been accused of serious human rights violations committed during the Suharto regime in East Timor and while putting down protests against the Indonesian government in May 1998. For critics, Prabowo is a criminal who must be brought to justice.

But for Joko Widobo, he is the one who has guaranteed the completion of his legacy.

The Undesirables

Syamsiah, a 49-year-old in a pale orange headscarf, says: "If they really try to drive us away, then they'll have to bury me here. I am not leaving. This is my land."

She is sitting in the backyard of her house in the village of Sepaku, not far from the Nusantara construction site. Eighty families have called the place home for several generations. Syamsiah and her husband live with their six children in a wooden house on a small plot of land. They used to plant rice, but now, the plot is frequently flooded. The government is building a dam that is intended to supply the new capital with fresh water. "Everything here is being ruined," says Syamsiah.

Some neighbors have already abandoned their homes and moved far away. Property prices in the region have also shot up because of Nusantara. Syamsiah says that politicians have visited the village and tried to convince the residents to move away. Those who agree to leave receive monetary compensation. Those who stay, however, are faced with uncertain futures. Nobody is saying that Sapaku is going to be flooded by the dam, and some have claimed that the village is going to be transformed into a tourist resort. "If we go, we'll have to start over at zero," says Syamsiah.

Syamsiah and the others belong to the Balik People, the local ethnicity. Their ancestors are buried here and there are many spots of spiritual importance. Most have no titles to their land. Their lives are rooted in the assumption that they will be able to stay where they have already been for so long. In the ambitious plans for the prominent new capital, it would seem that the normal people have been forgotten. "We get nothing while the new residents of Nusantara get everything," says Syamsiah. The question is whether a city can bring people together when its very construction disregards the people in the area.

The Plan

Indonesia isn't the first country to create a completely new capital city. In 1927, the Australian parliament moved to Canberra. Brasília replaced Rio de Janeiro as the capital of Brazil in 1960. Kazakhstan transformed Astana into its capital in 1998. Naypyidaw in Myanmar and Abuja in Nigeria are both cities that were planned exclusively as new capitals. In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been working on a city called New Cairo for the last decade.

Many of these metropolises, though, have run into the same problems: too expensive, bleak cityscapes, high public debts and a widespread reluctance to move there. It often takes decades before a city is halfway accepted. And some still aren't. Why should things be any different for Nusantara?

Sibarani Sofian is the architect of Nusantara. The walls of his office in Jakarta are plastered with drawings of building designs, promenades, bridges and roads. "People's Boulevard," for example, which is complete with a note: "Should be intimate and focused on people." Sibarani says that he has trouble thinking about anything other than the new capital and that he has taken a close look at what has gone wrong in other planned cities.

Sibarani won the tender for the project in 2019, one of almost 700 architects who took part in the competition. He had between six and eight weeks to draw the plans. Many elements of the city had already been decided upon, such as the site of the government buildings and their size. And the architect had nothing to do with several ideas, such as building the palace in the shape of an eagle. He would have preferred a far more modest design.

The city's topography is complicated, says Sibarani, a number of hills, lots of inclines and slopes. At many spots, the clay soil has to be excavated and a new substrate brought in so that building foundations won't be washed away during the rainy season.

The challenge, he says, is to plan a city today that people will still like in two, three or four decades. What kind of expectations will they have for a good life? What will their daily lives look like? Will they still be living together in families? How much room will they need?

Plans call for the city of Nusantara to be completed by 2045. "The baby boomers are making the decisions today, but those who will ultimately live in the city are Gen Z or even younger," Sibarani says. In order to meet this challenge, many people under the age of 30 work in his office. For them, he says, the issue of public transportation is important. Eighty percent of transportation in the city is to be taken care of with buses and suburban rail. That is more than in both Tokyo and Singapore, he says.

And then there are the environmental concerns. The island of Borneo, where Nusantara is under construction, is shared between Indonesia and Malaysia and is home to one of the largest rainforests in the world. It provides habitat for orangutans, leopards, elephants and proboscis monkeys.

The island is already known for the environmental destruction that has been traveling there for decades. Almost half of the original rainforest has been clearcut, say conservationists, and near the construction site are numerous gigantic coal mines, with 60 percent of Indonesian coal exports coming from Borneo. Many critics are concerned that the new city will only produce yet more environmental destruction, with huge areas of forest being leveled to make way for concrete.

"If we adhere to the plans," says Sibarani, the architect, "then such criticism is misplaced." And it is true that the forest surrounding the city is no longer rainforest, but industrial forestland full of rapidly growing eucalyptus trees for paper production. The Nusantara plans call for the elimination of these monocultures to make way for a return of natural jungle. Still, as attractive as the idea of ​​such a city might be, Sibarani is fully aware of just how quickly plans can be changed.

The Future

It is simple to find fault with the idea of ​​building a completely new capital city. The billions of dollars in costs could be invested in new schools, a subway system for Jakarta, projects for young women in the villages belonging to the Balik People or the creation of a new nature preservation area.

But can't a country dream a little bit?

And where are all the people who demand that cities become more climate-friendly with more green space? Nusantara has been planned to fulfill those criteria. In 30 years, it could be an example of what cities should be.

Surrounding the construction site, there are already a number of kiosk owners and workers who are earning more money than they used to thanks to the project. They have the feeling that the government is finally paying attention to their needs. There are also forest researchers on Borneo who find the reforestation plans included in the overall Nusantara design to be convincing.

But even Sibarani, the city's designer, is uncertain if he would ever want to move his office to Nusantara. He also doesn't know if the heart of Indonesia will ever beat anywhere other than in Jakarta. It is possible that Nusantara will ultimately be “a jungle resort full of government buildings.” Particularly if investors don't start showing up soon and if the pace of construction doesn't increase.

Critics of outgoing President Widodo are worried that the megaproject is simply too great of a financial burden for Indonesia. They doubt that international embassies will ever move to Borneo before Nusantara begins feeling like a real capital instead of like a theme park.

Still, in the center of the construction site on Teras Cakrawala, the central promenade through the heart of the future government quarter, the signs have already been erected. Head left to Barat Plaza and to Grass Hill. Go right to the Government Palace. The palace, which is ultimately to look like an eagle, is still missing its wings. And it seems unlikely that it will be finished in time for Indonesian Independence Day on August 17, which is when the new city will be dedicated.

What is certain relatively, however, is that the palace will be sufficiently complete that Joko Widodo can move in. His current term only ends in the autumn. He will have a few weeks to lead his country from his new office in Nusantara.

This piece is part of the Global Societies series. The project runs for three years and is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

AreaWhat is the Global Societies series?open

The Global Societies series involves journalists reporting in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe on injustices, societal challenges and sustainable development in a globalized world. A selection of the features, analyses, photo essays, videos and podcasts, which originally appear in DER SPIEGEL's Foreign Desk section, will also appear in the Global Societies section of DER SPIEGEL International. The project is initially scheduled to run for three years and receives financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is funding the project for a period of three years at a total cost of around €2.3 million.

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In recent years, DER SPIEGEL has completed two projects with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the European Journalism Center (EJC): "Expedition BeyondTomorrow," about global sustainability goals, and the journalist refugee project "The New Arrivals," which resulted in several award-winning features.

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All Global Societies pieces will be published in the Global Society section of the DER SPIEGEL website; a selection of articles will be made available in English on the International website Global Societies.