Reader respond of Explosive growth in Asian cities: Bright ideas to 'seize the urban moment'

DRAFT 2

Khanna (2015) on “Explosive growth in Asian cities: Bright ideas to ‘seize the urban moment’ states  that multiple South-east Asian cities have been metropolitanized. To adapt to rapid urbanization, South-east Asian governments have exploited technological applications to work with citizens on real time issues.They also use it to ease resource and infrastructural constraints. Furthermore, to increase potential economic growth, the government's focus is on investing in technological infrastructure and the ideal of a green city. The boost in urban productivity establishes their advancement to become the "model of urban development in the 21st century." While the technological applications increase the spread of information and help ease on the infrastructure constraints, it is underutilized and impose little value to the public.

In the article "Explosive growth in Asian cities: Bright ideas to ‘seize the urban moment",Khanna(2015)  expresses his hopefulness in the use of technological applications such as QLUE(crow-sourcing mobile app) where it reports on the immediate local issues such as traffic and flood issues to the government  as well as Beeline(personalized bus service) that allows the passengers to plan the private bus routes for buses and create the optimal route as an option to tackle on the infrastructure and resource constraints. While the technological applications  increase the spread of information and help ease on the infrastructure constraints, it is underutilized and impose little value to the public.

The first reason is that "innovative" application like Beeline has limited potential in Singapore to expand due to the road space constraint during peak hours. Singapore has a very efficient transportation system that covers all parts of Singapore. Company like SMRT and SBS that duopolized the Singapore public transport system that brings people to places through rapid train and buses.Most of the people take the public transport when they are heading to work because getting a car is costly. From the TomTom 2015 traffic congestion statistic, the roads are heavily congested at the central area that connect to other parts of Singapore. Beeline application which serves working adults mostly could only add to the congestion of the jam in Singapore. 

Furthermore, Khanna talks about proactive urban governance in Jakarta with the used of technological application like QLUE. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (2015) , Jakarta is ranked number 1 with the worst traffic in the world. The result of ranking number 1 in the bottom is mainly due to the poorly maintained road and affordable car cost.The government has undergo MRT construction project to reduce the traffic congestion issues.Since the launch of MRT construction, the project has been swarm by a host of problems like land requisition issues that involve with clearing other infrastructures so it is delay numerous time. Also, devastating flood hit Jakarta yearly due to the monsoon peak.The flood has affected millions and killed people. The government need to be 'proactively' create new policy to deal with the traffic and innovative infrastructures that can subside the flood to a manageable level. Until then, the use of QLUE could only be use as a tool for observation.

In conclusion, Khanna optimism about the technological application fall short and it is far-fetch from reality. In short, technological application could only be a limited tool when the lack of effective policy and limited infrastructure budget are bottle necking the usefulness of information sharing applications.

one monitoring news (2015)  retrieved from http://www.onemotoring.com.sg/publish/onemotoring/en/motoring_buzz/Motoring_News/Best_and_worst_travel_times_in_Singapore.html

Wardhani and Budiari(2015) retrieved from,http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/02/05/jakarta-has-worst-traffic-world.html

Theresa(2013) retrived from http://en.tempo.co/read/news/2013/09/22/057515573/Jokowi-Jakartas-Traffic-Most-Affected-by-Cheap-Cars

Ben(2014)http://blogs.wsj.com/indonesiarealtime/2014/07/20/when-will-jakartas-mrt-be-finished-new-answer-coming-in-september/

(392 words excluded summary)