About 14% of Indonesians live in pre-modern type housing.

Noer Soetrisno, secretary to the Public Housing minister, accompanied by Dodo Yuliman of the United Nations’ Habitat Indonesia group, told reporters in Jakarta on the 28th that areas of primitive housing took up 42,500 hectares in the towns of the nation, and, based on the method of calculation used by the Bureau of Statistics that one hectare ordinarily contains 500 people, about 21 million people lived in such places. A “primitive” house is defined as one that has a dirt floor, and is without tap water or connection to sewerage pipes.

Dodo Yuliman however pointed out that this figure was low in proportion to some of Indonesia’s Asian peers, with Bangladesh having 80% of its population classed as living in pre-modern homes, and India 60%.

He went on to say that it was inveitable that the proportion of people living in such conditions would see an increase given the general movement of the rural population to the towns. Urbanisation was usually accompanied by poverty, at least initially, he said.

Currently 42.5% of Indonesians live in towns or cities with this percentage expected to have grown to 50% by 2013, putting a great strain on the government’s ability to provide adequate infrastructure. In the 1950’s, he said, only about 20% of people lived in cities.