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Slum Upgrading and Long-run Urban Development: Evidence from Indonesia

Author

Listed:
  • Mariaflavia Harari

    (The Wharton School, University of Pennsy)

  • Maisy Wong

    (University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

The United Nations estimates that a quarter of the world’s urban population lives in slums. This paper sheds light on how a developing country city grows out of informality, through the lens of one of the largest slum upgrading programs in the world. The 1969-1984 Kampung Improvement Program (KIP) provided basic public goods in slums, covering 5 million people and 25% of the city of Jakarta, Indonesia. We assemble a granular database with program boundaries, historical maps, current land values, building heights, measures of land fragmentation, and a novel quality index of informal settlements based on Google Street View and field photos. Our research design compares KIP areas with historical slums that were never treated. Our findings are similar using a boundary discontinuity design. KIP areas today have 12% lower land values and buildings with 1.6 fewer floors on average, implying aggregate impacts of US$11 billion. Greater land fragmentation in KIP areas points towards the importance of land assembly costs as a barrier to formalization. These long-term costs need to be weighed against the benefits of the program. Overall, our findings suggest slum upgrading may be more cost effective for cities in early stages of urban development.

Suggested Citation

  • Mariaflavia Harari & Maisy Wong, 2018. "Slum Upgrading and Long-run Urban Development: Evidence from Indonesia," 2018 Meeting Papers 367, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed018:367
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Alves, Guillermo, 2021. "Slum growth in Brazilian cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    4. Franklin, Simon, 2020. "Enabled to work: The impact of government housing on slum dwellers in South Africa," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    5. Gharad Bryan & Edward Glaeser & Nick Tsivanidis, 2019. "Cities in the Developing World," NBER Working Papers 26390, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Bradlow, Benjamin H. & Polloni, Stefano & Violette, William, 2023. "Public housing spillovers: Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).

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