Bullshit Building 2: Every House in "Pantai Mutiara"

This second bullshit building involve not one single building, but a large real estate complex in North Jakarta,  my hometown, the capital of Indonesia.

Jakarta is a very large city.With around 10 millions citizens (in 2012). It has every single problem that a megacity could have ... and more. For starter: the city doesn't have any mass-rapid-transit, making traffic jam a normalcy. Intense flooding occurs after every heavy rain. Etc, etc.

Despite those problems, this article is not about Jakarta as the whole, but about one of its most "elite" area: "Perumahan Pantai Mutiara" (Pearl Beach Housing Area) in North Jakarta.

That particular area became one of Jakarta's most expensive area to live because it is the only area where you could build a house and park your yacht in its backyard. Just check 2 photos that I took from the skyscrapercity.com forum. Definitely this area is reserved for the "rich enough to own a yacht" people.

First time I visit this area was when I learned how to drive, almost 10 years ago. When I took a break  during the lesson and get out of my car, I suddenly inhaled ... the worst air in my entire life. Really. It is that bad. The air is very humid, even for Jakarta/tropic standard AND very hot. Basically, it is similar with Sauna, with addition of some fish smell and tons of dust.

That baffled me. How come an area so close to the sea, so expensive, and so ... elite has a literal atmosphere of a sauna? How come people PAY to get this kind of air? When my mind tried to comprehend this bullshit, my eyes wonder and saw the culprit ... a big steam-powered power plant, the ""Muara Karang " Power Plant, stand tall nearby the entrance of "Pantai Mutiara."

Original photo taken from Panoramio

Erecting ultra-jetset real estates nearby a power plant is bullshit enough for me, but NOO, not for them!! They was eager to put more bullshit into this area!.

Whenever the steam power plant dump its hot-boiling water, they never dump that water to the open sea, because the water's high temperature making it a pollutant. So, the power plant always dumps the water to the canal that run through "Pantai Mutiara" first, to make sure the water is cool enough when they finally reach the open sea. 

Wow ... if paying tons of money for living in a dumping site of a steam power plant is not bullshit,I have no idea what bullshit is.

But WAIT, the story is not finish yet!

According to an article (unfortunately it is in Bahasa Indonesia) from a local business news website,  in February 2012, There is a plan to  do a sea reclamation AROUND Muara Karang Power Plant. The article didn't mention whether the new reclamated land would belong to "Pantai Mutiara" or not. What the article stressed is that this reclamation could disrupt the power plant since the power plant won't be able to take cooler water from sea. The consequences can be very dire since the power plant produced most of Jakarta's power. Not only that, the reclamation could also started a sedimentation process that could block two nearby rivers.

In essence, the Indonesian capital could be buried under its own bullshit. Both figuratively, due to the power shortage, and literally, because 2 rivers could be buried. That is what I could label as POTENTIAL EPIC BULLSHIT.

But that is still "potential." Until June 2012, no new news about the reclamation. Currently, we only have jet-set bullshit in Pantai Mutiara.

Previous bullshit building: Palace of Soviets

The Next bullshit building: New South China Mall