Abstract:
Karawang Regency in West Java is one of
Indonesian main rice producer regions whose
economic activities growth rapidly. However,
the concern of many people is that the
development failed to anticipate the gap
between traditional vernacular communities
who conduct agricultural activities and the
new industrial corridor that is formed along
the southern part of Cikampek Toll-road that
creates environmental and social problems in
recent years. The southern industrial sites
where national and international
manufactured brandings are produced,
imported, and distributed are more
developed than the northern area. This
unequal development creates a disparity
inside the regency.
Not only industrial estates threaten
agricultural land-uses, but also flooding is
now a regular disaster in Karawang and
endangers the historic settlements and
production of paddy-fields. Vast areas lack
proper planning and human resources
development. These factors race in parallel
with social issues like migration and
unbalance opportunities between native and
newcomers from outside. Also the impact of
modern lifestyle and mechanization are
additional threats. The intention of this paper
is to raise peoples' concern about the
sustainatoility of the vernacular settlement in
Karawang which Is encroached step by step by
industrial estate and modern capitalist
developments, 'Informal structures' is a title
given to the Karawang Native spatial
responses which are created from Native
informal economic activities like small
eateries, simple boarding houses for laborers,
and motorcycles used for public transport. To
investigate the phenomena of informal
structures in Karawang, this paper will look at
from aspects of vernacular communities,
urban-architectural structures, authoritarian
systems and industrial capitalism through the
fourfold intersection of people, place, power
and money. The absence of local community
involvement in the mainstream development
has denied the importance of local initiative
and knowledge capacity. Vernacularity, in this
case, is transformed into an informal social
system that is developed through resistance
of kampongs culture against urban capitalist
development.
