THE LIMITS OF INFRASTRUCTURE: Public Transport in a Post‐colonial City

Robbie Peters

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2023, vol. 47, issue 2, 167-181

Abstract: Since the 1940s, the people of the neighbourhoods (kampungs) around Surabaya's derelict Ngagel industrial estate have made a living by repurposing the remains of what was once one of Asia's most modern road, rail and industry networks. The remains—in the form of leftover fuel, labour and factory parts—are used to rebuild and repair improvised transport vehicles like bicycle‐taxis (becak), minibuses (bemo) and motorbike‐taxis (ojek). The repurposing happens at the limits of a capital‐intensive heavy infrastructure of factories, trams and buses. The limits are those points where such infrastructure fails and a household‐funded mosquito‐fleet of light vehicles succeeds. Repurposing gives those who do it a right to infrastructure by providing the city with much‐needed public transport. In Surabaya, public transport begins at its limits through the improvisations of people who live in the productive remains of capital‐intensive heavy infrastructure. These people live in Surabaya's deindustrialized urban core, where life is made in the ruins of infrastructure through the breaking‐down of it, the reworking of it, the right to it, and the leakage of it—the means through which rank‐and‐file people rather than states and corporations forge infrastructure.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13151

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:47:y:2023:i:2:p:167-181

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0309-1317

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research is currently edited by Alan Harding, Roger Keil and Jeremy Seekings

More articles in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().