Los Jakarta Angeles: Is this the future of the world?

---

Take Los Angeles, add a few million cars, add a few million more people, make it poorer, add some tropical trees and there you are.

Is this the future of the world? Huge cities with no character, spreading out for miles with super highways, car exhaust, shopping malls with KFC and Zara outlets in each one, architecture that could be transplanted anywhere and look as if it belonged? I think of Lagos, Johannesburg, Bangkok, Los Angeles, Houston, and you see the same thing except the language changes, the people's bodies change, the food changes only somewhat......but it is as if you are in the same city each time.

I hope the next few days helps to show something about Jakarta which is uniquely Jakarta and can exist no where else.

---