ABSTRACT
Riverscape slum dwellers in urban Indonesia seem to have a typical attitude - seeing the river as their backyard, utilising it for bathing, washing, toileting, and often dumping their solid waste. One of the Indonesian government’s programmes to overcome such problems was PLPBK (Penataan Lingkungan Permukiman Berbasis Komunitas – Community-Based Human Settlements Improvement), which led to the genesis of the M3K idea in Yogyakarta. M3K stands for Mundur – Munggah – Madhep Kali, a Javanese term translated as “Back off, Move up, Face the river”. A community-based organisation of the Winongo riverbank residents coined the word, then led the local government to adopt the idea into a slum upgrading strategy. In 2015, the KOTAKU (Kota Tanpa Kumuh – City Without Slum), a national programme to eradicate urban slums, replaced PLPBK. KOTAKU continues to adopt M3K to achieve the zero slum city. This chapter discusses how slum residents practice the M3K and why the approach is more applicable in Yogyakarta than in any other province in Indonesia.
