BSD City

BSD City, formerly referred to Bumi Serpong Damai is a planned community located within Greater Jakarta in Indonesia. The project was initiated in 1984 by a group of private developers and started in 1989. The town is currently managed by the holding company PT Bumi Serpong Damai Tbk, which is owned by Sinar Mas Land, a subsidiary of the Sinar Mas Group, a large industrial conglomerate in Indonesia. BSD City encompasses a total area of approximately 6,000 hectares, hosting a range of residential houses, apartments, malls, offices, and more. Most of the residential areas are designed to be suitable for Indonesia's upper-middle class, in gated neighbourhoods, each with different themes. The city is now a self-sustaining community, with businesses, schools, shopping malls, hospitals and hotels.

History
In the 1980s, the Serpong district of South Tangerang was a largely uninhabited rubber plantation. At the time, infrastructure such as asphalted roads and electricity was yet to be built. In 1984, Ir. Ciputra planned to build an independent township in the district, to be named as Bumi Serpong Damai. The development of the township was backed by 11 private companies including Pembangunan Jaya, Sinar Mas, Salim Group, and Metropolitan Kentjana with a total of Rp 3.2 trillion investment. The inauguration was held on 16 January 1989, attended by the Minister of Home Affairs at the time, Rudini. At the time of project development during the 1990s, BSD City was the most ambitious urban planning scheme in Indonesia to combine housing, business and commercial properties. It is designed to be a self-sustaining community, with various types of public facilities available to its residents. The township started growing, and as the Jakarta–Tangerang Toll Road opened, residents started coming in as it provides an easier access to the township.

During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, real estate business in Indonesia stagnated for around 5 years. Due to this, Bumi Serpong Damai changed ownership to Sinar Mas Land around 2003–2004. To change its brand image, Sinar Mas eventually changed the name of the township into its initials, becoming BSD City, and built new residential clusters with new names (De Latinos, The Icon, Sevilla, Foresta, etc.) to market it better. Sinar Mas continues to develop the township, expanding from the Serpong district into the Tangerang Regency, in which they plan to build the next phase of BSD City.

In recent years, BSD City continues to expand exponentially, with new apartment and housing complexes being built in collaboration with international property companies such as Hong Kong Land ('Nava Park') and Mitsubishi Corp ('The Zora'). Since then, many consider BSD City as an affluent or 'elite' district within the bustling metropolitan area of Jabodetabek. The extension of the Toll road to Balaraja and the direct connection to JORR 2 also increases the accessibility of the area.

Toll roads
BSD City is surrounded by several toll roads connecting the township to Jakarta and other satellite cities. The Jakarta–Serpong Toll Road, connecting Ulujami to Serpong, runs through the southern end of BSD City. There are two exits currently present, one to Jl. Letnan Sutopo and another to Jl. Kapten Soebijanto Djojohadikusumo. The planned extension of the toll road, Serpong–Balaraja Toll Road will also cross West BSD and link the city to Balaraja in Tangerang Regency and is set to open in June 2022. The Kunciran–Serpong Toll Road, part of the Jakarta Outer Ring Road 2, also links the township to Tangerang, Depok and other metropolitan areas in Greater Jakarta.

Public transport
Serpong, Rawa Buntu, and Cisauk railway stations of KRL Commuterline is situated within and nearby the development. TransJakarta has a feeder route from BSD City to Jelambar in West Jakarta. There are free shuttle and school bus services within the development. There are also shuttle bus services that provides services to MRT's Fatmawati station.

BSD City Intermoda district connects transportation from within and outside the township through KRL Commuterline, and transportation within the BSD City itself with the free shuttle bus BSD Link that connects several important locations in BSD City.