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ABSTRACT
The city plan of Kuching is not influenced by systematic planning principles, but rather, it is deeply embedded within colonial infrastructural logistics to meet the demands of global trade services and social structures. The postcolonial city is a palimpsest of hierarchical and territorial imprints from former colonial governance. Much of urban growth is concentrated around nodes, prioritized for resource collection and distribution. Therefore, this paper delineates how the current state and city governance recalibrate inherited infrastructures of economic development from the past, resulting in fragmented hybrid spaces of ethnic enclaves and economically marginalized groups in this northwest city of Borneo. We narrate how the Brooke dynasty, British administration and the Malaysian state have each developed and reappropriated logistics infrastructure based on their own agenda, leaving an indelible mark on the urban fabric and society of Kuching today. These findings are based on content analysis of city plans, visual surveys, government media, and secondary sources. We aim to open up new ways of understanding how multi-layered infrastructure and spaces produced by successive waves of different political strategies resulted in uneven development around the postcolonial city, and why some centres are given preference over others.
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Notes
1 Scotto, ‘Colonial and Postcolonial Logistics’, 70.
2 Kellett, ‘Original Copies? Imitative Design Practices in Informal Settlements’; Spolaor and Oliviera, ‘Urban Forms of Informality: Decoloniality as a Perspective for Morphological Studies’; Di Raimo et al., ‘Informality through Sustainability: Urban Informality Now’; Roy, ‘Urban Informality: Toward an Epistemology of Planning.’
3 Ong ‘Worlding Cities.’
4 Ong, ‘Introduction: Worlding Cities, or the Art of Being Global’, 8; Pieris, ‘South and Southeast Asia’; Kusno, ‘Provisional notes on semi-urbanism.’
5 Padawangi, ‘Routledge Handbook of Urbanization in Southeast Asia’; McGee, ‘The Spatiality of Urbanization: The Policy Challenges of Mega-urban and Desakota Regions of Southeast Asia’, 3–4.
6 Pieris, 22–24.
7 Chhabria, ‘Making the Modern Slum: The Power of Capital in Colonial Bombay.’
8 Brenner, ‘New Urban Spaces: Urban Theory and the Scale Question.’
9 Akhter, et al., ‘The Spatial Politics of Infrastructure-Led Development: Notes from an Asian Postcolony’; Apostolopoulou, ‘Tracing the Links between Infrastructure-Led Development, Urban Transformation, and Inequality in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.’
10 McGee, ‘The Southeast Asian city: a social geography of the primate cities of Southeast Asia.’
11 Lim Heng Kow, ‘The Evolution of the Urban System in Malaya’, 17–19.
12 Bunnell, ‘Malaysia, Modernity and the Multimedia Super Corridor: A Critical Geography of Intelligent Landscapes’; Loo, ‘Architecture and Urban Form in Kuala Lumpur: Race and Chinese Spaces in a Postcolonial City.’
13 Jarzombek, ‘Borneo, the river effect, and the spirit world millionaires.’ Shore-based communities consisted of Malay, Javanese, Chinese, Bruneians and Indian traders. Malays mostly settle on the lowlands along the coast while the Dayaks, i.e., Ibans, Bidayuhs and other indigenous groups lived upriver. Borneo has a wealth of sources, such as bird’s nests, hornbill ivory, rattan, rice, bamboo, sago as well as gold and diamonds. Upriver indigenous communities extracted these sources to trade with shore-based communities, who in turn traded them with foreign merchants.
14 Jarzombek.
15 Ting, ‘The History of Architecture in Sarawak Before Malaysia.’
16 Ooi, ‘Protection of Native Interests and Economic Development: The Economic Policies of Raja Charles Johnson Brooke of Sarawak, 1868–1917.’
17 Yong, ‘Padungan: History & Humanity in a Heritage precinct of Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.’
18 Kaur, ‘The Babbling Brookes: Economic Change in Sarawak 1841–1941.’
19 Rawlins, ‘Sarawak 1839–1968.’
20 Ritchie, ‘A History of two Brooke Bazaars.’
21 Lockard, ‘The 1857 Chinese Rebellion in Sarawak: A Reappraisal.’
22 Rawlins, 127
23 Ting, 71–72.
24 Walker.
25 Thomas, A. Moy. ‘The Sarawak Government Railway.’ Sarawak Gazette, October 31, 1959.
26 Sarawak Gazette, 1910
27 Kaur.
28 Sim and Talib, ‘Tra Zehnder: Iban Woman Patriot of Sarawak.’
29 Lockard, Citation1978.
30 Yong, 26.
31 Sarawak Gazette, March 2, 1900.
32 Sarawak Gazette, August 1, 1922. The newspaper summarized a report by the Kuching Sanitary & Municipal Advisory Board which recommended that ‘the Blacksmiths be removed to an industrial area to be decided upon by a special Committee at a later date.’
33 Ting, 111–112.
34 Ho, ‘Old Kuching’; Lockard, ‘From Kampung to City: A Social History of Kuching Malaysia 1820–1870.’
35 Sarawak Gazette, November 1, 1927.
36 Rawlins, 147.
37 Ibid, 220.
38 Yong, 54.
39 Ting, 153–154.
40 Rawlins, 220–221; Yong, 93.
41 Kaur, 102. The swampy environments downstream and dense rainforest between port cities in Sarawak made it difficult for land transport. Most crops such as pepper and sago were located near rivers.
42 Sarawak Gazette, October 31, 1959
43 Wahid, ‘The Physical Redevelopment of Kuching Downtown, Sarawak, Malaysia: An Urban Design Approach.’
44 Sarawak Gazette, 1980.
45 Kuching has two city councils. There is Kuching North, which is mostly populated by the Malays and Kuching South, which was mostly Chinese. Kuching North received more funding under the Malaysian Plan to develop its territories for economic and housing development.
46 Bunnell.
47 Sarawak Ministry of Urban Development and Natural Resources.
48 Leigh, ‘Rising Moon: Political Change in Sarawak’, 117.
49 McGee, ‘The Spatiality of Urbanization,’ 19.
50 Wahid.
51 Juego, ‘The Institutions of Authoritarian Neoliberalism in Malaysia: A Critical Review of the Development Agendas Under the Regimes of Mahathir, Abdullah, and Najib’, 54–55.
52 Yong, 54.
53 Yong, 65.
54 The Star, ‘Gambier Street Market to close, traders told to move,’ May 28 2008.
55 The Pan-Borneo Highway is a vast road network that connects the two Malaysian states in Borneo; Sabah and Sarawak.
56 The Borneo Post, ‘Sarawak palm oil industry – A catalyst for rural development’, November 2, 2021. https://www.theborneopost.com/2021/11/07/sarawak-palm-oil-industry-a-catalyst-for-rural-development/ (accessed on 6 February 2023).
57 Abram et al.
58 Padawan Municipal Council.
59 Sarawak Ministry of Urban Development and Natural Resources. See Kuching City Local Plan interactive map on the official website, at http://kclp2030.com/ . The masterplan was downloaded on 5th August 2022.
60 Lim Heng Kow, 12–13.
61 Ibid, 17–19.
62 Masron et al., Spatial Analysis of Crime Hot-Spot in the Northeast Penang Island District and Kuching District, Malaysia.
63 Mardzuki, Utusan Borneo, ‘Kumpulan pertama pindah ke Darul Hana (First group of people move to Darul Hana)’, 2 August 2022.
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Azmah Arzmi
Azmah Arzmi is a lecturer at the Faculty of Built Environment at the University Malaysia Sarawak in Malaysia. She holds a Bachelor and Master of Architecture from the University of Kent in Canterbury. After completing her architectural studies, she has worked for architecture firms in Malaysia and Germany. She earned her double PhD in European Planning History from the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in Germany and University of Pavol Jozef Šafárik in Slovakia, under the auspices of the Horizon 2020 urbanHIST European Joint Doctorate program. Her research interests include architectural history and comparative planning history.
Julaihi Wahid
Julaihi Wahid is a professor and the current Dean of the Faculty of Built Environment, University Malaysia Sarawak. In 1982 he did his diploma in architecture in University of Technology Malaysia, before moving to the USA where he finished his Bachelor of Architecture (NAAB) and Master of Architecture in Washington State University and Kansas State University Master respectively. In 1996 he completed his PhD research on Urban Housing at the University of Newcastle, Newcastle Upon Tyne. His fields of expertise include housing studies, urban design, and building design especially commercial complexes and mixed development.