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Annals of the Association of American Geographers Volume 65, 1975 - Issue 4
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Article

MALAYSIA'S EMERGING CONURBATIONFootnote∗

S. ROBERT AIKEN Lecturer in Geography, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 22–11, Malaysia
&
COLIN H. LEIGH Lecturer in Geography, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 22–11, Malaysia
Pages 546-563 | Accepted 19 Jan 1975, Published online: 15 Mar 2010

  • ∗ We should like to thank the Deputy State Secretary of Selangor, Encik Abu Hassan bin Omar, for access to maps in the unpublished Klang Valley Report on which Figure 1 is based; Goh Hock Guan for the plan of Subang Jaya (Fig. 6); the Selangor State Development Corporation for providing the plans which formed the basis for Figures 3, 4, 5, and 7; Mr. Harbans Singh of the Department of Statistics, Kuala Lumpur, for population data; and Encik V. Palani for drafting the maps.
  • 1 The Klang Valley refers to the Klang Valley urban region. This region is not coincident with the drainage basin of the Klang River, because it includes Rawang to the north and Kajang to the south, both of which are outside the basin. The urban region is equivalent to the Klang Valley as demarcated in the Klang Valley Report (see footnote 23), and as employed by the Federal Department of Statistics, Kuala Lumpur. The Kuala Lumpur-Port Klang axis refers to the existing urban centers between, and including, Kuala Lumpur and Port Klang. In this paper attention is focused on the emerging Kuala Lumpur-Port Klang conurbation, or the “superlinear city,” as it is referred to locally (Fig. 1). The Straits Times, July 12, 1973. All newspaper citations refer to the Malaysian editions.
  • 2 D. W. Fryer, “The ‘Million City’ in Southeast Asia,”Geographical Review, Vol. 43 (1953), pp. 474 94; and Norton, S. Ginsburg, “Urban Geography and Non-Western Areas,” in Philip M. Hauser and Leo P. Schnore, eds., The Study of Urbanization (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1965), Chapter 9, pp. 311–46.
  • 3 Robin J. Pryor, “Malaysians on the Move: A Study of Internal Migration in West Malaysia,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Malaya, Kula Lumpur, 1972; and The Straits Times, November 27, 1973. The Mid-Term Review of The Second Malaysia Plant 1971-1975 (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printer, 1973), pp. 24–26, noted that a “feature of the trends between the inter-censal years [1957 and 1970] is that the urban population has grown annually by 3.8% and the rural population by 2.4%. A good part of the increase in urban population is explained by migration from rural to urban areas and growth of new urban areas.”
  • 4 Saw Swee Hock, “Patterns of Urbanization in West Malaysia, 1911–1970,”Malayan Economic Review, Vol. 17 (1972), p. 115.
  • 5 Saw Swee Hock, op. cit., footnote 4, p. 115.
  • 6 Robin J. Pryor, “The Changing Settlement System of West Malaysia,”Journal of Tropical Geography, Vol. 37 (1973), pp. 53 67; and Saw Swee Hock, op. cit., footnote 4, p. 117.
  • 7 Pryor, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 639.
  • 8 T. G. McGee, “The Cultural Role of Cities: A Case Study of Kuala Lumpur,”Journal of Tropical Geography, Vol. 17 (1963), pp. 178 96; and Hamzah Sendut, “Urbanization,” in Wang Gungwu, ed., Malaysia: A Survey (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964), pp. 82–96.
  • 9 T. G. McGee. The Southeast Asian City (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1967).
  • 10 J. M. Gullick, The Story of Kuala Lumpur (Singapore: D. Moore, 1965); Hamzah Sendut, “The Structure of Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia's Capital City,”Town Planning Review, Vol. 36 (1965), pp. 125 38; and George Woodcock, The British in the Far East (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1969).
  • 11 Sir Frank Swettenham, Stories and Sketches, selected and introduced by William R. Roff, Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 8.
  • 12 Hamzah Sendut, op. cit., footnote 10, p. 128.
  • 13 Pryor, op. cit., footnote 6, p. 58.
  • 14 The Straits Times, July 5, 8, and 10, 1973.
  • 15 T. A. L. Concannon, “A New Town in Malaya: Petaling Jaya, Kuala Lumpur,”Malayan Journal of Tropical Geography, Vol. 5 (1955), p. 42.
  • 16 T. G. McGee and W. D. McTaggart, Petaling Jaya: A Socio-Economic Survey of a New Town in Selangor, Malaysia, Pacific Viewpoint Monograph No. 2 (Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Department of Geography, 1967), pp. 1–2.
  • 17 W. D. McTaggart, Industrialization in West Malaysia, 1968, Occasional Paper No. 2 (Tempe, Arizona: Center for Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1972).
  • 18 Saw Swee Hock, The Population of Petaling Jaya, 1966, Studies in Malaysia and Singapore, I (Singapore: University Education Press, 1972), p. 11.
  • 19 Since 1965 Klang and Port Klang have been administered by the same town council.
  • 20 The Sunday Times, March 10, 1974.
  • 21 Department of Statistics, Kuala Lumpur, personal communication.
  • 22 Pryor, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 240, has shown the importance of in-migration in Selangor; The Straits Times, op. cit., footnote 3; and Mid-Term Review, op. cit., footnote 3.
  • 23 The Klang Valley Report has not yet been made available to the public. We should like to thank the Deputy State Secretary, Selangor, for allowing us to use some of the data in Table 4.
  • 24 The Sunday Mail, August 5, 1973.
  • 25 The Sunday Mail, July 29, 1973.
  • 26 Goh Hock Guan, architect of Subang Jaya, personal communication; and The Straits Times, December 1, 1973.
  • 27 Goh Hock Guan, op. cit., footnote 26; and The Sunday Mail, July 15, 1973.
  • 28 The Sunday Mail, op. cit., footnote 27.
  • 29 The Selangor State Development Corporation, personal communication; The Straits Times, October 14, 1973; and The Sunday Mail, March 10, 1974.
  • 30 D. G. Anderson, Effects of Urban Development on Floods in Northern Virginia, Water Supply Paper No. 2001-C (Washington, D.C.: United States Geological Survey, 1970); and M. G. Wolman, “A Cycle of Sedimentation and Erosion in Urban River Channels,”Geografiska Annaler, Vol. 49A (1967), pp. 385 95.
  • 31 J. G. Lockwood, “Probable Maximum 24-hour Precipitation over Malaya by Statistical Methods,”Meteorological Magazine, Vol. 96 (1967), pp. 11 19.
  • 32 I. Douglas, The Environment Game (Armidale, Australia: University of New England, 1972), pp. 1–23.
  • 33 Steep slopes on the deeply weathered schists and shales of the Kenny Hill Formation are particularly prone to slumping. Many houses have been affected by slumping in certain suburbs of Kuala Lumpur, but until early 1975 there was no legislation to regulate construction on steep slopes.
  • 34 Douglas, op. cit., footnote 32, p. 9.
  • 35 S. C. Ho, “A Preliminary Study of the Ecology of a Polluted Stream, the Sungei Renggam,” in E. Soepadmo and K. G. Singh, eds., Proceedings of the Symposium on Biological Resources and National Development (Kuala Lumpur: Malayan Nature Society, 1973), pp. 85–91.
  • 36 Municipal and Town Boards (Amendment) Act, Federal Act No. 65/1974 (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printer, 1974).
  • 37 K. S. Low and K. C. Goh, “The Water Balance of Five Catchments in Selangor, West Malaysia,”Journul of Tropical Geography, Vol. 35 (1972), pp. 60 66; and J. B. Kenworthy, “Water and Nutrient Cycling in a Tropical Rain Forest,” in J. R. Flenley, ed., Transactions of the First Aberdeen-Hull Symposium on Malesian Ecology (Hull: Department of Geography, University of Hull, 1971), pp. 49–59.
  • 38 Low and Goh, op. cit., footnote 37.
  • 39 H. C. Lee, “Stormwater Drainage of Housing Estates,”Journal, Technical Association of Malaysia, Vol. 22 (1972), pp. 23 34.
  • 40 Drainage and Irrigation Department, Manual (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printer, 1959), p. ix.
  • 41 Douglas, op. cit., footnote 32, p. 15.
  • 42 The Malay Mail, October 7, 1974.
  • 43 L. Klein, Aspects of Water Pollution (London: Butterworths, 19.57), p. 18.
  • 44 R. C. Norris and J. I. Charlton, A Chemical and Biological Survey of the Sungei Gombak (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printer, 1962). Water with a B.O.D. less than five parts per million is relatively unpolluted, from five to ten parts per million doubtful, and above ten parts per million badly polluted. In relatively unpolluted waters the D.O. content will not fall below four parts per million; L. Klein, River Pollution III. Control (London: Butterwarths, 1966), pp. 383–86.
  • 45 Ho, op. cit., footnote 3.5, pp. 88–89.
  • 46 The Straits Times, March 13, 1973.
  • 47 Environmental Quality Act, Federal Act No. 127/1974 (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printer, 1974).
  • 48 The Malay Mail, April 26, 1974.
  • 49 R. Bhagwan Singh, “Review of Cholera in Malaysia (1900–1970),”Medical Journal of Malaya, Vol. 26 (1972), pp. 149 58. In 1974 only five cases of cholera occurred in the urban areas of the Klang Valley; Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, personal communication.
  • 50 G. Surtees, “Urbanization and Epidemiology of Mosquito-borne Diseases,”Abstracts on Hygiene, Vol. 46 (1971), pp. 121 34; N. G. Gratz, “Mosquito-borne Disease Problems in the Urbanization of Tropical Cities,”Critical Reviews in Environmental Control, Vol. 3 (1973), pp. 455 95; and W. W. MacDonald, “Aedes aegypti in Malaya: I—Distribution and Dispersal,”Annals of Tropical Medical Parasitology, Vol. 50 (1954), pp. 385 98.
  • 51 Institute of Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur, personal communication.
  • 52 Surtees, op. cit., footnote 50, p. 125; and Gratz, op. cit., footnote 50, pp. 462 and 472.
  • 53 A. Rudnick, “Aedes aegypti and Haemorrhagic Fever,”Bulletin of the World Health Otganization, Vol. 36 (1967), pp. 528 32.
  • 54 DHF was first recorded in Bangkok in 1958, Singapore in 1960, Penang in 1962, Calcutta in 1963. Sri Lanka in 1965, and Burma in 1970; Gratz, op. cit., footnote 50, pp. 479–80; and S. B. Halstead, “Mosquito-boine Haemorrhagic Fevers of South and Southeast Asia,”Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Vol. 35 (1966), pp. 3 5.
  • 55 A. Rudnick, “Studies of the Ecology of Dengue in Malaysia: A Preliminary Report,”Journal of Medical Entomology, Vol. 2 (1965), p. 201.
  • 56 W. H. Cheong, “Preferred Aedes aegyptz Habitats in Urban Areas,”Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Vol. 36 (1967), pp. 586 89.
  • 57 The Straits Times, April 8, 1974.
  • 58 Many mild cases of dengue fever would not have been reported to the Ministry of Health.
  • 59 Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, personal communication.
  • 60 Institute of Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur, personal communication.
  • 61 The Straits Times, May 31, 1974.
  • 62 Halstead, op. cit., footnote 54, p. 13.
  • 63 Squatters are unauthorized residents on state or private land. Some may be relatively “affluent,”“own” propzrty, and rent to other squatters. Squatters may be rural or urban. Slum dwellers are legal residents or owners of property. Most of the slum dwellers in the Kuala Lumpur-Port Klang axis are urban. The physical, social, and economic conditions in slums and squatter settlements are often similar.
  • 64 McGee, op. cit., footnote 9, pp. 155–70, has discussed this situation with reference to Kuala Lumpur.
  • 65 Pryor, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 21 1, has mapped the distribution of squatter settlements in Kuala Lumpur. They are along roads, railroads, river banks, on undeveloped land on the periphery, and on vacant land in the city.
  • 66 J. C. Jackson, “Urban Squatters in Southeast Asia,”Geography, Vol. 59 (1974), pp. 24 30, has shown the importance of these locational factors in Kuala Lumpur.
  • 67 McGee, op. cit., footnote 9, pp. 146 and 157, quotes figures of approximately 140,000 and 100,000, or about fifty and twenty-five percent of the city's population for 1954 and 1961, respectively.
  • 68 New Straits Times, November 14, 1974.
  • 69 Ministry of Local Government and Housing, personal communication.
  • 70 M. K. Sen, personal communication.
  • 71 Ministry of Local Government and Housing, personal communication.
  • 72 The Malay Mail, December 22, 1974.
  • 73 Sen, op. cit., footnote 70.
  • 74 Ministry of Local Government and Housing, personal communication.
  • 75 Emiel A. Wegelin, Cost-Benefit Analysis of Rehousing Squatters in Klang Valley Area, Kuala Lumpur (Amsterdam: Economic Institute for the Building Society, n.d.).
  • 76 McGee, op. cit., footnote 9; and David Lim, Economic Growth and Development in West Malaysia 1947–1970 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1973).
  • 77 M. K. Sen, “Planning Strategy of Greater Kuala Lumpur A.D. 2000,”Majallah Akitek (Malaysian Institute of Architects), Vol. 6 (1973), pp. 20 30.
  • 78 Syed Hussin Aljoofre, “Towards Environmental Planning,”Majallah Akitek (Malaysian Institute of Architects), Vol. 6 (1973), pp. 30 34.
  • 79 Second Malaysia Plan 1971–1975 (Kuala Lumpur: Government Printer, 1971), pp. 257–59; and Mid-Term Review, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 102.
  • 80 Sen, op. cit., footnote 70.
  • 81 Sen, op. cit., footnote 77, p. 21.
  • 82 Second Malaysia Plan, op. cit., footnote 79, p. 258.
  • 83 Syed Hussin Aljoofre, op. cit., footnote 78, p. 31.
  • 84 New Straits Times, December 8, 1974.
  • 85 Wegelin, op. cit., footnote 75, p. i.
  • 86 Lee Boon Thong, “Population Mobility Patterns: A Study of the Jalan Pekeliling Flats, Kuala Lumpur,”Ilmu Alum, Vol. 2 (1973), pp. 25 34.
  • 87 New Straits Times, December 19, 1974; and The Malay Mail, April 25, 1975.
  • 88 Between 1965 and 1973 the number of vehicles registered in the State of Selangor more than doubled; Department of Road Transport, Kuala Lumpur, personal communication.
  • 89 Mid-Term Review, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 175.
  • 90 There is no alternative to private or commercial road transport. The Kuala Lumpur-Klang passenger rail service was discontinued in 1972, although there are plans to reintroduce it.
  • 91 The Sunday Mail, April 7, 1974.
  • 92 The Malay Mail, May 15, 1974.
  • 93 New Straits Times, November 20, 1974.
  • 94 The Government probably will not discourage rural-urban migration. The Prime Minister noted that it is neither necessary nor practical to prevent migration “because we are in the process of restructuring society;”The Straits Times, July 19, 1973.
  • 95 Mid-Term Review, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 32; and Lim, op. cit., footnote 76, pp. 71–79.
  • 96 On income distribution see Lin Lean Lim, Some Aspects of Income Differentials in West Malaysia, Monograph Series on Malaysian Economic Affairs (Kuala Lumpur: Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, 1971); and Mid-Term Review, op. cit., footnote 3, pp. 2–5.
  • 97 Sen, op. cit., footnote 77, p. 21, noted that “the population of Kuala Lumpur is increasing at a faster rate than provision can be made for them in the shape of land, accommodation, employment and community services.”
  • 98 Mid-Term Review, op. cit., footnote 3, pp. 1–21, outlined the Government's “New Economic Policy,” which has as its major objective the promotion of national unity. This unity is to be achieved by raising income levels and incieasing employment opportunities both in rural and in urban areas.
  • 99 Sen, op. cit., footnote 70, noted roads, drains, bridges, new houses, and other facilities constructed by squatters in self-help community organizations.
  • 100 Wegelin, op. cit., footnote 75, p. i; and Jackson, op. cit., footnote 66, p. 29.
  • 101 Ministry of Local Government and Housing, personal communication; and McGee, op. cit., footnote 9, p. 169, with reference to Kuala Lumpur.
  • 102 Sen, op. cit., footnote 77, pp. 20–30; and Syed Hussin Aljoofre, op. cit., footnote 78, p. 33.

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