MP SPEAKS | Role of architects in reimagining urban spaces

MP SPEAKS | To rejuvenate Malaysia’s inner cities, we must address the root causes of the ambivalent attitudes towards cities.

First, Malaysian urban planners and leaders inherited the ambivalent attitude towards cities from the British planning tradition.

The Garden City movement is critical of the terrible and exploitative conditions of urban centres in 19th-century Britain. Therefore, there was an inherent urge to curb the growth of the cities and to move people to the suburbs or idealised rural communities.

For instance, even in the 1950s, Kuala Lumpur was thought to be too congested and thus, Petaling Jaya was developed as a “satellite city”. If those planners knew how congested Kuala Lumpur is today, they would turn in their graves.

Second, Malaysia was essentially a...