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How to Make KL and the Klang Valley More Liveable · Beyond the Ballot Box

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the show where we explore the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: forces shaping society, the economy and politics from the streets
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to the halls of power. I'm Dashan Yohan. Now, we
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: often complain about Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley in general,
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  Speaker 1: not being walkable, it's incredibly congested roads and increasingly unaffordable housing,
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  Speaker 1: but why do these problems persist? On today's show, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to be speaking to Azif Azuddin, associate researcher at Imman.
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  Speaker 1: Research, one of the areas he's incredibly passionate about is
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  Speaker 1: urban planning and design. So, we're gonna be chatting about
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  Speaker 1: the greater Klang Valley's, urban design philosophy, and some key
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  Speaker 1: principles um that we need to keep in mind to
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  Speaker 1: build an inclusive and equitable city.
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  Speaker 1: Asif, welcome to the show. How are
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  Speaker 1: you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm good, thank you, Dashan.
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  Speaker 1: So, I want to start by just looking back over
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  Speaker 1: the decades and trying to understand how did we end
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  Speaker 1: up here. If you had to summarize the urban design
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  Speaker 1: philosophy that has shaped Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley in particular, right,
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  Speaker 1: over the past few decades, how would you describe it?
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  Speaker 1: What was, what will be, as in Malaysia, the government, um,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's the Slango government, the federal government, what we'll
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  Speaker 1: be striving for?
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  Speaker 2: So, I think if we take into the context from pre-independence.
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  Speaker 2: We moved from being a, well, the design philosophy, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: the urban design philosophy, moved from being a colonial administrative
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  Speaker 2: center um into now what can be seen as an
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  Speaker 2: automotive led modernization. Um so you see a lot of
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  Speaker 2: that happening in the 80s when Mahathir through industrial policy
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  Speaker 2: decided to push Proton to the forefront and then Produa afterwards,
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  Speaker 2: where more and more policies became centered around mobility via cars.
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  Speaker 2: It was only in the late 90s and 2000s was
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  Speaker 2: when there was a pivot to public transportation. But by
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  Speaker 2: that time, I think cars were already ubiquitous, especially in
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  Speaker 2: the Kwang Valley. So you see now, we can't, Malaysians
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  Speaker 2: and their design philosophy will always be centered around the car.
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  Speaker 2: And even though positively in the past 10 years or so,
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  Speaker 2: there has been more and more discourses as to, let's
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  Speaker 2: make the city more livable. So you see the Sunday
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  Speaker 2: Free uh initiative in the BKL, right? Central, some parts
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  Speaker 2: of KL.
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  Speaker 2: Uh, you see more and more people calling for neighborhoods
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  Speaker 2: that are walkable, uh, and some developers respond to that
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  Speaker 2: as well. But nevertheless, we are still driven by
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  Speaker 2: privatization. The private sector leading how urban design could look
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  Speaker 2: like or should look like, uh, instead of the government
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  Speaker 2: leading the conversation or at least negotiating as to how
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  Speaker 2: a sociable, uh, or equitable city could look like. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Paint a picture, what does car-centric mean? What does a
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  Speaker 1: car-centric city look like?
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  Speaker 2: All right,
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  Speaker 2: First of all, I think we can safely assume most
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  Speaker 2: people do not live in center in the center of KL,
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  Speaker 2: which means you're probably living in a neighborhood somewhere in Batangenjaya,
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  Speaker 2: Sha Alam, maybe some other part of KL outside like Shiras, Puiong, whatnot. Now,
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  Speaker 2: think about it this way. How easy is it for
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  Speaker 2: you to get to work if you work in the
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  Speaker 2: center of KL?
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  Speaker 2: What is the first.
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  Speaker 2: What is the first mode of transport that comes to
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  Speaker 2: your mind, how to get there? And I think if
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  Speaker 2: your answer is a car,
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  Speaker 2: And in your mind, the car is far more convenient
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  Speaker 2: of a form of transport than any other?
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  Speaker 2: Compared to a bus or compared to a train, then
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  Speaker 2: I think
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  Speaker 2: That's one way to imagine on a choice basis alone
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  Speaker 2: that we are living in a car-centric, uh, environment. But two,
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  Speaker 2: also it's a question of how long do you spend
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  Speaker 2: on the road, right? How much of your neighborhood
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  Speaker 2: How much of the entire urban environment.
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  Speaker 2: is made up of highways and cars. For me, the
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  Speaker 2: worst offender is Puhog because Puhog
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  Speaker 2: You can think of it as a township, but it
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  Speaker 2: is a township that is divided by concrete rivers, highways
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  Speaker 2: cutting across parts of Puung. So in the end, your
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  Speaker 2: neighborhoods are actually islands disconnected from other neighborhoods.
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  Speaker 2: How easy is it for you to go to the
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  Speaker 2: other neighborhood? Can you walk there? If you can't, if
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  Speaker 2: you only want to transport to get to buy groceries,
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  Speaker 2: or go shopping or go meet a friend, is to, oh,
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  Speaker 2: I need to take a car there. You're already in
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  Speaker 2: a car-centric environment.
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  Speaker 1: But if you look at our current design, right, um, and,
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  Speaker 1: and the philosophy that has guided a lot of our
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  Speaker 1: urban planning over the past few decades, who benefits from
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  Speaker 1: the way KL and the Klang Valley is, is designed
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  Speaker 1: and who tends to be disadvantaged or marginalized or
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  Speaker 2: excluded? Yeah, so the beneficiaries are clear, it will be
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  Speaker 2: those who benefit from automotive policies and, so we're talking
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  Speaker 2: about the car industry, we are talking about
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  Speaker 2: Highway concessionaires, construction companies that build these highways and roads,
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  Speaker 2: but also, um, we don't think often enough about this,
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  Speaker 2: but property developers.
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  Speaker 2: Um, the best example for me because I live around
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  Speaker 2: that area is imagine this. The Guthrie Highway, which is
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  Speaker 2: a little bit after Bukit Julutong in Shalam, was built
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  Speaker 2: first and it was built next to Sam Darby land.
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  Speaker 2: No more than I think about 1015, 20 years after that,
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  Speaker 2: Sam Dabi decides that, OK, we're gonna
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  Speaker 2: revive or we're gonna regenerate the plantation land that we have,
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  Speaker 2: we've exhausted its economic palm oil use, we're gonna now
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  Speaker 2: turn it into a
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  Speaker 2: Property development. So then you come up with Elmina. Now
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  Speaker 2: you have the Nay Alam, and then they introduce a
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  Speaker 2: mall there. They want to draw more people to live there.
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  Speaker 2: So property developers certainly, and imagine all this started with
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  Speaker 2: the fact that the highway was just cutting through an area.
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  Speaker 2: Back then it was green field, there was nothing over there,
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  Speaker 2: but property developers found an opportunity to, because KL is
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  Speaker 2: Clown Valley is ever expanding.
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  Speaker 2: You're just looking for more and more empty land to
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  Speaker 2: turn into housing, to turn into neighborhoods. So yeah, certainly
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  Speaker 2: property developers are among the key beneficiaries of this. But
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  Speaker 2: if you're talking about who's at disadvantage,
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  Speaker 2: People who are time poor, for example, right? So your
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  Speaker 2: monthly wages, majority of it would then be spent, maybe 30%
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  Speaker 2: of it goes to transportation and you lose, we're not
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  Speaker 2: talking about the fact that you have to pay maybe rent,
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  Speaker 2: maybe you have to pay a mortgage, you haven't paid
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  Speaker 2: for um commitments. But if more than 30% of your
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  Speaker 2: um monthly wages is going towards maintaining a car, parking, tolls,
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  Speaker 2: then yeah, you would be considered those who
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  Speaker 2: are disadvantaged because of this, uh, car-centric environment, right? We're
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  Speaker 2: also talking about people who are in care work. Because
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  Speaker 2: those in care work, because their working hours are not consistent,
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  Speaker 2: they work based on, um, based on the jobs, right,
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  Speaker 2: who they're taking care of, because they have to work
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  Speaker 2: odd hours sometimes. These are also people who, if they
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  Speaker 2: don't have enough money, either they spend a lot of
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  Speaker 2: money on personal transportation or they have to spend a
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  Speaker 2: lot of money and time. Time itself is a cost.
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  Speaker 2: On taking public transportation to go places.
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  Speaker 1: From a planning and design perspective, what specifically drives heavy
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  Speaker 1: congestion and poor walkability? Do you also see these two
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  Speaker 1: issues as interlinked?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, because if you design a street for cars, then
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  Speaker 2: by consequence, you're not designing for the people who are
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  Speaker 2: gonna be using the sidewalks.
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  Speaker 2: And I think the best example is, again, in your
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  Speaker 2: own neighborhood, how much of, how much space is dedicated
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  Speaker 2: to Kaki Limur or the sidewalk, how much space is
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  Speaker 2: dedicated to the cars? How many parking spaces are there
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  Speaker 2: in comparison to say, um, other spaces for parks, for example,
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  Speaker 2: commercial spaces. And I think that's it's telling that in
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  Speaker 2: even in design, even in urban planning and design.
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  Speaker 2: If you look at a lot of newer neighborhoods, and
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  Speaker 2: I'm talking about those not just from back then but
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  Speaker 2: even up to now, a lot of neighborhoods are still
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  Speaker 2: designed around cars. So I live in Dane Alam.
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  Speaker 2: Which is incredibly car-centric. In order to get to one
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  Speaker 2: neighborhood to another, as I mentioned, I need to get
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  Speaker 2: in the car. My g the groceries, I cannot walk
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  Speaker 2: to the grocery store because it will take me 30 minutes.
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  Speaker 2: But if I take a car,
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  Speaker 2: Less than 5 minutes. Because I have to go through,
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  Speaker 2: I have to go into the car, I have to
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  Speaker 2: go through at least 2 different roundabouts. Um, there is
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  Speaker 2: no grocery store near my neighborhood, so I can't exactly
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  Speaker 2: walk out of my neighborhood to get it. And I
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  Speaker 2: think
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  Speaker 2: A lot of that falls down to urban planning. A
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  Speaker 2: lot of that falls down to how, uh, Plan Malaysia
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  Speaker 2: or how the state government sets up codes, right? Building codes.
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  Speaker 2: How do you build a road? How much space should
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  Speaker 2: you dedicate for cars? Should it be, uh, two lanes?
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  Speaker 2: Should it be 3 lanes? The more lanes there are
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  Speaker 2: means that there's more priority given to cars. And I
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  Speaker 2: think one interesting thing in how, uh, communities have been
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  Speaker 2: trying to fight against that is that if the best
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  Speaker 2: example I see is TTDI, right?
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  Speaker 2: So if I'm not mistaken, uh Bike Commute KL has
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  Speaker 2: been working quite closely with DBKL and local local communities
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  Speaker 2: in order to slow down certain areas in TTDI, right?
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  Speaker 2: Because they recognize that
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  Speaker 2: As a legacy design, the roads around TTDI may be
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  Speaker 2: built for cars, you know, uh, 23 lanes, for example,
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  Speaker 2: in some places. But by intervening, by maybe building a
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  Speaker 2: speed bump, by maybe reducing, at least temporarily at some
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  Speaker 2: choke points, 2 lanes to 1 lane.
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  Speaker 2: You allow the space to be, you allow people to
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  Speaker 2: exist in the space and use it. And I think
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  Speaker 2: these are the sort of interventions that uh we have
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  Speaker 2: to work with lah because our legacy in building and
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  Speaker 2: urban design has always been very car-centric, that you need.
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  Speaker 2: That there aren't, there's now pushback from people who want
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  Speaker 2: to see more and more uh community-driven or pedestrian-driven uh walkability, right? Uh, where,
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  Speaker 2: you know, they work together with local council, make a
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  Speaker 2: space more friendly to people, more safe for them as well.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah. You
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  Speaker 1: know, I'm so glad you brought up TTDI as an
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  Speaker 1: example for two reasons. I think firstly, Bike Commute, fantastic organization.
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  Speaker 1: Go check them out on Instagram.
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  Speaker 1: Um, the kind of work that they do in front
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  Speaker 1: of schools and TTDI and so many others, they're working
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  Speaker 1: together with Ting City and a lot of gov uh
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  Speaker 1: local governments as, as they've mentioned, um, but
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  Speaker 1: I'm glad, I'm glad that you brought up TTDI as
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  Speaker 1: an example and talked about how there is an organization
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  Speaker 1: working together with communities to try and make it less
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  Speaker 1: car-centric because TTDI is generally by Malaysian standards, considered one
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  Speaker 1: of the more walkable places in the in the in
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  Speaker 1: the Klang Valley and even that doesn't actually qualify as
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  Speaker 1: a proper walkable, non-car centric neighborhood. So I think that's
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  Speaker 1: a a really
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  Speaker 1: Good example, but part of the Malaysian dream is owning
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  Speaker 1: a landed home, isn't it? With a car on the porch, a,
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  Speaker 1: a small garden for your kids to run around, or
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  Speaker 1: perhaps your pet cat or dog. Um, but globally, the
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  Speaker 1: best performing transit cities are often highly dense, vertical, they're compact,
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  Speaker 1: like if you go to a place like Singapore, Hong Kong,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, one small square, you've got like 10,000 people living, right? Um.
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  Speaker 1: Can Malaysians realistically have both? Or do we need to
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  Speaker 1: rethink what a good urban life looks like?
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  Speaker 2: Before we move on to talking about the trade-offs, right?
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  Speaker 2: uh between high density, uh, but also high mobility, let's
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  Speaker 2: first unpack why land is so important to Malaysians. Um,
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  Speaker 2: I'm gonna speak from a Malay perspective of land, right? Um,
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  Speaker 2: I was always told growing up, and this is true,
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  Speaker 2: I think for most other people from our parents' generation,
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  Speaker 2: and
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  Speaker 2: grandparents' generation is that land is an investment. It's not
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  Speaker 2: an asset class in the sense that you, you buy
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  Speaker 2: to appreciate, but you see it as you see it
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  Speaker 2: as an investment in the sense where
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  Speaker 2: If, if your child does not, isn't unable to earn
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  Speaker 2: own property, um, at least they have this land. Even
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  Speaker 2: if they don't want to live in this land, they
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  Speaker 2: can make something of it in terms of hucho tanam.
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  Speaker 2: You can turn it into a business, which is why
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  Speaker 2: if you go outside the Klang Valley and you go
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  Speaker 2: to places like, uh, Kada Place, Clan Tendranganu Paso Johor
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  Speaker 2: Pahang and whatnot, you would notice that a lot of
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  Speaker 2: Malay houses.
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  Speaker 2: At the front of the house close to where the
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  Speaker 2: road is, is where they will have uh a business
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  Speaker 2: Warung Jewel, you know, they will sell, uh, they will
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  Speaker 2: sell wares and goods makanang kapula and whatnot. So in
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  Speaker 2: the Malayan mindset, land is a sort of a security.
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  Speaker 2: It's an insurance that you cannot get with a high rise, right?
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  Speaker 2: If you're in a high rise, you own.
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  Speaker 2: Square feet in the sky, which sometimes depending on whether
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: it's leasehold or freehold, you you don't, you don't really
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  Speaker 2: own anything tangible.
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  Speaker 1: And it is not just like, you know, you brought
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  Speaker 1: up the the Malay community example, I think it's across
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  Speaker 1: the community as well because I grew up with my
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  Speaker 1: parents hammering it, the first thing you need to do,
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  Speaker 1: buy a house. It's the most important asset, um, you know,
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  Speaker 1: in terms of just
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  Speaker 1: Your the the the kind of security you feel when
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  Speaker 1: you own a house. And um, you know, my partner
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  Speaker 1: is Chinese, even she grows up in an environment where
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: everybody just hammers it on the head. Make sure you
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  Speaker 1: buy a house, buy a house,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: buy a house.
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  Speaker 2: And even if it isn't, even if it isn't a
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  Speaker 2: security investment uh or insurance, it's also something that can
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  Speaker 2: become an asset class because at some point in time,
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  Speaker 2: maybe 40 years in the future, if the government wants
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  Speaker 2: to build, wants to take over the land to build
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  Speaker 2: a highway or an MRT.
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  Speaker 2: You can sell it for an inflated price. And I
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  Speaker 2: think this is why and I think we need to
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  Speaker 2: grapple with the fact that we have been generationally taught
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  Speaker 2: that land, landed houses are important. So it's less of
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  Speaker 2: a Malaysian dream but more of a Malaysian insurance, right? Land, yeah, yeah, uh, which,
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  Speaker 2: which you don't get high rises because in high rises,
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  Speaker 2: and we talk about URA URA is the best example, um,
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  Speaker 2: in 99 years, because most leaseholds are 90%.
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  Speaker 2: 9, right? And, and most high-rises are leasehold. In 99 years,
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  Speaker 2: your potentially your child or whoever you give the property
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  Speaker 2: to will not have a home. And even if they
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: are able to get the home again, they may have
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: to pay a higher price for a redeveloped uh property.
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  Speaker 2: And I think this is why there's such a big
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: hang up with land ownership.
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  Speaker 2: Uh, among Malaysians. I mean that's, that's my read lah.
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  Speaker 2: But talking about trade-offs, right, in cities like London or
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Tokyo or even Singapore, as you mentioned, right, there is
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: a trade-off between high density, uh, but also very good mobility,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: and I think that's the sort of trade-off Malaysians need
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: to
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Think about that. Are you willing to trade off square feet, uh,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: for living in a slightly smaller space, maybe under 800
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: square feet, um, with hundreds of thousands of other people,
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  Speaker 2: but you have very good mobility, because you can't have both.
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  Speaker 2: The thing is there's also a cost element to this, right? Um,
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  Speaker 2: In sprawl neighborhoods or in sprawl townships outside the Klang
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  Speaker 2: Valley for example, or anywhere else, because you cannot build
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  Speaker 2: a train line, it doesn't make financial sense to build
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: a train line in sprawl areas. You have to use
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: the bus. But using the bus also means that it
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: has to go long distances, depending on the loop, depending
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: on the route, it has to pick up more people,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: so that means it needs the frequency, everything is, there,
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  Speaker 2: there are, there's a, there are levers that you have
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: to pull or change in or control, and the cost
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: rises or or decreases based on those.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Um, compared to say if you live in a city,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Hong Kong is the best example or Tokyo is the
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: best example. Tokyo, when they were developing Tokyo, they knew, uh,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: this is post-war lah.
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  Speaker 2: They knew that they wanted to turn a specific area
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: around a train station to not only be a transport node,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: but also be a community node. So that's why if
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: you go to train stations in Tokyo, and I'm not
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: just talking about central in places like Shinjuku uh or
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  Speaker 2: Odaiba or whatnot, but even in the more community train stations,
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  Speaker 2: you will notice, oh there's a, there's a local community there.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: There are, uh, there are
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  Speaker 2: Shopping arcades, I think that's what they call it. I
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: mean in English it's called shopping arcades. So they're shopping arcades,
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  Speaker 2: or shanteais, right, where you will see a lot of
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  Speaker 2: local businesses uh that open up food stores or local ware,
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  Speaker 2: local groceries. So basically in Tokyo's urban planning, they've already
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: considered that these are not just transport nodes, these are
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: also community nodes, and we build houses around it. And yeah.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Anybody who's probably stayed in a house in Japan, uh,
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  Speaker 2: knows just how notoriously small it is, uh, less than
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: 300 square feet for some of them, right? But there's
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: a trade-off. You live close to a train station and
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: you learn to live with less. This probably needs to
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: be a Malaysian conversation as to whether we are willing
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: to trade off square feet and our belongings in order
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: to live in cities that are more dense but more connected, uh,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: versus having a landed home, bigger space, but far more
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: disconnected and sometimes even more costly to go to work.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: On the show with me today is Azif Azudein. He's
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: an associate researcher at Iman Research. We will be back
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: with more on Beyond the Ballot Box BFM 89.9.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Beyond the Ballot Box. I'm Darian Yohan,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and on the show with me today is Azif Azudein,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: associate researcher at Iman Research, and we are talking about
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the ideas that have shaped Clang Valley's urban design. So, Azif,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I grew up um in Johor Bahru. Um, if Kuala
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Lumpur is not a high dense city,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Then and and Clang Valleys and then the rest of
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Malaysia is laggy, you know, just sprawling suburbs everywhere, right?
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: So I grew up in a landed property suburb in
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Johor Bahru. Although my IC says Johor Bahru, it takes
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: me like 30 minutes to drive to the city of
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Johor Bahru because everything is just suburbs, right? Um, and
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: It was very difficult to imagine, given the space that
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I had in my house, you know, I had, uh,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: you know, like me and my siblings, we had a
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: study area, every, everything we could do in the house,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: you know, outside, we would, my brother and I would
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: play football, kick around the ball outside the house and,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: and things like that.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: It's difficult to imagine what it's like in, you know,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: high dense areas. When I go to Singapore, I mean,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: obviously you are giving up space. The literal aspect of
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: it is you are living in smaller housing, but it
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel like I'm giving up something per se because
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: it is more like you sort of
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Do a lot of activities outside. You know, you, you, you,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: you go to the park outside, even like a family gatherings,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you have it in the lobby area, um, you spend
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of time outside then you come back in for,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: you know, some leisure time and and sleep,
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: right?
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: How do you think about that?
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: In your home, the more time you spend outside. Now
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: the problem is how, the question then is how do
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: you make outside attractive enough. In places like Singapore, and
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: I agree, um, I've never seen a Singaporean house, so
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I can't, I can't kind of like speak to that experience.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: But in Singapore, at least by my observation, walking around
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: some parts of it,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: There is enough community life and and facilities outside that can,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: I won't use the word trade-off lah, let me compensate
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: for the fact that OK, your homes are smaller, uh,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: your homes are almost utilitarian, sometimes maybe you're just there
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: to sleep, you're just, you're just there to relax a
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: little bit, have a bit of privacy, but outside, you
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: have a community to be a part of. You have
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: a park, you have a place where, you know, aunties
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: can go do tai chi downstairs, right? Um.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: You have a sports facility, not not about not less
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: than 10 minutes away where you can engage your friends
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: and maybe you're also inclined, you can take the train
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: or the bus to the closest mall neighborhood mall, right?
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: So there are, there is this thing about I think
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: um developing life on the street, ah which is something
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: very lacking in Malaysia, right? And as I mentioned earlier,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: so because I live in the Nayalam.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I don't have a life on the street. My Malaysian,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: I I I think as part of Malaysian delight design philosophy,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: it really is about separating life on the street from
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: life at home. And I think that's that's something that
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: um that seems to be the norm in Malaysian design, right?
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: And even if in cities, and I'm just thinking of
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: places like Central KL.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: There is no life on the street, right? Uh, everything
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: has been so commercialized or at least geared towards developing
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: for a consumer market that
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: You don't have a local who's running uh a shop downstairs,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: for example, right? Maybe you have Minus girl or maybe
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: you have Bilibili Mart, for example, but that's not community,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: that's just commercial, that's just a commercial offering. Uh, parks
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: are scarce in Malaysia and this is something I was
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: thinking about on the way here, right? I was thinking
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: a lot about Malaysian parks.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Or Clang Valley, lah, to be more exact, parks in
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: the Clang Valley which became a thing during the during
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: COVID when people want to go outside spaces, spend more
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: time outside and not indoors where transmission was, you know, uh,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: was a risk. And then it made me realize in KL.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: We only have uh Taman Tu. We only have Taman
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Titi Wang Su. I'm thinking about the main ones on
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: the top of my head lah. Taman Ti Wangse and
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: we have KLCC. Taman TT Wang Se and Tamantuku are
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: not accessible by any form of public transport. I mean, buses, yes.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: KLCC you can get by train, but that tells you.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Where then do we go for leisure, which is why
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: malls have become a thing for Malaysians, right? We go
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: to malls to replace the sort of social leisure you
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: find from being in the green space. Right?
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: And the example you gave KLCC taking the train there
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: is because nobody lives there, right? Everybody is living like
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: you said in the other suburbs, BJ and and so
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: on and so forth. So
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Let's get to another thing more deeply, which is the
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: question of affordable housing as well, right? Because, um, what
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: we often hear is that, you know, we are building
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: these transport-oriented development that is meant to be very inclusive, walkable,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: transit accessible communities and all that. Um, are our cities, um,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: that are touted to be TOD actually TOD, um, and
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: is it truly inclusive to begin with?
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Any developer that claims that they are developing a TOD
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: I do not believe them. Simply because the idea of
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: TOD is that you can live in an area
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Without the need to own a car at all.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: KL Central was claimed to be Malaysia's, or if not
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Kuala Lumpur's first TOD, but yet to go there, yes,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: you're connected by 3 to 4 different train lines, you
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: can take a bus, but nevertheless, if you think about
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: the street life around KL Central, it's not exactly TOD because,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: you know, it's anyone who's gone through brickfields or driven
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: around brickfields knows how congested it is in during peak hours.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: The only buildings around KL Central are either expensive ah apartments,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: which people would have bought maybe when it opened up
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: 20 years ago and now the prices are incredibly high,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: or hotels around the area, right? Uh, the only maybe
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: community proper community residentials are on the Brickfields side. And
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: even that is semi-waable but still not a great experience.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Is that really TOD then? Can you live and work
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: in
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Gale Central, right? And so we talk about inequality even, right? So,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: anyone who lives, we all, I mean, if you talk
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: about inequality on a very physical level,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: You can maybe afford to stay in brick fields, uh,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: where there's a bit of a disparity compared to living
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: in actual KL Central where it's more pricier, maybe experts
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: live there or people who live and work in Kuala Lumpur,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: KL Central live there.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Um, so yeah, I don't think there's such a concept
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: as TOD because if you look at the plans, most
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: of it still requires you to use a car. There
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: is no such thing as live and work in an area,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: which is what the true concept of TOD actually is.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: We still see in in some other spheres, we do
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: see property as an investment if uh asset class. So
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: there was a study that I think that was done
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: about
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Give or take, about 7 years ago, uh, by SNGP.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Now NGPS is a bit dodgy as a as a
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: research outfit, but I think uh that study at least
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: alludes to some truth there, where they did a survey
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: of prices of properties around MRT stations and that time
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: it was the Kajang, uh Singapore line. Properties around MRT
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: stations were more expensive than properties in areas that didn't
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: have it, in the same township.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: In the past few months, maybe it's because of my feed,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: my social media feedback then.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I see a lot of property investors saying that, oh, buy, I'll,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: I'll teach you how to buy and look for good
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: areas to, and I would recommend you to buy properties
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: near MRT because one you can leverage on tourism. Tourists
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: don't have cars, so they need to live somewhere where
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: they can live very close to public transport. MRT being,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: ah sorry, trains being the most reliable form of transport
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: means this is how you should invest. So if you
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: think about the fact that the property investment market itself
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: is pushing you to think about
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Property near MRTs or LRTs as an investment asset instead
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: of a place to live, naturally then you think about
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: how that affects the market. So that means, so now
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: we have high prices uh around MRTs because of the
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: premium of living close to a station. Uh, but two,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the investment market, uh, property investment market actively, actively encouraging
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: people to invest in it, not for people to live in.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: But for a transient tourist consumer market, right? So basically
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: you're not renting out places for people to live, you're
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: renting out short term, 3 weeks, sorry, 2 weeks, a
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: few days to people who where you can generate more money.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: So when you combine that, then yeah, no wonder then is, uh,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: is it premium then. No wonder it's expensive then to
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: choose to live near an MRT, right? And I think
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: that does then increase inequality because what it hap, what
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: it does to people then is that only the middle
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: class or people who have, who are willing to, I
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: think part with a bit more of their income can
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: afford to live uh in an MRT adjacent or MRT
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: attached uh property. Whereas if you don't have enough income,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: You're gonna be living somewhere further, and you'll pay the
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: cost of traveling, either to an MRT or you'll pay
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: the cost of traveling of traveling to where you work. So, yeah,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: I think the logic of the market, uh certainly sees
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: high rises, this density that we're trying to create as
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: an asset class instead of
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Where we should be living.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: So would
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: it then be fair to say that, you know, that
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: instead of a city for people, it has essentially our
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: cities are designed in a way for, you know, to,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: to become a a kind of system or machine for
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: land speculation and rent extraction.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Um, rather than, um, for people to actually live and
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and have and build their lives there.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that is without a doubt. So, one of the,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: a project that is, that I'm doing right now is
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: actually studying the property market in central KL.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: And pretty much looking at whether they are purpose built
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: for STRs, short term rentals or Airbnbs, or they're built
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: for residentials. And what I tend to find is that
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: since 2015 onwards, more and more property developers are developing
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: for the STR market. Um, I'm not gonna name some
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: of the developers here for legal reasons. But, but there
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: are some property developers that have moved into recognizing that
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: if I build SDRs, if I build properties for the
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: sole purpose of turning into an Airbnb,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: I can get a lot of revenue. So, as a conglomerate,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: maybe I will then set up a hospitality arm, right?
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Basically to become a hotel manager for a building which
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: on paper is actually built for a residential or tagged
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: under service resident uh service condominium. Right? Because if you,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: if you look at the housing categories, there are residential, um,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: and serviced apartments. Serviced apartments are is where you can
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: have commercial activity, depending on the land use as well. So,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: And the trend for more and more developers to build
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: STR ready properties can also is something that we can
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: also feel nowadays. So, so say for example, uh, in
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: places like, I'll just name the area, not the the properties.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: So in places like Bukit Lajan or Damansara Pradhair, you
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: will notice that these places are very active in the
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: STR market. You're living in a com in a place
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: that was designed first and foremost as the sole purpose
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: to become
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: a commercial place for commercial purpose, not for residential purpose.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: And I think this is a trend that we're starting
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: to notice more and more, and developers are incentivized to
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: do it because there's more money to be made selling
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: to
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: People who are willing to spend more money to turn small,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: less than 500 square feet units into investment classes because
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: no actual person will want to live in a 500
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: square foot unit unless you're a bachelor. If you have
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: a child, you're not gonna live in a studio.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Absolutely not. It's dignified. It's not dignified,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: yeah. And more and more properties are being configured to build,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: to to to be built towards um
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: You know, an STR market, right? So yeah,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: absolutely. So, you know, when we looked earlier, right, when
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: we talked about what has guided our, you know, urban
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: design philosophy for so long, right? Um and our policies,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: um we talked about how, you know, in the 80s
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: there was this boom. I think it came together with
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: trends across the world, right, where cars became from a
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: luxury to something that is not luxury. A lot of
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: people can pur purchase it, um
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: It became a lot more cheaper and then you also
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: had this kind of um proliferation of neoliberal ideas across
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the world, privatization, but today, many decades have passed and
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: it feels like the consensus, at least in
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Certain intellectual spaces and all, um, given how, you know,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: looking at how many other countries, whether it's um Japan, um,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: whether it's, you know, Singapore, Hong Kong, even China, loads
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of critiques again about China, but when it comes to
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: how they invest in public transport, transit, they are leading
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: the charge in that. Do you feel like we have
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: started to move in that direction as well, or are
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: we still stuck in that old school way of thinking?
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: That's a very good question because for me, I think
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: you're stuck somewhere in between. And the reason why we
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: say we're stuck in between and why people are starting
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: to consider different options beyond the car is not because
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: we developed a consciousness that car is bad, but we
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: developed this sense that a car is unaffordable. So we have,
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: we have a lot of anxieties about thinking of of
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: of a different mode of living. It's simply because we
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: cannot afford a car anymore, right? You don't want to
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: be locked into a, let's say you take a 9
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: year loan maximum.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Most people do not want to be locked into a
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: nine-year loan because they can't afford it. Whereas I think
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: because the economics of back then, I think because of industrialization,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: char cars were cheaper, finances are a bit more different
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: as well as industries and wages, we were able, more
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: people were incentivized to buy a car, because it was
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: a means of mobility, it was a means of at
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: least in that time painted as autonomy, right? No longer
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: is it autonomy, now it's a cage, right? It's it's
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: a it's a handcuff of sorts, financial handcuffs. So,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: That when that.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: When tied together with the fact that most youths nowadays
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: cannot afford a house, so instead the trend now is
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: to rent, then you come into a sort of a
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: mental state or paradigm lah, where you start thinking, OK,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: I can't afford a car, I can't afford to buy
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: a car and afford one. My sister's a very good example.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, she, uh, at her age, I already had
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: a car. Yeah, I was encouraged to get a car,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: but now my sister has a different take. For her,
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: it's like, OK, I'll go anywhere with Grab or I'll
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: take public transport because why? I can't afford.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Uh, I can't afford it, right? I can't afford a
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: 9 year loan on a car. Um, so I think
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: more and more young people, more and more young Malaysians,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: at least living in Clang Valley are thinking more of
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: a different mode of transportation or living simply because the
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: old way of, well, previous generations form of you need
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: to own a car, you need to own a house,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: is no longer tenable, it's no longer within affordability, uh,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: which is why you see a lot of people now
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: they taking public transport, uh, or trying attempt to and
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: then grousing with the fact that, oh, the infrastructure cannot
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: support us, and
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Of course it can't, because when we built this infrastructure
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: in the first place, it was not intended to support
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: a public transport nation. It was intended to complement a
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: car-centric nation. But now that more and more people are
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: moving towards public transport, more and more people are choosing
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: to rent, closer to where they work or whatnot, basically
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: having a little bit more autonomy in that sense, our
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: public transport service is suffering as well. And you can
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: see that, right, people are complaining, oh why isn't there
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: a train station here? Why is that, why is the
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: bus breaking down here? And
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: We are not catching up with it. So I think
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: we are kind of stuck in a place where the
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: old ideas of autonomy is still there, but our current
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: economic situation is forcing us to think about a very
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: different way of living, how living looks like in the city.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Let's go for another quick break. On the show with
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: me today is Azif Azuddin. He's an associate researcher at
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Iman Research. We will be back with more on Beyond
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the Ballot Box, BFM 89.9.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Welcome back. You're listening to Beyond the Ballot Box with me,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Daren Yohan. Alongside me today is Azif Azudein. He's an
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: associate researcher at Iman Research, and we are talking about
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: um Klang Valley's urban design, it's philosophy in, in how
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: it builds its cities.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Um, as if, how much of this sort of urban dysfunction,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: if we can call it that, also stems from the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: way government is structured in Malaysia, right? Because, um, I mean,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: we still have a very strong executive centralized in many,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: many ways. But again, if we look at some of
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: the examples that people often cite, Singapore, China, and things
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: like that, you know, in, in Singapore, we know they
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: went through, you know,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: When, um, they gained their independence, one of the things that, um,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Lee Kuan Yew did and the, and the founding members
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: of Singapore was to do massive land reform and say
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: we're gonna take a government is gonna buy up everything
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: for very cheap price, we're gonna launch this HDB thing
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and this is gonna define us for the next 100
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: years or so, you know, that, that kind of mindset
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: and the Singapore government plans everything. So I'm, I'm thinking,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: is it because of
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: That does do that, those aspects play into it, right? Um,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: you know, the fact that when we wanna do certain things,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: even if we wanna, you know, redevelop certain places, there's
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: just so much negotiations, there's, you know, multiple local councils,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: there's overlapping state federal responsibilities, there's stakeholders, even like homeowners
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: you need to negotiate with, and I don't necessarily see
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: that as a bad thing or a good thing. I'm
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: wondering if that is part of the problem.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: I do think that's part of the problem because if
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: you're talking about the different local authorities, so we can
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: exclude DBKL or Kuala Lumpur as part of this because
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: you know they're not part and they are just called
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Vila Yakis one so their government is essentially linked to
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: the federal government anyway, right? Uh, but if you're talking
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: about places like Slango, the different, the different, um, local authorities,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: so yeah, certainly I do think there are roadblocks or
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: obstacles when it comes to that because different local authorities
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: have different.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Political incentives or development incentives. Uh, and the best way
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: I think to see that is basically how they negotiate
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: their structure plan or local master plan every 5 years
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: or so, every 5 years, give or take, every 5
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: to 10 years, they would then come up with a
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: master plan, they will come up with a local structure
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: plan saying that, OK, we're gonna develop this place into
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: a commercial area, we're gonna develop this place into a
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: residential area. And in between that time,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: is when you end up with negotiating, right? You negotiate
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: with local residents in a certain area, hey, we're gonna
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: build a commercial, we're gonna build a factory in this area.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Are you OK with it? Sometimes maybe don't even do that, right?
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: So the local residents themselves have to go to their
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: local aduns and have to go to the aunts and
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: fight for to preserve or renegotiate the terms of how
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: their locality looks like.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Now, for me that's not necessarily a bad process, but
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: it gets bad when it becomes NIMBYism, where, and I
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: think this is where Singapore, the Singapore example is very
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: interesting to me, right? Because for Singapore there's no chance
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: for NIMBYism when the government has total control as to
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: how they want to develop and they have the benefit
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: of doing that because they're able to package that as
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: a common good thing. But for
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: I'll use a very good example, I was thinking about
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: because of this tension, right? TTDI was supposed to have
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: an MRT I think closer to where the uh fire
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: station was supposed to be, if I'm not mistaken, if you,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: if you check the original MRT plan that was intended
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: to be, it was supposed to be close to the
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: fire station. And I think in terms of logical connection,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: the fire station would have been perfect because it's central, right?
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: But because the residents opposed it,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Because, oh, it's gonna cause traffic for the next 5,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: 10 years. It's gonna be impede my convenience. So there's
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: no there's no either there was no communication of what
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: the greater good looks like or maybe it's just NIMBYism
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: at play here. But in the end we had to
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: move it closer to the edge of TTTI, closer to
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: where uh the commercial building where Nilofa and Tintbudi is. Uh,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: and it's not so it's still somewhat accessible, but it
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: takes a bit more to walk there, right? So there
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: is
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: This sense whether there's that trade-off, right? Um, where even
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: if the government has the best of plans, even if, uh,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Rapid KL or MRT Corp has the best of plans
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: to build a connective station somewhere, build certain places, but
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: because of its democracy, I guess, right? I mean, you, you, you,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: you negotiate the terms, um, you're and you're allowed the
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: voice to, to decide that with your local council, with
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: who you appoint and elect, um.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: You have nimbyism then coming in the way of development sometimes.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: And I think sometimes this is where it's it down
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: to communication or at least convincing that this is for
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: the greater good.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Uh, but it is, I think, an uphill battle because
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day you're fighting against people
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: who are thinking, oh, will my property depreciate. So there's
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: a bit of selfishness there,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: unfortunately. I think it's not in my backyard, you know,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: and it's, it's an interesting phenomenon because a lot of
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: NIMBYs
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: And this is why the phrase is, is, you know,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: coined in the first place, right? They actually agree that
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: there needs to be an MRT station. They would agree
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: that there needs to be PPR flats, just not in
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: my backyard. Build it somewhere else, somewhere that's not going
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: to quote unquotek chow me, right, my lifestyle and the
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: things I, the way I like it.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Next to my, you know, bungalows.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah, exactly, um, and, and it's those kinds of,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: it's it's a very interesting phenomenon that, um, you know,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: prevents a lot of development, progressive development in a lot
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: of major cities and and areas, especially suburbs. Um, as
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: we wind down this conversation, um, so we've talked about
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of the problems. If we could
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Distill this to, you know, build, when we when it
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: comes to building an equitable city, what are the key
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: ingredients um that people need to keep in mind, that
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: policymakers need to keep in mind, especially in the Malaysian
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: or Klang Valley context?
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's a social theorist who studies space quite extensively, uh,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: called Henry Le Fer, and he talks about this concept
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: called rights to the city.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Where you inhabit a certain space. Yeah, city, right? Generally,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: you inhabit space and you
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Your space reflects your ideology.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Your goals, your wants, and your aspirations, and you use
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: that space as a way to to materialize it, right?
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: I mean that that's me giving like a very simple
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: explanation as to Rise of the City and Rise of
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: the City essentially then also tells you that because you
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: are an inhabitant of the city, you have a right
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: then to exist there. You have a right then to
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: to to to create your aspiration in in where you live, right?
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: And I think the biggest question for me
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: In as part of that concept is, if you live
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: in a city, do you have the rights to decide
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: how it looks like in your image, and your aspirations, right?
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: And I think this then boils down to several different things, right?
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Several different concepts that I guess I want to leave
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: with this conversation is the question of universal design.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: Is a city built for everyone or is it built
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: for very specific individuals or types of individuals, right? If
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: you think about the fact that I think City, I
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: think a few years ago they did a study, or
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: at least they did I think a very simple research
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: that showed that women, uh, the perception of safety between
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: men and women are very different when it comes to
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: the city, right? So certain areas become unsafe for women
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: at night, but a man might not perceive it that way, right?
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: by basis of gender alone.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Um, so is the, is the city safe for women,
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: and we're talking about Kaki Lima or sidewalk infrastructure, is
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: there
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Is the sidewalk accessible? Is it wheelchair friendly? Is it
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: disabled friendly, right? And in most cases, I think the
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: truth of the matter is in Malaysia it's not. We
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: don't build thinking, we don't build roads or sidewalks thinking
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: that uh people in wheelchairs are gonna use them. We
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: think about the fact that we, the designer or the
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: architect are able-bodied people who can walk normally, we have
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: no problems with mobility, we're gonna be using them. And
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: then that's where you get some weird design ideas that
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a, there's a bollard blocking in the
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: middle of the road.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Um, and I think for me, uh, when I became
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: a father and I started bringing my daughter around in
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: the city, I had her in the stroller, that gave
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: me a taste for, for the sort of challenges that
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: wheelchair users had, right? Because I had to maneuver the wheelchair, uh, the, the, the,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: the stroller around. I had to carry my daughter out
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: of there, and I was thinking in my mind, wow,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: the city is, is inaccessible for anyone in a wheelchair, right?
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, if I'm having struggles with a, uh, with
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: a stroller, what not more a person with a wheelchair
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: who doesn't have the ability to be able to
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: You know, just choose when they wanna get out, they can't.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Um, is it safe for children? Roads in Malaysia, unfortunately,
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: the truth of the matter is, are not safe for children, right? Uh,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: and I think that's why again I, I, I wanna
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: plug and say like, you know, I really applaud the
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: word that, um.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Bike communicate is doing, because one of the works is
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: to make areas around schools, at least they, they pilot
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: it right, uh, more safe for children because you know,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: these are, these are children who are still navigating the
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: idea of how do I navigate my world. Um, they're
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: still learning road signs, they're thinking, they're still thinking about
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: the safety aspects.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: And we're not thinking about designing for children, right? So
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: universal design is really thinking about how do you make
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: your entire infrastructure safe for everyone. Because, and this is
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: the design philosophy I believe in like, when you design
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: for the most vulnerable in your society, you're designing for everyone.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: If you design for wheelchair users, for example, and I
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: know I use it as an example, but you also
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: make the design very accessible for everyone else, you know,
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: by design, right? Um,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: You want to then talk about thinking also about how
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: you democratize mobility. And what I mean by that is
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: that early on at the top of the show, we
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: were talking about ah how car-centric we are, how even
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: in our design choices every day, we think of the
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: car immediately, or maybe if you're a motorcycle rider, you
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: think about the motorcycle first. But instead, a good city
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: is multi-modal, where you can
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you wanna take a car to
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: the MRT station and then I think, I think that's
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: fine because sometimes when you live in the suburbs where
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: um where it's a bit more car centric, understandably, but
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: you can drive to the MRT station, park there, take
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: the train to the city center.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: And maybe then take a last mile sort of connector.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Maybe you can take the scooter to work, uh, the
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: scooter to to complete your last mile, maybe you can walk.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: But the idea here is to decouple your mobility from
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: relying on the car alone. Decouple your mobility from relying
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: on the motorcycle alone, and to be able to, uh,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: have a variety of different ways to reach your destination.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: And that to me is democratizing mobility. Um.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: And yeah, and I think third spaces, I, we didn't
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: talk so much about the spaces, we touched a little
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: bit when we talked about parks. But for me, third
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: spaces are spaces where you should be able to exist
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: ah without a cost. If you go into a mall,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: You need to pay to exist. You need to pay
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: to be able to access it, right, at the very minimum. Yeah,
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: which is OK. I sometimes do that because I don't
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: have a third space. I go walking to the mall, uh,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: but I still have to pay for parking to Ringgit
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: maybe at minimum. Um, if you take the MRT phone
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: you you pay to get there, right?
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Um, and commercial spaces encourage, like malls encourage you to buy,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: so you feel a little bit inadequate as a consumer
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: if you don't participate in the economy of the everywhere.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: But the spaces like parks where you don't have a
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: cost to exist, is great, right, because, ah, not only
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: is it a space for your mental health, but it's also,
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: if done well, it's also a space where you interact
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: and be part of the community as well. Because if
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: you think about the purpose of parks, right, where it's
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: for recreation.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: But parks also are places where people gather. Over there,
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: you get to see people from all walks of life,
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: you get to interact, have accidental interactions where you realize, oh,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: I'm much bigger than my community. I'm part of a cosmopolitan,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: if you use London as an example, I'm part of
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: a cosmopolitan city where there are people from different backgrounds
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: and maybe an interaction allows you to, you know, move
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: away from, from, from your preconceptions or or feeling isolated, right?
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we don't have enough third spaces, I think.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: So these are kind of the three things I
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: will leave concepts that I will leave behind, right, which is, yeah,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: universal design, designing for everyone, uh, democratizing mobility so that
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: you have a multitude of choices as to how you
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: choose to go somewhere.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: And third spaces where you can basically be a citizen
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: of an urban space by just virtue of existing.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I think that's a very good place to
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: end this conversation. Asif, thank you so much for joining
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: me today. Thank you. I've been speaking to Asif Azuddin,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: associate researcher at Iman Research, and this has been Beyond
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: the Ballot Box, BFM 89.9.