Planning and development of new towns in Malaysia

Malaysia has adopted a new towns policy to complement the strategy of national development planning which strives to balance the growth of less developed regions, to provide for increased urbanization, to control the growth of metropolitan areas, and to create a pool of labor and consumers sufficient to attract commercial and industrial activities. The intention of this thesis is to formulate an analysis of new towns planning and development in Malaysia as a part of the national development policy, which has played a role influencing the spatial development and growth pattern of the country, and which has had an impact on the specific objectives of the New Economic Policy (NEP). A literature review and a statistical analysis are the two approaches undertaken to conduct the analyses of progress achieved by the new towns and their role in the nation's urban development practices. Throughout the following chapters, the Endings reveal that the extensive building of new towns does not contribute significantly to the increased number of urban areas, which in turn does not have an effect on the growth and spatial distribution of urban development. The development of new towns provides only a very marginal impact on the reduction of regional imbalances. In terms of restructuring the society through new towns, the progress achieved by the new towns was relatively below expectations. The slow growth of population in the new towns in either rural or urban areas has affected their physical development. In many cases, the new towns were only half built, which definitely restrained the progress of other social and economic developments. This study looks into several aspects of new towns development which are based upon the target of the national development. The major conclusion of the study is that the current practice of new towns has failed to attract the necessary intended population. The progress achieved with respect to urban and regional development strategy is in the right direction, but analyses indicate that much more still needs to be done to foster growth within the new towns.