Critical junctures: anarchistic leanings of current urbanization in Malaysia
Development in Malaysia has reached a critical juncture where the expectations of end results and processes have drastically changed from the first time the New Economic Policy (NEP) outlined the future for the country. The focus on technocratic solutions to social problems, while still dominan...
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Environmental Management Society, Malaysia
2010
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/2345/1/Article7_Hadi.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/2345/ http://www.ems-malaysia.org/mjem/index.html |
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| Summary: | Development in Malaysia has reached a critical juncture
where the expectations of end results and processes have
drastically changed from the first time the New Economic
Policy (NEP) outlined the future for the country. The
focus on technocratic solutions to social problems, while
still dominant, is increasingly being contested and
supplemented by negotiated meanings of multiple symbols
and evolving objectives, proposed at various entry points.
Global market forces have changed the effectiveness of
earlier centralized planning efforts and have opened up
local development avenues that are not as dependent on the
State as they were before. This has led to an increasingly
anarchistic approach of direct development, a pattern that
has caught many development planners by surprise. The
urbanization phenomenon today is increasingly driven by
individuals that take up risks and responding faster to the
uncertain conditions of the market than the established
bureacracy of development planning. These new agents of
development are aware but no longer simply following the
path set by the State, negotiating to capitalise on State-led
programmes but with independent agendas. The current
result is the creation of a syncretic rural-urban society
with blurred physical and social boundaries. Using the
everyday content of urbanization, the paper attempts to
provide some insights into this dynamics of development
that has permeated the rural-urban landscape of Malaysia.
The Bernam-Linggi region which has experienced the
changing whims of development and development planning
is used as an example to illustrate the emergence of the
urban through a coalescing of local drivers responding
to the State and Market. The argument of the paper is
articulated within a rhizomatic approach to the current
urbanization phenomenon, emphasizing the bottom-up,
lateral proliferation of individually determined views of
development which resulted in the current urban-rural
landscape of the the Bernam Linggi region in particular,
and Malaysia in general. The paper also posits several
implications for planning analysis and development
programmes evaluation |
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