Kuala Lumpur is not old, but looks tired and filthy. Can we reinvent and rejuvenate the city? [Notes from Jalan Pasar] ... I was encouraged by many to write, especially friends and colleagues who have had enough of my ramblings. Yesterday, Wan Hamidi put it to me - why dont you write something, for The Rocket perhaps, since you are free and doing nothing and look depressed. Well. Well see if this works. *********************************** I often walked around the city, in the area around my work place in Jalan Pasar KL or where I live in Subang Jaya. Not that its particularly enjoyable to be a pedestrian here. Sometimes its exactly the opposite. As a policy researcher and one deeply interested in urban politics, I ask myself many times - What makes this City so pedestrian unfriendly? How do we make it better in Malaysia? Not only in the privately gated community, or the immaculately manicured KLCC Park, but also the back lanes of Jalan Badak and Jalan Pasar. I am no advocate for Singapore-style streets that are so hygienic and homogenous and bored. I prefer places with some rough edges, vibrant and organic, like Malmö and Taipei. There is this jargon called Spatial Justice. Which simply means that the average and even the poor should not be doomed to cramped and dirty ghettos like Jalan Badak while the rich enjoy their infinity pool in Mont Kiara. Spatial justice does not just look at having more or less square feet. But also the quality of space and its environment. The Jalan Badak Flat is 650 sqft, perhaps even bigger than some studio apartments in Mont Kiara. Kuala Lumpur is not old, but looks tired and filthy. Can we reinvent and rejuvenate the city? Somehow, it has to start from places like Jalan Badak. Just dont tear down the flats and build RM1000 per square feet condos with funny names on it. Renovate the place, put in a new water reticulation system and sewarage. Put in a park around the corner. And the upper floors of shophouses, can City Council come in and make it attractive so that even middle class families yearn to move in. With kids. And dont f*king bother to put up fence around it and install CCTVs.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 11:45:15 +0000
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