City for sale? Residents in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur fear the squeeze of development

It used to be a short walk across a bridge over the Klang river from Danil Roslan’s home to the glitzy KLCC twin towers in the heart of Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur.

But that route was blocked by a sprawling elevated highway in 2000, suddenly turning the road in front of Danil’s home in Kampung Baru into a dead end, severing pedestrian access for one of the city’s oldest communities to the heart of the capital.

Then, local authorities developed the area just across the road into a food street aimed at pulling in tourists, shattering the once quiet life enjoyed for generations in the city’s last traditional Malay village.

“The area has been gentrified. Not a lot of Malays are left there,” said videographer Danil, 36, wryly suggesting that the outcome had effectively buried the community like “previous civilisations”.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration is making another hard push to reshape Kuala Lumpur, reviving industrial and commercial zones, boosting the economic potential of transit areas, increasing green spaces and even tinkering with the city’s social fabric.

The focus is on redeveloping older sections while building new commercial and residential districts to expand the city limits – at a cost of hundreds of billions of ringgit.

The plan also includes work to spruce up the city’s image with the promise of ample greenery and a “strike force” set up to crack down on everything from vice to dirty restaurants. If all goes to plan, a congestion charge will also slim down the city’s daily gridlock.

Source link