Why Malaysian cities are struggling – and it’s not because buildings are old

The draft Urban Renewal Act, promoted by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, has sparked a crucial debate about the future of Malaysia’s cities.

While the intention to rejuvenate ageing urban areas is commendable, the bill’s approach is a flawed fix. It focuses on the symptom – old, poorly managed buildings – while ignoring the disease: a broken system of urban planning and management.

A system in crisis

Malaysia today is an urban nation. Almost 80% of our population now live in cities, making urban governance one of the most important policy issues of our time.

Yet, our system has not kept pace with this rapid transformation. We need to urgently upgrade how our cities are planned and managed to meet the realities and demands of dense, complex urban life in the 21^st Century.

The core issue plaguing our urban landscape, especially stratified properties, isn’t old age; it’s poor governance. We have a chronic failure in building management, compounded by a fragmented policy framework.

• Ineffective management: Many buildings suffer from poorly managed maintenance funds and incompetent joint management bodies, leading to deteriorating facilities and unsafe living conditions.
• Weak oversight: Local authorities often lack the resources and capacity to effectively enforce regulations, allowing neglect to fester.
• Fragmented policies: Existing laws, like the Strata Management Act 2013, are insufficient to ensure long-term accountability and sustainable upkeep.
• Traffic congestion: Traffic overflow and double parking outside strata buildings is a common sight, creating even more congestion amid increasing incidents of road rage.

This reality is visible daily for urban residents: broken lifts that leave older adults stranded, clogged drains that cause flooding, litter-strewn premises, and unreliable waste collection that undermines public health.

Such conditions erode the liveability of strata living, which is increasingly the dominant urban housing model in our cities.

Narrow, developer-oriented approach

Instead of tackling this root cause, the draft bill takes a narrow and dangerous shortcut. It simplistically labels poorly managed buildings over 30 years old as obsolete and pushes for redevelopment as the primary solution.

Such an approach only encourages lazy rent-seeking developers to offer solutions, rather than catalysing the creativity of the private sector.

It ignores successful models like Singapore, where a robust system of maintenance and periodic upgrades allows Housing Development Board flats to remain in excellent condition for more than 60 years already.

There are many other examples of active high-rise social housing of more than 100 years, including London’s Boundary Estate, Berlin’s Mietskaserne and the Alfred Corning Clark Buildings in New York.

Clearly, age is not the problem; poor management is.

By focusing overwhelmingly on physical redevelopment – often on publicly owned land in highly lucrative city centres – the bill poses a real threat:

• To residents: It risks displacing thousands of low-income urban dwellers, undermining their right to affordable housing in the city and disrupting established communities.
• To our cities: It promotes a model of redevelopment that prioritises developers’ profits over people, social heritage and genuine, sustainable progress.

Compounding this is our planning culture’s fixation on density. More high-rises buildings are pushed into already congested areas without regard to traffic capacity, public spaces or the quality of neighbourhood life. In the name of efficiency, we risk destroying the very fabric of our urban communities.

Wanted: Holistic urban governance overhaul

We don’t need a bill that makes demolition easier. We need a bold reform agenda that overhauls how our cities are run.

• Fix strata governance: Strengthen the Strata Management Act to ensure transparent, well-funded and mandatory long-term maintenance plans.
• Empower local authorities: Give councils the power, funding and expertise to plan holistically and enforce building standards effectively.
• Prioritise people-centric policies: Ensure any renewal project guarantees the rights of existing residents and delivers tangible improvements to their quality of life, not just new condominiums for the wealthy.
• Mandate community involvement: Make public, transparent consultation with residents and civil society a non-negotiable part of the planning process.
• Insist on integrity: Governance must include greater accountability, transparency and zero tolerance for corruption among city officials, which too often undermines trust and fair outcomes.

Don’t bulldoze the problem, fix the system

The current Urban Renewal Bill is a missed opportunity. It offers a myopic 20th-Century solution for a 21st-Century problem.

We must shift from a ‘bulldoze-and-rebuild’ model to a ‘manage, maintain and renew one.

Urban renewal cannot work without stronger local governance, city planning that puts people over profits, and a creative and innovative private sector.

Let’s demand legislation that builds a better system of urban governance, not just newer buildings. Our cities and their residents deserve nothing less.

Mohideen Abdul Kader is the president of the Consumer’s Association Penang.

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