Petaling Jaya: The early development and growth of Malaysia’s first New Town
Lee Boon Thong (2006) traces the origins and first two decades of Petaling Jaya, Malaysia’s first new town, from its inception as a post-war squatter resettlement scheme to its emergence as a thriving middle-class satellite city. The article argues that the original political imperative to resettle squatters for security and social control was rapidly superseded by market forces, middle-class housing demand, and industrial growth, fundamentally altering the town’s character from its founding intentions.
Summary
The article situates Petaling Jaya’s creation within the acute demographic crisis of post-war Kuala Lumpur, where population growth—accelerated by rural-to-urban flight during the Emergency—outstripped housing capacity and produced widespread squatting on state land. By 1953, some 21,851 families occupied 14,089 squatter shacks, and the colonial administration faced both a housing emergency and a political problem, as squatter communities were perceived as potential sources of communist sympathies. The Federal Housing Trust, established in 1951, and the Federal Town Planning Department conceived a new town modelled on British New Towns, selecting a 1,437-hectare site south-west of Kuala Lumpur that was topographically suitable and free of tin deposits. The initial settlement, however, was rudimentary: timber houses on unpaved roads, shared community taps, and a 60-year leasehold with a $200 premium per lot, reflecting its origins as a slum clearance exercise rather than a full-fledged new town (pp. 3–9).
The article’s central analytical contribution lies in explaining how Petaling Jaya escaped its low-cost origins. Three converging factors drove the transformation: the completion of the Federal Highway in 1957, which bisected the town but dramatically improved accessibility for car-owning commuters; the success of the industrial zone in Section 51, which attracted both local and foreign manufacturers under the Pioneer Industries Act of 1958; and the entry of private developers, particularly the Malaya Borneo Building Society, which built higher-quality brick bungalows at prices ranging from $4,800 to $25,000, catering to a newly affluent middle class rather than the original squatter population. Within twelve months of the first settlement, all restrictions on land acquisition for non-squatters were removed, and by 1957 the town had 3,193 houses and 28 operating factories (pp. 10–14).
Drawing on District Office Kuala Lumpur monthly reports, Selangor State Secretariat correspondence, and Colonial Office papers, Lee reconstructs the administrative and planning decisions that shaped the town’s morphology. He demonstrates that the absence of a comprehensive town plan until 1973 meant development proceeded piecemeal, section by section, and that the town’s poly-nucleated character—Old Town, New Town, and later SS2, Kelana Jaya, Bandar Utama—emerged organically rather than by design. The article also notes the tension between the new town ideal of self-containment and the reality of a dormitory function: in 1963, only one-third of residents worked within Petaling Jaya itself (pp. 15–18).
Key Findings
- The Petaling Jaya Authority Ordinance (Ordinance 36) was gazetted on 11 November 1954, granting the Authority power to acquire land and develop it as a satellite town; it was converted to the Petaling Jaya Development Corporation in 1958 and became the financially autonomous Petaling Jaya Town Board on 1 January 1964 (pp. 11, 14, 16).
- The Federal Government allocated an emergency fund of $3.1 million for the new town; the initial land acquisition comprised 1,437 ha, and the first phase (Sections 1 and 2) yielded 1,300 timber houses by 1954 at a lot premium of $200 with a 60-year leasehold and $50 annual quit rent (pp. 5, 8).
- The Pioneer Industries (Relief from Income Tax) Ordinance of 1958, combined with industrial lots priced at 25 cents per square foot, drove rapid industrial uptake: from 28 factories by end-1957 to 264 factories creating 10,000 jobs by 1966, and 415 factories employing 34,000 workers by the late 1970s (pp. 12–13, 16, 17).
- Population growth was extraordinary: from an estimated 10,590 inhabitants in early 1955 to 32,000 by 1961, 93,400 by 1970 (exceeding the original target of 70,000), 200,000 by 1977, and 486,040 by 2006, when the town area had expanded to 97.2 sq km—nearly seven times its original size (pp. 14, 17–18, 20).
- The Sungai Way Free Trade Zone, established in 1973 as the first of its kind in Selangor, employed more than 5,000 workers within three years, further consolidating Petaling Jaya’s industrial base (p. 18).
- Petaling Jaya was conferred city status on 20 June 2006 (p. 20).
Conclusion
Lee’s definitive historical takeaway is that Petaling Jaya’s identity as a new town was determined less by its founding purpose than by the market dynamics that overtook it. The squatter resettlement objective was effectively abandoned within a year, and the town’s subsequent trajectory was shaped by accessibility, industrial policy, and private capital serving a middle-class constituency. The result was a successful but fundamentally different urban form from the self-contained new town originally envisioned—one that functioned as a satellite of Kuala Lumpur rather than an independent urban centre, yet achieved a scale and sophistication that justified its eventual elevation to city status.
Context
- Primary archival sources include District Office Kuala Lumpur files (DOKL 1951–61, File No. 505; File No. 536), Selangor State Secretariat correspondence (Files 1526/1953, 803/53, 6176/1956), and British National Archives Colonial Office papers (CO 717/178, CO 717/201, CO 852/1621, CO 1030/279) (pp. 20–21).
- The article contributes to the historiography of Malaysian urban planning by providing the most detailed single-case study of the country’s first new town, bridging the gap between colonial-era administrative records and post-independence development narratives, and situating Petaling Jaya within the broader comparative literature on Asian new towns (pp. 1–2).