KUALA LUMPUR TOWARD A COMPETITIVE GLOBALIZING CITY-REGION

Kuala Lumpur is one of the globalizing cities in Asia Pacific region. Competing with Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong, Sydney, Jakarta and Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur has sought to reposition herself as a potential centre for global capital by implementing various strategies and developments. The repositioning of Kuala Lumpur in this global system of cities has brought about changes and adjustments of her city-region. Prior to the era of globalisation, the Klang Valley as a city region of Kuala Lumpur, has been recognized as a coherent urban planning region, covering four districts of Selangor state; Gombak, Klang, Petaling and Hulu Langat as well as the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. However, from the late 1980s, Kuala Lumpur has strategisted policies what might be understood as a “global shift of development”. Through the development of mega projects, i.e., Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC), Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), the city-region of Kuala Lumpur had been transformed, restructured and now become a high-tech city-region, known as Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan Area (KLMA), incorporating the districts of Sepang and Kuala Langat in addition to the existing Klang Valley region. In this context, the city-region of Kuala Lumpur played a key role to the future economic success of Malaysia within the context of the highly globalized economy, providing Kuala Lumpur a new dynamic and driving force of competitiveness toward achieving a status of global city. However, this has rise a question of, to what extent these forces have been transforming Kuala Lumpur particularly in the process of restructuring the functional landscapes of the city-region, in order to be more competitive and sustainable in the near future.