CIVIL SOCIETY EMPOWERMENT TOWARDS EFFICIENT URBAN GOVERNANCE IN KUALA LUMPUR CITY-REGION

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to discuss on the concept of civil society empowerment towards efficient urban governance in Kuala Lumpur city-region. This is in line with Malaysia new government policy on the implementation of One Malaysia, People First, Performance Now. National Development has been a major issue in the country’s latest development agenda. The issue is more obvious in city-region due to its role as an engine of growth economy development. Now, with its sights set on attaining the economic level of a fully developed nation by 2020, Malaysia must focus on securing a credible share of the lead sectors of the globalised economy. The world today needs a new, comprehensive and holistic model of urban governance that involves all sectors (government, business and the civil society) as equal partners in development. Urban governance which integrates all sectors including public, private and other social organisations in participatory decision making. Efficient urban governance is characterized by sustainability, subsidiarity, equity, efficiency, transparency and accountability, civic engagement and citizenship and security. In line with this, Malaysia emphasis the importance efficient urban governance that would make Malaysia more competitive and attractive to investors and facilitate the achievement of the nation’s development goals.

Keywords: civil society, empowerment, efficient urban governance, city-region

 The article was published in MALAYSIAN TOWNPLAN JOURNAL Vol 08 Issue 01 December 2012 and prepared by  Dr. Azmizam Abdul Rashid (azmizam@townplan.gov.my)

EMPOWERING THE GLOBAL CITY-REGION - THE CRUCIAL ROLES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

My new article was published at World Applied Sciences Journal Volume 13 (Sustainable Development Impact from the Socio-Environmental Perspectives), page no 82-86 ISSN 1818-4952 by IDOSI Publication 2011. Detail article can read at http://www.idosi.org/wasj/wasj13(SDISEP)11/5.pdf. This is my 7th article published in academic journal since 2008.

MY PHD ABSTRACT

THE EFFICIENT URBAN GOVERNANCE TO ENHANCE ECONOMY COMPETITIVENESS IN KUALA LUMPUR CITY-REGION

ABSTRACT

In the context of globalization, urban governance is increasingly faced with complex challenges. The Local Authority (LA) as the governance institution is ensconced in bureaucracy is not spared from the issues of inefficiency in dealing with stakeholders. This issue became the main research question to be addressed in this thesis. Inefficient urban governance can affect the economic competitiveness in the city-region. This thesis investigates the extent how elements of efficient urban governance (EUG) can contribute to the enhancement of economic competitiveness in city-region (ECCR) and which of these elements can affect ECCR? This study aims to develop a clear understanding of the role of EUG at LA level, and its relationship with the ECCR. In the case of Kuala Lumpur city-region, the study also investigates which LA has achieved the best position in EUG. The theoretical framework of the KGB in city-region has been used to investigate the relationship between EUG and ECCR. The studies focus mainly to the stakeholders of Kuala Lumpur city-region on their perception in the implementation of EUG by LA. This involved 6 main LAs such as DBKL, MBPJ, MBSA, MPSJ, MPK and MPSp with 315 respondents representing various stakeholders. One of the findings in inferential data analysis shows that 10 elements of EUG contributed 89.6 percent to the enhancement of ECCR. This multiple regression analysis also shows the significant relationship between EUG with economic competitiveness in Kuala Lumpur city-region. However, only five elements are the best predictors to the ECCR such as administration and the effectiveness of LA services, public feedback, a strategic vision, transparency and equality. Meanwhile, analysis of the indicators measuring EUG in LAs show that MBPJ achieved the highest score of 0.75 compared with five other LAs. Generally the results indicate that LA no longer plays the role of a government body that provides services and infrastructure only. In fact the results suggest that LA should focus on urban governance to enhance efficiency in providing services to stakeholders.

KEEFISIENAN GOVERNANS BANDAR DALAM MENINGKATKAN DAYA PERSAINGAN EKONOMI WILAYAH-BANDAR RAYA KUALA LUMPUR

ABSTRAK

Dalam konteks globalisasi, governans bandar berdepan dengan pelbagai cabaran yang semakin kompleks. Peranan pihak berkuasa tempatan (PBT) sebagai institusi governans sentiasa dikaitkan dengan pelbagai karenah birokrasi dalam penyediaan perkhidmatan yang tidak efisien yang menimbulkan masalah kepada stakeholders. Isu ini menjadi persoalan penyelidikan utama dalam tesis ini. Ketidakefisienan governans bandar boleh menjejaskan daya saing sesebuah wilayah-bandar raya. Sejauhmanakah elemen keefisienan governans bandar (KGB) mempengaruhi daya persaingan ekonomi (DPE) sesebuah wilayah-bandar raya dan elemen manakah yang mempengaruhinya? Kajian ini bertujuan membentuk satu pemahaman yang jelas mengenai peranan KGB di peringkat PBT dan hubungkaitnya dengan peningkatan DPE di wilayah-bandar raya. Berdasarkan kes wilayah-bandar raya Kuala Lumpur, kajian ini juga mengenalpasti PBT yang mempunyai kedudukan KGB yang paling baik. Penyelidikan ini berdasarkan kepada kerangka teoritikal KGB wilayah-bandar raya untuk menilai hubungkait dengan DPE. Kajian ini juga dijalankan berdasarkan persepsi stakeholders wilayah-bandar raya Kuala Lumpur mengenai KGB yang diamalkan oleh PBT. Ini melibatkan 6 PBT utama iaitu DBKL, MBPJ, MBSA, MPSJ, MPK dan MPSp dengan 315 responden yang mewakili beberapa stakeholders. Antara penemuan utama analisis data inferensi kajian ini, menunjukkan bahawa 10 elemen KGB menyumbang sebanyak 89.6 peratus kepada DPE di wilayah-bandar raya Kuala Lumpur. Keputusan analisis regresi pelbagai ini menunjukkan terdapat hubungan signifikan antara KGB dengan DPE wilayah-bandar raya Kuala Lumpur. Hanya 5 elemen sahaja yang menjadi peramal terbaik kepada DPE wilayah-bandar raya Kuala Lumpur iaitu keberkesanan pentadbiran dan perkhidmatan PBT, maklumbalas awam, wawasan strategik, ketelusan dan kesamarataan. Analisis indeks penunjuk pengukuran KGB PBT di wilayah-bandar raya Kuala Lumpur menunjukkan MBPJ mencapai skor tertinggi iaitu 0.75 berbanding dengan lima PBT yang lain. Keputusan kajian juga mendapati peranan PBT tidak lagi dianggap sebagai badan kerajaan yang memberi perkhidmatan dan menyediakan infrastruktur semata-mata. PBT sepatutnya lebih memberi tumpuan kepada governans bandar untuk meningkatkan keefisienan dalam memberi perkhidmatan kepada stakeholders.

16 DECEMBER 2010 MY SUBMISSION DAY FOR 7 COPIES OF DRAFT FINAL PHD THESIS

THIS IS IT....my submission day for 7 copies of my draft final thesis to Deanery Office Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FSSK). I have been informed by an officer of School of Social, Development and the Environment (PPSPP) that my thesis abstract  notice application have been tabled and approved in FSSK meeting on 1 December 2010. However, my Dean FSSK will submit and table to UKM Senate on January 2011 for the approval of external and internal examiners. I hope the Senate Committee will agree with the names suggested by my supervisors and PPSPP Chairman.

Unfortunately until today they did not reveal any name who are my examiners? It is secret, just wait and see. If the Senate approved, FSSK will submit a copy of my thesis to the examiners for their reading, checking, verifying and justifying the quality of my thesis at least one month. If the Senate not approved the names of the examiners, PPSPP and FSSK will find other examiners and table again to FSSK and UKM Senate Meeting in February 2011. That's mean I will sit for my viva presentation in May 2011.

I hope and pray to Allah  that I can sit for my viva presentation end of February or March 2011. Wish me for the best.

WHY GREATER KUALA LUMPUR NOT KUALA LUMPUR CITY-REGION?

The aspiration for Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley (Greater KL/KV) is to drive rapid growth parallel with upgrading the city's liveability, according to the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP)'s A Roadmap for Malaysia. For this National Key Economic Area (NKEA), the Greater KL/KV extends beyond the boundaries of Kuala Lumpur. It is defined as an area covered by 10 municipalities, each governed by local authorities - Kuala Lumpur City Council (DBKL), Perbadanan Putrajaya, Shah Alam City Council (MBSA), Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ), Klang Municipal Council (MPK), Kajang Municipal Council, Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ), Selayang Municipal Council, Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) and Sepang District Council.

In 2010, the Greater KL/KV population was estimated at six million and it contributed about RM263 billion to the nation's Gross National Income (GNI), proving that Greater KL/KV was indeed the engine of the nation's economic growth and hence designated as a NKEA. Greater KL/KV is a unique NKEA as it has a geographical focus rather than the industry focus of the other 11 NKEA's. According to the ETP, Greater KL/KV was selected as a NKEA to reflect four important dynamics, the first one -- that urbanization is a driver of GNI growth, where urbanization was one of the most important drivers of economic growth in any country.

Secondly, the Primary City Matters Most -- that Greater KL/KV dominates Malaysia's urban economy and by a large margin and over the next decade, Greater KL/KV was targeted to grow in population by five percent per year and achieve GNI growth of 10 per cent a year. The third dynamics is that Urban Productivity Does Matter -- that the challenge for Greater KL/KV was to harness the power of urbanization while shaping it to maximise urban productivity to simultaneously pursue efficiency and liveability. Finally a great city needs to be a liveable city -- because while urbanising intensively, Greater KL/KV must also focus on improving liveability and among challenges for Greater KL/KV according to the ETP are stiff competition from neighbouring cities because liveability lags compared to many other Asian cities, public transport remains inadequate and natural assets remain untapped.

ETP has also outlined nine Entry Point Projects (EPP) as pivotal towards achieving the aspiration by 2020 and the economic aspirations for Greater KL/KV was to raise its GNI contribution by 2.5 times, from RM258 billion to approximately RM650 billion per year. The EPP's aim is to attract 100 of the world's most dynamic companies within priority sectors, attracting the right mix of internal and external talent and connecting to Singapore via a high speed rail system. Other EPP are to build an integrated urban mass rapid transit system, revitalizing the Klang River into a heritage and commercial centre, greening greater KL/KV to ensure every resident enjoys sufficient green space, creating iconic places and attractions, creating a comprehensive pedestrian network and developing an efficient solid waste management ecosystem.The successful implementation of the nine EPP will lead to additional business opportunities within Greater KL/KV that will continue to enhance Greater KL/KV's liveability and generate incremental GNI.

Greater KL/KV will need to house one million new residents by 2020, and the current projected housing supply was expected to be sufficient to meet demand.Since the challenge of Greater KL/KV NKEA is a monumental one, it will require a significant amount of funding and that will be achieved via a public-private partnership model. Across the 12 NKEA, Greater KL/KV has the largest public sector funding requirement of RM58 billion or 34 per cent of the total investment requirement and for all the nine EPP, a detailed implementation plan has been developed. There are only three roles above the EPP, the Prime Minister as ultimate sponsor, a Greater KL/KV Steering Committee and a Greater KL/KV Corporation that would act as Secretariat to the Steering Committee. The Greater KL/KV aspiration can be summarized as 20-20 by 2020 --- that is, to be the only city that simultaneously achieves a top 20 ranking in city economic growth as defined by city gross domestic product growth rates while being among the global top-20 most liveable cities by 2020. The KL/KV will pursue both growth and liveability

sources :  Economic Transformation Programme Report by Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU), Prime Minister's Department, 2010 and BERNAMA, 2010
 

Comments :

In my opinion the terminology of Greater Kuala Lumpur has been adopted from the term of Greater London which had been used well before 1965. Particularly to refer to the area covered by the Metropolitan Police District (such as in the 1901 census), the area of the Metropolitan Water Board (favoured by the London County Council for statistics), the London Passenger Transport Area. The area defined by the Registrar General as the Greater London Conurbation. The administrative area was officially created in 1965 and covers the City of London, including Middle Temple and Inner Temple, and the 32 London boroughs (including the City of Westminster). It covers 1572 km2 (607 square miles) and had a 2006 mid-year estimated population of 7,512,400.

According to Tewdwr-Jones and McNeill (2000), the term ‘city-region’ has been in use since about 1950 by urbanists, economists and landuse planners and refers to a strategic and political level of administration and policy-making, extending beyond the administrative boundaries of single urban local government authorities to include urban and/or semi-urban hinterlands. This definition includes a range of institutions and agencies representing local and regional governance that possess an interest in urban and/or economic development matters that, together form a strategic level of policy-making intended to formulate or implement policies on a broader metropolitan scale.

In 1996 , The New Local Government Network (NLGN) in United Kingdom also proposed the creation of city- regions as part of on-going reform efforts, while a report released by the Institute for Public Policy Research’s (IPPR) Centre for Cities proposed the creation of four large city-regions based on Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Greater Manchester. Edinburgh and it's hinterland strong economy (Forth Valley, Fife, West Lothian, Midlothian and East Lothian) means it has been named a one of Europe's fasting growing city-regions.

Furthermore in 2001, the term of city-region has been used concurrent with the era of globalization. Allen J. Scott (ed.) (2001) with his book Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory Policy has gave a new meaning of City-region as a function of command and control centers of the global economy. City-region is a nodal points that function as organizing centers for the inter dependent skein of material, financial, and cultural flows that together sustain contemporary globalization. Research on city-region is founded on two key observations. First, the worldwide distribution of economic activity necessitates strategic control functions that are found in a limited number of locations: globalization in its various guises has led to increased geographical complexity, which calls for some control points to ensure the smooth functioning of the global system. In other words, city-region contain a disproportionate quantity of strategic agents in the global system (e.g., headquarters of multinational corporations and international institutions, and specialized and inter nationalized business firms), and this functional concentration mirrors the deepening of processes of global integration and interdependence.

Second, the exercise of this strategic control is ac complished through the capacity of these world/global city agents to network across space. From the 1970s on ward, two distinct advanced technologies, computers and communications, combined to create a new enabling infrastructure for global organization. As it became more pervasive and sophisticated, this global infrastructure implied that spatial organization became increasingly conceptualized through networks (in which interaction is defined by simultaneity) to the detriment of territoriality (in which interaction is defined by proximity). Envisaging city-region in the context of a ‘network society’ particularly gained momentum in the 1990s, when in fluential authors like Manuel Castells asserted that globalization processes are basically all about transnational processes operating through numerous networks.

In 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a number of studies on city-regions, including an assessment profile of the Newcastle-Gateshead city region and a review of numerous city regions across the world. Therefore, there are many reasons why city-region could become a valuable alternative in stead of Greater Kuala Lumpur to the current system and why Kuala Lumpur city-region worth a closer and further examination, including:

• New Localism: devolution of power to a more appropriate level

• The economic case: Kuala Lumpur city-region in the context of global competitiveness and regional disparities

• Urban governance system works for Kuala Lumpur city-region , why not elsewhere?

• Continuing issue of democratic deficit at regional level

• Low levels of public engagement

• Efficiency - Need for more strategic service delivery solutions in planning, transport,

waste, housing etc.

DISCOURSE SESSIONS WITH DR JOHN HARRISON

Sometimes when I discuss with him, I feel so ambrassing looking a his face and express my ideas. May be our age different, he 28 and me 42 . At the age of 25 he received Phd Degree from Aberystwyth University. He joined Loughborough University in 2006 as a Lecturer in Human Geography within the Globalisation and World Cities Research Group (GaWC) at Loughborough University. He has widen knowledge about research methodology and urban development planning in theoretical way. He had published a few journal articles in European Planning Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Geography Compass ,Journal of Economic Geography , Geoforum and Space & Polity.

When I think back and take positive way put the issue of age and experience aside , if we collaborate the idea and knowledge, its will enhance my Phd research. The discourses sessions start from 2 until 4 pm every week. Its so interesting and we discussed about the concept of regionalism and governance. During the session he never shown that he knows everything, his down to earth attitude and respectful other people ideas really make me honour working with him. Thank You Dr John Harrison

Below the date and topic of our discussions:

17 November 2009 : Re-reading the New Regionalism : A Sympathetic Critique

24 November 2009 : From Competitive Regions to Competitive City-Regions : A New Orthodoxy, But Some Old Mistakes

1 December 2009 : Networks of Connectivity, Territorial Fragmentation, Uneven Development : The New Politics of City Regionalism

8 December 2009 : City-Regions and Governance

15 December 2009 : Life after Regions : The Evolution of City Regionalism in England

POSITIONING THE CITY OF KUALA LUMPUR IN THE GLOBAL CITY SYSTEM

In the age of globalization, it was argued that major cities in the region should be positioned in the global city system, in order for these cities and their immediate regions are effectively developed. As the urban and regional economic prospects increase reliance on the participation in the fast moving international and global economy, cities that are unable to adapt to these globalchanges and requirements would be marginalized. The marginalisation of major cities from the mainstream of global development will affect their progress and in most cases be determined by exogenous forces. At the same time, the emergence of new global economic and informational societies has created a new form of spatial development, the global cities. Such status was achieved only when a city and its region becomes a major center of international finance, transnational corporate headquarters, related high-level and specialized services, information processing and advanced telecommunications, a city with an international command and control functions (Sassen, 1991). To what extend the above criteria and indicators really described the position of cities in underdeveloped and developing economies? It is the intention of the paper to deal with such a question, with particular reference to the city of Kuala Lumpur. Although Kuala Lumpur has substantially part of the international economy for the past three decades, it was argued that the city exercises little of the global or even regional control functions that world cities proposes. For this reason, the authors argued that Kuala Lumpur and possibly other cities in the rapidly developing economies be positioned in a different setting, and with different criteria and indicators, as compared to the existing global cities.

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.

GLOBALISATION AND CITY-REGIONS

The concept of global city region is more directly rooted in the resurgence of interest in regions and regionalism than it is in the study of globalization or urban and metropolitan restructuring. Stated somewhat differently, the regional dimension of globalization and urbanization processes is what matters most significantly to the meaning of the term. It is the regional that absorbs and defines the interplay of globalization, urbanization, industrialization, and development, and grounds the concept of global city region in a particular form of analysis and interpretation. Over the past thirty years, there has not only emerged a pronounced cross-disciplinary turn toward critical spatial thinking and analysis but also a closely related development of specifically regional perspectives. This New Regionalism, as it has come to be called, has been playing a particularly important role in making theoretical and practical sense of globalization, economic restructuring, technological change, and other processes shaping contemporary life. Underpinning the New Regionalism is a significant re-theorization of the key concepts of region and regionalism.

Cities have been globalizing for many centuries. London and Amsterdam, for example, were global cities in the 16th century and still earlier cases of urban globalization can be found in commercial, imperial, and religious cities around the world. The link between globalization and urbanization processes is therefore not new, but there has been a growing realization that starting at least as early as the 1960s there has been a pronounced acceleration in the globalization of capital, labor, and culture and that this intensified globalization has been having significant effects on cities and urban life all over the world. Analyzing the impact of globalization on cities is thus the first step in understanding the concept of global city regions.

The effects of globalization on cities and urban development can be seen at two levels. Within cities and metropolitan regions, globalization has been playing a role in reconfiguring the social and spatial organization of the modern metropolis and in changing some of the basic conditions of contemporary urban life. Increasing global flows of labor and capital and the concentration of these flows in certain urban areas have contributed to the expansion of metropolitan populations to hitherto unheard of sizes, with several urbanized regions (or city regions) in East Asia now containing more than fifty million inhabitants. Beyond contributing to this expansion in population size, globalization has also fostered the creation of the most culturally and economically heterogeneous cities the world has ever known.

The concept of global city region is more directly rooted in the resurgence of interest in regions and regionalism than it is in the study of globalization or urban and metropolitan restructuring. Stated somewhat differently, the regional dimension of globalization and urbanization processes is what matters most significantly to the meaning of the term. It is the regional that absorbs and defines the interplay of globalization, urbanization, industrialization, and development, and grounds the concept of global city region in a particular form of analysis and interpretation. Over the past thirty years, there has not only emerged a pronounced cross-disciplinary turn toward critical spatial thinking and analysis but also a closely related development of specifically regional perspectives. This New Regionalism, as it has come to be called, has been playing a particularly important role in making theoretical and practical sense of globalization, economic restructuring, technological change, and other processes shaping contemporary life. Underpinning the New Regionalism is a significant re-theorization of the key concepts of region and regionalism.

KUALA LUMPUR...IN GLOBAL CITY-REGION OR LOCAL CITY-REGION?

INTRODUCTION

There are now more than 300 city-regions around the world with populations greater than one million. At least twenty city-regions have populations in excess of ten million. They range from familiar metropolitan agglomerations dominated by a strongly-developed core such as the London region or Mexico City, to more polycentric geographic units as in the cases of the urban networks of the Randstad or Emilia-Romagna. Everywhere, these city-regions are expanding vigorously, and they present many deep challenges to researchers and policy makers as we enter the 21st century. The processes of world-wide economic integration and accelerated urban growth make traditional planning and policy strategies in these regions increasingly problematical while more fitting approaches remain in a largely experimental stage. New ways of thinking about these processes and new ways of acting to harness their benefits and to control their negative effects are urgently needed.

The concept of global city-regions can be traced back to the "world cities" idea of Hall (1966) and Friedmann and Wolff (1982), and to the "global cities" idea of Sassen (1991). We build here on these pioneering efforts, but in a way that tries to extend the meaning of the concept in economic, political and territorial terms, and above all by an effort to show how city-regions increasingly function as essential spatial nodes of the global economy and as distinctive political actors on the world stage. In fact, rather than being dissolved away as social and geographic objects by processes of globalization, city-regions are becoming increasingly central to modern life, and all the more so because globalization (in combination with various technological shifts) has reactivated their significance as bases of all forms of productive activity, no matter whether in manufacturing or services, in high-technology or low-technology sectors. As these changes have begun to run their course, it has become increasingly apparent that that city in the narrow sense is less an appropriate or viable unit of local social organization than city-regions or regional networks of cities. One tangible expression of this idea can be observed in the forms of consolidation that are beginning to occur as adjacent units of local political organization (provinces, Länder, counties, metropolitan areas, municipalities, départements, and so on) search for region-wide coalitions as a means of dealing with the threats and the opportunities of globalization. In this process, we argue, global city-regions have emerged of late years as a new and critically important kind of geographic and institutional phenomenon on the world stage.

KUALA LUMPUR CITY-REGION…GLOBAL OR LOCAL?

The dominance of a nation in a global economy has been directly linked to the emergence of global city; which become the global command and control centre, such as New York, London and Tokyo. Drawing on Kuala Lumpur’s experience and its city region, this thesis aims to analyse the city’s transformation, positionality, competitiveness as well as its niches in the global city network system particularly in the context of Asia Pacific region. The objectives of this thesis are explored and revealed through three main parts of this research. The first part concentrates on the description of the spatial and functional transformation of Kuala Lumpur and its city region, through its national and supranational economic engagement over the past four decades. Based on secondary data, the study reveals that Kuala Lumpur city region had experienced substantial spatial and functional transformation, beginning particularly in the early 1990’s.

This suggests that Kuala Lumpur has responded positively to the exogenous and endogenous forces, and is integrated in the mainstream of global economy. Nevertheless, do these changes elevate Kuala Lumpur to a global status, often measured with reference to existing indicators of global cities? This question has been dealt in the second part of the research. Using a set of questionaire, a field study has been carried out on 61 respondents, comprised chief executive officers from two groups of samples. These groups are, firstly FORTUNE Global 500 firms operating in the Klang Valley; and secondly the MSC’s (Multimedia Super Corridor) status companies. Perception of respondents pertaining to the city’s indicators, positionality, competitiveness and its niches are then measured in likert scale and statistically tested using Mann-Whitney U test.

Hamzah Jusoh in his PhD research on Kuala Lumpur in Asian Pacific City Regions Network showed that Kuala Lumpur’s achievement has to be complied to the same set of indicators, applicable to cities in developed countries. This is inevitably to ensure Kuala Lumpur to be as competitive as cities in the developed countries. By using validated indicators and measured through the Index of Global Cities Indicators, the study reveals that the global-city region of Kuala Lumpur has positioned herself at the intermediate level in the global city network system, with the index value of 61.61%. What does its mean in term of competitiveness, comparative advantages and niches of Kuala Lumpur in the Asia Pacific region? This has been dealt in the third part of the thesis, which focuses on a comparative study with selected global cities in the Asia Pacific region. Based on the primary data sources obtained from questionaires as well as supporting secondary informations, this study reveals that Kuala Lumpur is relatively positioned in a less dominant role compared to the other cities in the region, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney and Seoul. However, its position has been somewhat better than Shanghai and Bangkok.

WORLD SYSTEM THEORY...ADVANCED SPATIAL THEORY OF CITY-REGIONS

Globalization is the process, completed in the twentieth century, by which the capitalist world-system spreads across the actual globe. Since that world-system has maintained some of its main features over several centuries, globalization does not constitute a new phenomenon. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the capitalist world economy is in crisis; therefore, according to the theory's leading proponent, the current "ideological celebration of so-called globalization is in reality the swan song of our historical system" (I. Wallerstein, Utopistics, 1998: 32).

The modern world-system originated around 1500. In parts of western Europe, a long-term crisis of feudalism gave way to technological innovation and the rise of market institutions. Advances in production and incentives for long-distance trade stimulated Europeans to reach other parts of the globe. Superior military strength and means of transportation enabled them to establish economic ties with other regions that favored the accumulation of wealth in the European core. During the "long sixteenth century," Europeans thus established an occupational and geographic division of labor in which capital-intensive production was reserved for core countries while peripheral areas provided low-skill labor and raw materials. The unequal relationship between European core and non-European periphery inevitably generated unequal development. Some regions in the "semiperiphery" moderated this inequality by serving as a buffer. States also played a crucial role in maintaining the hierarchical structure, since they helped to direct profits to monopoly producers in the core and protected the overall capitalist economy (e.g., by enforcing property rights and guarding trade routes). At any one time, a particular state could have hegemonic influence as the technological and military leader, but no single state could dominate the system: it is a world economy in which states are bound to compete. While the Europeans started with only small advantages, they exploited these to reshape the world in their capitalist image. The world as a whole is now devoted to endless accumulation and profit-seeking on the basis of exchange in a market that treats goods and labor alike as commodities.

In the twentieth century, the world-system reached its geographic limit with the extension of capitalist markets and the state system to all regions. It also witnessed the rise of the United States as a hegemonic power-one that has seen its relative economic and political strength diminished since the last years of the Cold War. Newly independent states and communist regimes challenged core control throughout the century, and some formerly peripheral countries improved their economic status, but none of this shook the premises of a system that in fact was becoming more economically polarized. The nineteenth-century ideology of reform-oriented liberalism, which held out the hope of equal individual rights and economic advancement for all within states, became dominant in the twentieth but lost influence after 1968. Such twentieth-century developments set the stage for what Wallerstein calls a period of transition. New crises of contraction can no longer be solved by exploiting new markets; economic decline will stimulate struggle in the core; challenges to core dominance will gather strength in the absence of a strong hegemonic power and a globally accepted ideology; polarization will push the system to the breaking point. While this chaotic transition may not produce a more equal and democratic world, it does spell the end of capitalist globalization.

THE CLASSIC SPATIAL THEORY 0F CITY-REGIONS

GROWTH POLE THEORY

No regional development concept or theory has received greater attention among economists, regional planners, governments and development agencies than growth pole theory. The growth pole concept originated from British Economist, Sir William Petty (1623-1687), who was fascinated by the high growth in London during the 17th century and conjectured that strong urban economies are the backbone and motor of the wealth of nations.

However, it was the French Economist, Francois Perroux (1903-1987), who is credited with formalizing and elaborating on the concept. Since then, the growth pole concept has been subject to various definitions and interpretations, and its application has spread across the globe considerably. Monsted (1974) and Parr (1999) agree that the widespread use of the growth pole concept is reflected in the number of conferences and publications on the subject, as well as the apparent positive outcome of its application in developed countries in Western Europe, particularly in Great Britain, France and Italy.

Regional development based on growth pole strategy became popular in developing countries in the 1960s, mostly in Latin American Countries, with national governments filled with optimism about its benefits for economic growth and social progress (Angotti, 1998). Ironically by the 1970s, the interest in the growth pole concept in developing countries had dwindled, after its application failed to yield the anticipated outcome (Gilbert, 1974; Conroy, 1973; Moseley, 1973). This fact notwithstanding, there is still some belief in the growth pole concept today, as could be revealed in the literature and various programs aimed at expanding development via viable cities.

CENTRAL PLACE THEORY

Central place theory is a spatial theory in urban geography that attempts to explain the reasons behind the distribution patterns, size, and number of cities and towns around the world. It also attempts to provide a framework by which those areas can be studied both for historic reasons and for the locational patterns of areas today. The theory was first developed by the German geographer Walter Christaller in 1933 after he began to recognize the economic relationships between cities and their hinterlands (areas farther away). He mainly tested the theory in Southern Germany and came to the conclusion that people gather together in cities to share goods and ideas and that they exist for purely economic reasons.

Before testing his theory however, Christaller had to first define the central place. In keeping with his economic focus, he came to the conclusion that the central place exists primarily to provide goods and services to its surrounding population. The city is in essence, a distribution center. To focus on the economic aspects of his theory, Christaller had to create a set of assumptions. He decided for example that the countryside in the areas he was studying would be flat, so no barriers would exist to impede people's movement across it. In addition, two assumptions were made about human behavior: 1) Christaller stated that humans will always purchase goods from the closest place that offers the good, and 2) whenever demand for a certain good is high, it will be offered in close proximity to the population. When demand drops, so too does the availability of the good.

In addition, the threshold is an important concept in Christaller's study. This is the minimum number of people needed for a central place business or activity to remain active and prosperous. This then brings in the idea of low-order and high-order goods. Low-order goods are things that are replenished frequently such as food and other routine household items. Because these items are purchased regularly, small businesses in small towns can survive because people will buy frequently at the closer locations instead of going into the city.

High-order goods though are specialized items such as automobiles, furniture, fine jewelry, and household appliances that are bought less often. Because they require a large threshold and people do not purchase them regularly, many businesses selling these items cannot survive in areas where the population is small. Therefore, they often locate in large cities that can serve a large population in the surrounding hinterland.

CITY-REGIONS...TOWARDS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

A city can be understood on more than one spatial level. Department of Communities and Local Government, United Kingdom, 2006 defined a 'city-region' is the economic footprint of a city and is defined by the ways that people live their lives and the economic relationship between a city and its surrounding area (including smaller cities and towns and rural hinterlands located there). Increasing the extent to which economic development decision-making is managed at the city-regional level is therefore an important means of improving economic outcomes including those in the most deprived areas. A city's success depends heavily on its connections with neighbouring towns and cities in its region and its rural hinterland - economically, culturally and socially. The city-region takes into account functional economic markets such as travel to work areas and labour markets. As such, city-regions have flexible boundaries traversing administrative ones.

City-Regions are the enlarged territories from which core urban areas draw people for work and services such as shopping, education, health, leisure and entertainment. The City-Region is a functional entity within which business and services operate. City-regional economies play a strong role in driving forward the economies of their regions. The city-regional scale reflects the 'geography of everyday life' rather than administrative boundaries and presents us with opportunities to develop policy that reflect and support the functioning of that City-Region. Below is a theoretical diagram of a city-region, depicting the travel to work area, contiguous built up area as well as administrative areas.

The term city region has been in use since about 1950 by urbanists, economists and urban planners to mean not just the administrative area of a recognisable city or conurbation but also its hinterland that will often be far bigger. Conventionally, if one lives in an apparently rural area, suburb or county town where a majority of wage-earners travel into a particular city for a full or part-time job then one is (in effect) residing in the city region. . (Allen J. Scott (ed.) (2001))

In studying human geography, urban and regional planning or the regional dynamics of business it is often worthwhile having closer regard to dominant travel patterns during the working day (to the extent that these can be estimated and recorded), than to the rather arbitrary boundaries assigned to administrative bodies such as councils, prefectures, or to localities defined merely to optimise postal services. Inevitably City Regions change their shapes over time and quite reasonably politicians seek to redraw administrative boundary maps from time-to-time to keep in-tune with perceived geographic reality. The extent of a city region is usually proportional to the intensity of activity in and around its central business district, but the spacing of competing centres of population can also be highly influential. It will be apprciated that a city region need not have a symmetrical shape, and that is especially true in coastal or lakeside situations (consider for instance Oslo, Southampton or Chicago).

edited from Allen J. Scott (ed.) (2001) "Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory Policy," Oxford: Oxford University Press.

URBAN GOVERNANCE IN CITY REGION

The growth of the urban population (which includes the product of both internal growth and rural-urban migration) has been slowing down in the largest cities over the last decade (in comparison to more rapid growth in intermediate-sized cities), the growth of cities in the south still takes place at a far faster rate than it does in the north. If we look at the rates of growth of southern and northern cities, the ratio, on an aggregate basis, is about five to one. Thus, while the overall urban growth level (based on compound net population increases) in developed countries was about 0.8 percent per annum in 1990-95, the figure was around 3.5 percent per annum during the same period in developing countries. The distribution of this growing urban population is very uneven. By the turn of this century, about forty percent of the people in the less developed regions of the south were living in cities, while about three out of every four lived in cities in the north.

This gap is gradually narrowing as the south urbanizes, but it is changing unequally. Latin America (especially South America) and the Caribbean constitute the most urbanized region of the south, while Africa and parts of Asia (particularly the south central, southeast, and eastern parts of the region) lag considerably behind. In general, the least urbanized parts of the developing world are urbanizing at the highest rate. And the countries which are urbanizing most rapidly tend to be the poorest. This applies within as well as between regions and continents. A final element to complete this (admittedly too rapidly drawn) picture has to do with the size of cities. As Mattei Dogan and John Kasarda put it over a decade ago, “The world is becoming more and more a world of giant cities, and these cities are increasingly located in less-developed countries.”Whereas in 1950 only one city—New York—had a population of 10 million or more (thus qualifying it to be called, in current jargon, a “megacity”), by 1995 there were 14 cities of 10 million or more, 10 of which were located in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

By 2015 “it is expected that 22 of the 26 mega-cities will be located in the less developed regions and the 4 other cities in the more developed regions.”5 As these cities grow in size, their economic, social and political influence also accumulates. The physical and social form that best describes these growing megacities—in both the north and the south—is the city-region. In southeast Asia, the morphology of these new regions has been likened to a meeting of town and village in an increasingly diverse functional and spatial intermingling:

A distinguishing feature of recent urbanization in the ASEAN countries is the extension of their mega-cities beyond the city and metropolitan boundaries.This process has particularly affected the largest cities but it is also now occurring in the largest secondary ones...Metropolitan regional growth tends to sprawl along major expressways and railroad lines radiating out from the urban cores, and leapfrogs in all directions, putting down new towns, industrial estates, housing projects, and even golf courses in areas hitherto agricultural and rural. In such areas, regions of dense population and mixed land uses are created, in which traditional agriculture is found side by side with modern factories, commercial activities, and suburban development. T.G. McGee has termed these desakota zones, drawing on the Bahasa Indonesia words for town and village.

Economically, these mega-urban regions are very important both for their national economies, and within a wider and more globalizing context. Their productivity and economic performance are raised by urban concentration in two ways, according to Allen Scott and his colleagues:

First, concentration secures overall efficiency of the economic system.Second, it intensifies creativity, learning, and innovation both by the increased flexibility of producers that it makes possible and by the enormous flows of ideas and knowledge that occur alongside the transactional links within localized industrial networks...The films of Hollywood, the semiconductors or Silicon Valley, the banking and financial services of new York and London, and the fashions of Paris all represent the outputs of clustered flexible production networks whose fortunes are strongly tied to world-market demand. Other examples include mechanical engineering in Baden-Wurtemburg and Bavaria, the small-firm craft-based industries of northern Italy, the jewelry industry in Bangkok, or furniture production in Guadalajara, Mexico. In this manner, global city-regions come to function increasingly as the regional motors of the global economy, that is, as dynamic local networks of economic relationships caught up in more extended worldwide webs of interregional competition and exchange.

Edited from Urban Governance Around The World by Richard E. Stren, 2005

QUESTIONS ON KUALA LUMPUR CITY REGION

In my literature review on city region, National Urbanization Policy and Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan 2020, a few questions I try to answer in order to understand more the role of Kuala Lumpur as National Capital City:

1. In what ways are Kuala Lumpur City Region capabilities to generate wealth enhanced or threatened by international flows of capital, people, goods and information?
2. What policy strategies can be devised to create and sustain local competitive advantages and to ensure economic growth, while bringing wasteful inter-regional competition for mobile investments under control?
3. How can social well-being and environmental quality be secured in Kuala Lumpur City Region when these often seem to be endangered by increasing urbanization and globalization?
4. How do we plan for the public interest in Kuala Lumpur City Region with multiple publics?
5. What alternative institutional arrangements need to be developed to deal with strategic region-wide policy issues and to ensure effective governance of inter-regional relations in the emerging new world order?
6. Can Kuala Lumpur City Region be the architects of our own future?
7. Why is Kuala Lumpur City Region growing rapidly precisely at a moment in history when some analysts are claiming that the end of geography is in sight, and that the world is turning into a placeless space of flows?
8. How have forms of economic and social organization in Kuala Lumpur City Region responded to globalization, and what new problems have been created as a consequence?
9. What main governance tasks do Kuala Lumpur City Region face as they seek to preserve and enhance their wealth and well-being?
10. How can we define the public interest in culturally heterogeneous Kuala Lumpur City Region ?

KUALA LUMPUR IS A CITY REGION

GENERAL

A city region is an urban area comprising a number of cities, large towns and larger urban areas that, through population growth and expansion, have physically merged to form one continuous built up area. It is thus a polycentric form of agglomeration. A city region is easily confused with a metropolitan area. A metropolitan area actually consists of many neighborhoods, while a city region consists of many different metropolitan areas that are very close to or connected with one another. Most of the time these separate metropolitan areas that make up a city region are somehow dependent on each other and in conjunction economically and socially, hence the formation of one city region.

A city region is something which has always been around, but we have seen an increase in city regions in the era of globalization. City region have increased for many reasons, including:

· Globalization, which has brought the world closer physically and socially;

· Relocation of businesses and corporations outside city boundaries ;

· The loss of the centrality of the city ;

· Migration away from the city due to crime and greater affluence of suburbs;

· Exportation of labor moved industries away from cities

KUALA LUMPUR CITY REGION IN THE CONTEXT OF KLANG VALLEY

source : Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan, 2020

A more appropriate term of reference for Kuala Lumpur’s sub-national context is the Kuala Lumpur and its city region (KLCR). The KLCR refers to the entire Klang Valley Region as originally defined by the Klang Valley Study (1972) together with much of the Kuala Langat district and the remaining part of the Sepang district where the KLIA is located. It covers a total area of approximately 4,000 square kilometres, which is about 40 percent larger thanthe size of the Klang Valley Region of 2,843 square kilometres. The KLCR is one large urban entity which incorporates the complete range of urban functions. However, it is important to distinguish between Kuala Lumpur, which is an administrative unit and the much larger KLCR which represents the total urban entity within which Kuala Lumpur is located and functions in many ways as the nucleus of the KLCR. Kuala Lumpur’s role, status and specific functions within the overall KLCR must be defined within the context of the wider total urban entity. Similarly, in view of their symbiotic relationship, the planning of Kuala Lumpur must take full account of developments in the KLCR as a whole.

Kuala Lumpur’s principal functions will be redefined as a consequence of the MSC, the relocation of federal government administrative functions to Putrajaya and the wide range of city functions and activities that are now part of the KLCR. Furthermore, as the proportion of built-up land area and population of Kuala Lumpur declines in relation to that of the entire KLCR, the role of Kuala Lumpur is likely to be increasingly specialised. The City must focus on developing its strengths in the top-end services and manufacturing industries to enable them to operate within larger market catchments on an international, national and subnational scale.

The core urban functions will continue to be located within the city centre of Kuala Lumpur. Thus the headquarters of transnational companies, the top end hotels and shopping outlets, recreational and entertainment centres will be located in the city centre, as will specialised training facilities, professional services and specialist medical services. In addition, Kuala Lumpur will also be a focus for the development of knowledge-based and high value added manufacturing industries. As the capital of the nation, Kuala Lumpur will continue to house the major knowledge-based institutions, religious and cultural facilities. Befitting their international and national status, theseinstitutions and facilities must be enhanced considerably.

LITERATURE REVIEW ON CITY REGION

GENERAL

Today there are more than three hundred cities or city regions around the world with populations greater than one million people. In 1950, only one city – New York – had a population of at least 10 million people. According to the UN (2001), at least 16 cities or city regions had populations in excess of ten million by 2000. The projections for the next 50 years indicate that urban growth rates will rise steadily, particularly in the developing world. This development poses many deep challenges to researchers and policymakers alike, not only in the context of urban governance and management.

The outstanding importance of cities as nodal points of a world-wide network was recognized by Peter Hall back in 1966. Since then, most of the research conducted on cities or city regions has focussed primarily on the world’s leading financial and economic centres (i.e. New York, London, Tokyo, Frankfurt) and on their role in a network of globally connected cities (Sassen, Friedman). While the outcome of these pioneering projects has provided researchers with valuable insights, research on the changing role of larger cities in the developing world is less advanced – despite the fact that urban growth rates in these cities are much higher than in the cities of the north. According to the UN, twenty-four of the thirty largest cities or city regions will be located in less developed countries by 2015.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The challenge of conducting research on large and important cities is that the significance of any given city is defined very differently by the authors of various studies. This divergence of views reflects both the diverse nature of cities and also differences of approach taken in the study of cities. In this section, we provide a short overview of the different understandings of the significance of large cities by introducing the terms world city, global city, informational city, mega city, and global city-region. Of course this is only a narrow selection made from a wide range of terms used to describe cities. However, in the context of our own study on Global City Regions as Changing Sites of Governance, we consider the following definitions to be extremely valuable for developing a framework of analysis.

The concept of global city-regions can be traced back to the "world cities" idea of Hall (1966) and Friedmann and Wolff (1982), and to the "global cities" idea of Sassen (1991). We build here on these pioneering efforts, but in a way that tries to extend the meaning of the concept in economic, political and territorial terms, and above all by an effort to show how city-regions increasingly function as essential spatial nodes of the global economy and as distinctive political actors on the world stage. In fact, rather than being dissolved away as social and geographic objects by processes of globalization, city-regions are becoming increasingly central to modern life, and all the more so because globalization (in combination with various technological shifts) has reactivated their significance as bases of all forms of productive activity, no matter whether in manufacturing or services, in high-technology or low-technology sectors.

Sassen (1991) defines global cities as, "cities that are strategic sites in the global economy because of their concentration of command functions and high-level producer service firms oriented to world markets; more generally cities with high levels of internationalisation in their economy and in their broader social structure". Thus, they are both centres of production and innovation as well as a home to markets. Manuel Castells describes the new urban phenomena as the informational city, adapted to his global information society concept. The key issues within his definition are the new communication technologies and infrastructure. This includes information technology, telecommunications, air transportation, and the accordingly necessitated infrastructure. Furthermore, he takes financial and economic performance into consideration. The informational city is to be seen as embedded in a global system of networked information flows.

CONCLUSION

These city-regions are expanding vigorously, and they present many new and deep challenges to researchers and policy-makers in both the more developed and less developed parts of the world. The processes of global economic integration and accelerated urban growth make traditional planning and policy strategies in these regions increasingly inadequate, while more effective approaches remain largely in various stages of hypothesis and experimentation. Global City-Regions represents a multifaceted effort to deal with the many different issues raised by these developments. It seeks at once to define the question of global city-regions and to describe the internal and external dynamics that shape them; it proposes a theorization of global city-regions based on their economic and political responses to intensifying levels of globalization; and it offers a number of policy insights into the severe social problems that confront global city-regions as they come face to face with an economically and politically neoliberal world.

At a moment when globalization is increasingly subject to critical scrutiny in many different quarters, this book provides a timely overview of its effects on urban and regional development, one of its most important (but perhaps least understood) corollaries. Conventionally, if one lives in an apparently rural area, suburb or county town where a majority of wage-earners travel into a particular city for a full or part-time job then one is (in effect) residing in the city region. In studying human geography, urban and regional planning or the regional dynamics of business it is often worthwhile having closer regard to dominant travel patterns during the working day (to the extent that these can be estimated and recorded), than to the rather arbitrary boundaries assigned to administrative bodies such as councils, prefectures, or to localities defined merely to optimise postal services.