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Look around Malaysia today and many of our cities can feel increasingly familiar, with the same buildings, malls, roads, and developments, despite the cities themselves having very different histories and communities. A new book ‘Where the Five Foot Way Ends: The Making of Malaysia's Everywhere Cities' examines the way we build cities, and asks what may have been lost along the way. On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Dr Shuhana Shamsuddin, President of the Malaysian Urban Design Association (PEREKABANDAR) and Syukri Bashri, Town Planner at the town planning consultancy, Rekarancang.
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00:10Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:14where we want you to consider and how you consider what you know of the news of the day.
00:18Look around Malaysia today and many of our cities can feel increasingly similar. The
00:25same buildings, the same malls, roads and developments. And this is really concerning
00:30because cities themselves have very different histories and communities. So we have a new book
00:35here titled Where the Five Foot Way Ends, The Making of Malaysia's Everywhere Cities and examines
00:43the way we build cities and what may have been lost along the way. So joining me on the show
00:50are
00:50the contributors and the editors of the book, Dr. Shauna Samsuden, who is the president of the
00:55Malaysian Urban Design Association, a better known as Pareka Bandar, which is a registered NGO
01:00championing good urban design practices. I also have with me in the studio, Shukri Bashri,
01:05who is a town planner with Pareka Rancang, which is a town planning consultancy. Welcome to the show,
01:11both of you. Thank you so much for joining me today. Dr. Shauna, may I begin with you to talk
01:16about the central idea of the book. So where the five foot way ends? And I really like the sub
01:21heading
01:22of this title, The Making of Malaysia's Everywhere Cities. What do you mean by an everywhere city? And
01:29what are you seeing in Malaysian cities that has led you to identify this as a problem?
01:35Okay. Thank you, Melissa, first for actually giving us the opportunity to talk about this book, which will be
01:43launched officially on Monday, 28th of September. The idea of this, writing this book about the
01:50Malaysia's Everywhere Cities, you know, it's not something that comes out of the blues. It has been
01:57in mind ever since we set up Pareka Bandar six years ago, when we were concerned about the lack of
02:06priority in using urban design as a way to implement the policies of the structure
02:13plans, local plans that we have as a statutory document to guide and control development for
02:19Malaysian cities. Because no doubt the policies about building cities is very important in those
02:26plans. But what gives the face to those policies is urban design. Because like it's just like when
02:34the plans, there's certain limit that they can do to actually translate or the policies, but the
02:41policies need to be translated so that it can guide the architects and the developers on the ground to
02:48actually build those cities according to those plans. But what can happen in Malaysia because we don't have
02:55the urban design as the process of bridging the policies and implementation. So there is this huge gap
03:04between what is written in the policies and what is actually built on the ground. Yes. We have a very
03:10good
03:10policy. I was just about to say, we are not short of great documents and blueprints and master plans. We've
03:15got all the buzzwords
03:17that's been mentioned by the United Nations in their SDGs and so forth. I think all those words are good.
03:24They are in tandem with
03:25the way the United Nations wants all the countries to build the cities. But when it comes to translation, suddenly
03:34all these words,
03:35all these places cannot be seen on the ground. So the result of that is that all cities will tend
03:42to follow
03:42all the rules and regulations that can be quantified. For example, plot ratio density, how many buildings can
03:50be built in Oracle, what are the setbacks required and what is the height control and so forth. Those are
03:55quantifiable
03:56things. But what is missing in terms of giving character is the non-quantifiable. The aspect of the heritage,
04:05tradition, the social culture, composition, the arts and crafts and so forth. No, this has to be manifested
04:11in the way we build our cities so that every city will have its own uniqueness. Okay. So that's the
04:17concept of every city when you don't go for this uniqueness. Okay, so it could, so that a city could
04:23be
04:23anywhere. You could find yourself in Malaysia and think that it could be a city anywhere in the world.
04:28Because it's not designed, it's a city you can find everywhere because it's not designed to be
04:32anywhere. Okay. All right. Shukri, I'm going to bring you into the conversation now. What are you
04:36seeing? What similarities are you seeing emerged? I mean, what makes you think that Malaysian cities are
04:42becoming everywhere cities, almost interchangeable with any city around the world? I think it's self-evident
04:48when you see because when you go to like Tapah or you go into the, not actually Kuala Lumpur, but
04:55then
04:55most of the rest of the city, you can see the same. That's why I think when we started to
04:59write
05:00this book, because the idea starts like a few years ago, right? We tried to make urban design actually
05:08conversational. So we try to make it like so that the general public can understand also what we are
05:16trying to do here. So this is the attempt of us to make it more pedestrian, the use of the
05:28terminologies.
05:29But some of the chapters are quite hard because it pertains to theories and all. But then I hope,
05:35we hope that the rest of the chapters are able to explain what we meant by everywhere cities.
05:42Okay, so what are you hoping that readers get out of this? Before I answer that, you see, this book
05:49is meant
05:49to be a wake-up call actually. A wake-up call? For whom? For everybody. Because it's meant to be
05:56right by everybody who uses the city. Which is everyone. Everyone. From the men on the street to the
06:04the decision makers, the police makers. Why we call it a wake-up call is that what we're doing here
06:11is
06:12actually being inspired by what happened in the UK. For example, in 1989 when Prince Charles,
06:18well now he's Prince Charles, he wrote a book called A Vision for Britain. It was really a book that
06:25is
06:25not just a wake-up call. It's a knock on the head to the architects who are producing for him
06:31mediocre,
06:31modern architecture that doesn't respect the British traditions in the townskate and so forth.
06:38So from that book, you know, it's like, you know, they took up the challenge. They rise up to the
06:44challenge. So the local authorities, the planners, architects now work together to see, you know,
06:48how can we build back the cities that is more identifiable to be British cities. And another book
06:54that inspired us is The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. In that book,
07:01Jane Jacobs is an activist. You quote her a lot in this book, right?
07:05Yes. She's, I think, she's not a planner or an architect. She's a columnist.
07:11Columnist. I was wondering who she was. I heard of her name.
07:13But she's very sharp and very criticising the American cities that is built, you know, to be
07:21individualistic and not bothering about the effect to the people on the street, the pedestrians, the
07:29safety of the streets and so forth. That book is actually also inspiring other people. You see,
07:36sometimes you just need a book to trigger. So the books that inspired the writing of this book were
07:42actually quite impactful in changing the landscape. So I have to ask this question. Let's challenge the
07:48premise of this book. Is standardisation necessarily a bad thing? If you think about it,
07:55there are reasons for cities to adopt common standards for accessibility, safety, I think,
08:01you know, infrastructure and security. There are standards to be upheld. So is it, is there,
08:07where would you, Dr. Shannon, draw the line? We are good at it. So where would you draw the line
08:13between useful standardisation and the loss of local character? You talked about the quantifiable
08:20and the non-quantifiable character. So what tend to happen is that, like I said, you know, when there is
08:25the, when there is a gap between policy and implementation. So at implementation level,
08:30the easier way to do is just to control something that you can put in the tables and you can
08:36tick
08:36check, the box, the checklist. But if you look at how they do it in UK, because I've done a
08:42research
08:42on this before, when years ago, when I look at how the in UK and in US, the way they
08:49practice
08:52getting, even in Singapore, they all have similarity in the way they approach it is that, okay, once the
08:57checking is done, they also have that kind of checking because that's important. Like I said,
09:01it's a minimum standard to ensure, especially safety aspect and so forth. But once you've gone
09:06through that, there is another checking point. In UK, they call it the detail planning permission
09:13where they scrutinise the design. They will look now, okay, how does this new design fit in
09:21with the surrounding and how can it contribute to giving, strengthening the character of the place?
09:27Oh, do we have that? Detailed, what was it? Detailed design? Detailed design control.
09:36Control. Okay. Do we don't have that in Malaysia? We have, but not so detailed in terms of
09:40what's happening for the whole. Because we let taste do the thing. Yeah. We let taste?
09:45Yeah, because individual's taste like do the job. Very, very, very democratic.
09:50Very, very democratic. Okay. And taste is subjective. Yeah. But what that happened, I think in UK,
09:55even in Singapore also do the same thing. They don't rely on statutory documents like the local plans
10:03and so forth to become their reference. They also produce non-statutory but guidelines,
10:09design guidelines from National Urban Design Compendium right to design briefs on the site.
10:15So each of these guidelines actually going towards a certain direction, a common vision of what the
10:22character the piece would be. Shukri, you're a town planner. Talk to me about how you would,
10:27how you see the non-quantifiable character. What would, give me an example of what this,
10:35what would be in a design, a detailed design control for Malaysia to make the city look Malaysian
10:42or feel Malaysian? What would that, what would, what would be an example of that?
10:46So that is actually the most difficult question to answer. Because I think this is my opinion when I see,
10:54because in Malaysia, one thing that I realized is that the adaptability of aesthetic appreciation,
11:00we, so we adopt things like we see like the Korean design or the British design and then we adopt
11:06and
11:06adopt this. So we, we like to adopt a design. So you can see when they, they submit designs,
11:13there's a lot. So it's like you, you go to Pinterest and then you, you, you put it up. So
11:19that,
11:19that's one thing about me. I don't. Templates, templates. We're using templates from outside. For example,
11:25waterfront. Okay. Okay. I've done research on waterfront before and I've got a supervisor PhD student on
11:30that. For our waterfront development, we normally take the templates from what's been done in Baltimore,
11:36what's been done and then you just plunk it in. So it's a copy paste thing. So urban design is
11:42contextually driven, locally informed and so forth. So by right, there is no urban design model that fits
11:52any cities. Every city must have its own templates, its own model which cannot be transferable. Otherwise,
12:01it becomes interchangeable and that's where everywhere city phenomena. So because the consequences is not so
12:06severe. I mean, because aesthetic is something, it's, it's like aesthetic judgment. In Japan,
12:11if you did the design wrong and then the earthquake came and then it will become this. But in Malaysia,
12:17it's the consequences is not that severe so that the design can be anything. So natural disaster will
12:21happen without constant design. So the only consequences here is that the, the character,
12:26so the identity. So maybe the everywhere city is the byproduct of that. Right. I, I, I do think there
12:33are
12:33consequences though in the way that we design our cities, um, that, um, what we lose, um, and it may
12:41not be apparent to everyone. But let's use the example of the five foot way, which you, you talked
12:47about as in the title of the book. I think about the loss of the five foot ways in terms
12:52of the loss of
12:53shade and shelter, uh, uh, just to clarify five foot ways, the kaki lima in terms of the shop lots,
12:59right? For, for, for our audience at home, the loss of shade and shelter when it rains, the loss of
13:04interaction with people, the shopkeepers, uh, pedestrians, ability to walk the streets. Now it's all, um,
13:11cars and driving. Um, so I do think there is something lost that's beyond aesthetics, but, uh, maybe you can
13:18talk about really why we should care about good urban design beyond just the aesthetics of a city and
13:26it looking generic and almost similar to everywhere else. I can, I can respond to that. If you look at
13:33the United Nations now, the program is for people centered, smart cities. But the problem is that in
13:41Malaysia, we pick up the smart cities, but, but the people centered cities, we, we tend to be a bit
13:48shy,
13:48you know, from, from following it. So what is meant by people centered is that in urban design,
13:54the difference between urban design and planning is that planning is looking more into the system,
13:59the, the organization of the resources, the land use, how use of land. But in urban design,
14:05we are looking into how do you build the environment that meets the needs, the psychological and the
14:12physical needs of the people. So in urban design theory, there's a lot of environmental psychology
14:18theory being there. So you would understand what are the kind of, um, streets that people like,
14:23what, what, what, what are the kind of spaces that people would stay and, and, and linger,
14:26and how does Kaki Limu actually attract people to use it? So if you are not concerned about urban design,
14:32you will lose that dimension, that human dimension, in the way you build a city.
14:37But in the environmental psychology theory, says that people can be environmentally numb to the
14:44environment, and they will respond according to the environment that has been given. And being
14:49human, we are adaptable. You can build a very ugly city, people will just adapt. Well, yeah,
14:55we'll find a way to live in it. You, you can be, do a city that is very dangerous to
15:00live in,
15:01but you can still adapt and so forth. So in urban design, we will try to build a,
15:05give a city that meets the human needs, safety, security, esteem. And in, uh, a thing that we,
15:13in urban design that we are concerned is we want to be, we have to build cities that people will
15:17be
15:17proud of to live in. They will have a sense of pride and belonging. Then they will take care of
15:22the
15:22city. Right. You don't need to find them into throwing rubbish because they will not throw rubbish.
15:26And they will want to stay and take care of the city.
15:29They will take care of the city. Should we can ask you how much, um, what role do you think
15:34that
15:35planning regulations have, um, on in creating this current, uh, sameness? And I also want to
15:43interrogate how much responsibility should sit with the property developers in the way our cities have
15:49been built. So, uh, when we're talking about property developers, because they normally,
15:56normally, when, when we look at their design, they will consider the, the trend, the trending part of
16:03it. So when, when the customer wants something, so once the, the new lifestyle, because right now you
16:09can see the Japanese condominiums and all that. So they follow the, the global trend. Minimalistic.
16:16Yeah. So for us as planner, what we try is try to regulate the design so that it fits the,
16:23the,
16:24the context of the surrounding. But then there's also limitation because like the professor said,
16:29when we don't have any design guidelines, so any design can fit or can be approved because
16:38it's a free for all in terms of, uh, in terms of design.
16:41It's not to say that there's no control, but minimal control. It's basically control on the
16:47building design aspect, not on the streetscape, townscape level or street level. You understand?
16:53Because every architect that submit building for their individual site, they will just be
16:59scrutinized for the design of the building. Okay. But what happens when we talk in urban design,
17:04they will look into how this building affects the whole street. How will it affect the other spaces over there?
17:10So where, where does that responsibility lie? Let's take Kuala Lumpur as an example.
17:16Okay. Would it lie under DBKL? Is that, is that where it should sit in terms of making sure
17:22that there is some kind of, uh, the essence of, of KL is still captured in its development?
17:28It's a good question because I really want to highlight one of the problems that we, uh, that
17:33actually hindering this process of, uh, stopping this phenomena to be done is that in Malaysia,
17:40we don't have a department of urban design or a strong urban design unit at the local authority level.
17:49So, and usually the, the, the bigger department is you have the planning department, you have the, uh,
17:54uh, building control department, landscape, but there's no urban design. KL is the only local authority
18:00with an urban design unit. Oh, really?
18:02Okay. But the problem is, it is parked underneath the building and project implementation. So it sits
18:09under a project implementation unit, uh, department. So they will be more concerned about smaller, smaller
18:17projects. It's not large. It's not. And therefore, the planners who are doing the plans in local
18:22playback urban design policy are not related to this unit because in, in them, the organizational structure.
18:28So in urban, urban design must sit as its own department or unit that they can actually
18:33mediate and integrate, um, uh, break the silo. That's the, that's the, that they can actually, uh, find out,
18:42you know, how does, how do we implement this policy on the ground? Then the, the various department will give
18:46the input.
18:46uh, doesn't, uh, think city play that role because they are really about placemaking, aren't they? Yes.
18:53Oh, a good question. Okay. Things in, it comes, placemaking is still a project base. Okay. The, what's,
18:59how they do the placemaking now is more targeting or, um, specifying which, which places that you can
19:05regenerate, revitalize and do some improvement. And sometimes some projects to, to us is just more
19:12of cosmetic level rather than, uh, really design, but it also depends on the situation. I mean,
19:18like Medan Pasar now is going through another rejuvenation. So many times, but I must, uh, uh,
19:24highlight here is that urban design operates at various levels and it's about outcomes, outcomes and
19:30process. Now what's happening now in Malaysia, people, uh, in, say for example, in, uh, the DBKL, the urban design
19:39unit is part under the building and project implementation unit. And they will be looking
19:43at the urban design scale at the lowest level, which is on the site. Okay. But urban design operates at
19:48from the site to the street, to the blocks, to the quarters, to the districts, to the city center,
19:54to the city, up till global, regional. It's holistic, right? It's not just very, um, not just a small
20:01project. That's the, I, that's how I see that's the, the stumbling block here. So where, where do we go
20:07from here? Um, this book, I think, and I would encourage people to read it, it really does open up
20:12your eyes to looking at the city differently. And I think sometimes we just, we drive to our, from our,
20:19you know, destination, one destination to another without really seeing the city. Uh, is there a role
20:24for ordinary citizens to play, ordinary residents of the city to play in making sure that we, we have
20:32a city with character? Um, sometimes I think we treat urban design as just the sole prerogative of
20:39planners and developers and architects and governments, but it shapes everyone's lives,
20:45as you said earlier. Do we have a role to play? That's the purpose of the book, right? You said
20:48that
20:48you won't see the city the same after you read the book. Absolutely. I have to say, I, I will
20:53not see my
20:53city the same way again. Because if you, if you run down the road and you see all the houses
20:57at the
20:58side, because they have, uh, their right to design how they want. So their design affects the street.
21:03So if, if every, everyday citizens know or have, uh, a more contextual, uh, understanding of urban design,
21:12they know and realize how their house affect the street, how their house affect it. That's,
21:18that's the point of this book to, to make them understand the whole, the whole story rather than
21:23just their own, uh, aesthetic bubble. Do you have, um, do you have any thoughts on how, what role
21:33ordinary citizens can play? That's where community engagement comes into the picture. I think we,
21:39if you look at the place-making exercise at the moment, one important aspect when you do your place-making
21:45is
21:45actually part of the scope of urban design at the more, at the lowest level, at the side level.
21:51So one of the way that you, you look, there's one chapter called place-making or place-breaking.
21:55Yes, that's right. So sometimes you thought you are doing place-making,
22:00but actually you're, you're doing place-breaking because you don't involve the community
22:04in, in actually understanding, uh, what is it that they want in the place that they, they, they, they're living.
22:10You know, sometimes there's designers or planners think that they can impose their values and they
22:16know better what the public want. But I think in, uh, if you look at the developed countries,
22:21I mean, if you look UK, US, even in Singapore, even in Singapore now, they are going, they're doing really,
22:27um, very, uh, intense, uh, community engagement for every time that they wanted to have some projects to be
22:34done. You know, they will actually engage the committee to discuss about the proposal.
22:39But do you think that it goes both ways? Because sometimes when we have these public
22:43consultations for the master plans and the blueprints, there isn't that much community engagement,
22:48because there isn't, there doesn't seem to be that much interest from the community
22:52because maybe they don't feel invested. Because it doesn't affect their backyard.
22:56Or, or it doesn't, or they don't see their lives reflected in the cities that they live,
23:02which is very sad, isn't it? But they will respond when they know that something's happening behind
23:06their backyard. Okay. Or in front of their garden. Okay. So, but I think this, that, that, that, uh,
23:12apart from bridging the gap between policies implementation, there's also, you have to narrow
23:17the gap between the city, the city hall, the city files and the public. They should be, they be,
23:23should be coming together. Because like I said, everybody is affected by the city that you plan. If you,
23:29I mean, it's not just the, the, the, the, whatever done by the planners and the architects,
23:34it's going to affect the one who's going using the street. Definitely. Okay. So in the final minutes
23:38that we have left, can I ask you, I circle back to the question that I asked earlier,
23:42what you really hope, um, comes up from this book. So the, the inspiration for the book, um, from,
23:49from the US and the UK was quite impactful. Hopefully this has the same impact. But can I ask you,
23:55if, if you were, you would like to see what kind of impact would you like to see materialize from
24:02this book? Shukri, if I can come to you. Because I have, uh, one of the chapters is called
24:07A Malaysian Way of Seeing. So, uh, my, my expectations for this book is that maybe we should look not
24:16as a
24:17copy for like Western or Eastern, but a Malaysian way of urban design. So how do we see our cities,
24:25how we see it, not, not how we copy from how the British sees it or how the Japanese sees
24:31it,
24:31but how we ourselves see it. So, uh, the book is a, it's an attempt for the discussion for like,
24:38maybe there's a way for us locals to see the city. Maybe it's not that, uh, ugly,
24:43maybe it's beautiful in its chaotic sense. Or it's that, it's, it's reflecting our values and so
24:51far. Because so, so maybe, because we are, we, we, we judge it based on, uh, all the Western ideals
24:56or Eastern ideas. Yeah, so it's the, so we need to understand how we ourselves see it. Maybe it's,
25:02it's the chaos is also beautiful to us. Well, why I, I do think that it's, um, a metaphor for
25:09something
25:10quite deep because we really have to identify what it is that, how do we identify as Malaysians?
25:16Therefore, what do we expect our Malaysian cities to look like? And I think unless we resolve this
25:21identity crisis that Malaysians have, what, what vision do we have for our country? What does it look
25:26like? It, our cities will never properly reflect that. Yeah, because we are, we are benchmarking with
25:31other standards rather than our own. So, so I think that's the point, uh, in the, in the last chapter,
25:37we also said that we, we have to find ourselves. Oh, we have to find, yes, you have, you end
25:42with,
25:43um, we have to find ourselves. Dr. Shannon, you have the last word. Okay. I think if you look at,
25:47um,
25:48how urban design has been practiced in other developed countries, uh, Singapore, Japan, Australia,
25:53and so forth, UK, US, we need a support from the government departments responsible for planning
26:00to embrace urban design as part of the way we build our cities. Yeah. So at the moment at Plan,
26:05Plan Asia,
26:06where they are, they are controlling, uh, uh, uh, coordinating planning activities in the country,
26:13but there's no department of urban design in the, in Plan, Malaysia. Oh, really? Yeah. And under the
26:20R&D division, there's a, a unit called Morphology Design and Heritage, which is not really about urban design.
26:28It's, it's, it's, so in a way, there's no specific urban design per se, because Morphology is about the
26:33evolution of cities. Heritage is part of urban design concern. So I think what, what, what is really
26:40needed is, like what has been done in other countries, there's a top-down, there's a top-down, uh,
26:46approach, uh, requiring that all local authorities to consider about urban design. And that's where the,
26:50um, then the, the public, the academician, the universities will start to do so. Yeah.
26:55It has to bring. Hopefully we don't lose the character of our cities completely. You know,
26:58we don't look back, um, you know, a few decades from now and go, this could be, this could be
27:03anywhere.
27:03Better late than never. Better late than never. Well, thank you both for writing this book. I appreciate
27:07you. And thank you both for being on the show to talk to us about it. There are 20 contributors,
27:10so.
27:10To any, to all the contributors who contributed to this book. That's all the time we have for you on
27:14this
27:14episode of Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris signing off for the evening. Thank you so much for watching. Good night.