LIKE it or not, city life comes with many deficits. Overstretched public transport. Overburdened infrastructure. Degraded environment. Unequal access. The list goes on. Yet, 26 million Malaysians live in this concrete jungle.
It has been a story of rise and rise for the last 50 years. True, this is a global trend. But elsewhere, especially in developed countries, human wellbeing is a primary focus. Cities serve people, not the other way round. Take Malaysia's Conlay MRT station in Kuala Lumpur that opened recently.
Many of the commuters work in offices near the Petronas Twin Towers, a sweating distance of an uncomfortable walk. Whatever happened to feeder buses? No scooters, no scooter lanes? In a nation known for sweltering heat and thunderstorms, no covered walkways either. Senior citizens and those who are differently abled appear to have been given an unkind miss.
If developed countries city planners think and then build, here they build and then think, if they do that at all. And yet they wonder why disasters keep happening in cities. Kuala Lumpur is a darling when it comes to disasters like floods, to put it perversely. "Natural", they call these disasters when there is nothing natural about them.
Enough of this development chase, we say. This greedy hurry must cease. Think of lifestyle issues. Think of liveable cities. We can't escape the fact that most Malaysians will be city dwellers in the future as they are already now. Cities are drivers of growth.
According to a study called "Creating Liveable Cities: Regional Perspectives, a publication of four regional banks, 80 per cent of economic growth in developing Asia comes from its urban areas. Malaysia is somewhere there. But such rapid growth comes at a price: congestion, pollution and increased disaster risks.
If the banks are right, up to three per cent of the region's gross domestic product is lost to traffic congestion, not to mention the stressed workers who finally make it to the office after the long crawl. Traffic congestion is now a thrice-a-day bane for most Malaysians.
The cost of owning a car in Malaysia can be prohibitive, yet people buy them. The reason? Overburdened, unreliable and, to some, costly public transport. Our government must revamp it if it wants to make life liveable for Malaysians in the cities.
As for pollution, Malaysian cities aren't something to be proud of. Last year, in a ranking done by IQAir, Klang took the prize of being the worst in the country at an air quality index of 82, higher than the national average of 63. If nothing is done now, there will be more Klangs in a year or two. Our cities are disaster prone, too.
Urbanisation is often equated with economic opportunities, better living conditions and improved quality of life. The reality is often different. Economic opportunities are there, but not all urbanites have access to them. Better living conditions? Certainly not for 13.2 million Malaysians at the bottom of the income table. Some even live in city slums.
Don't think there won't be a lonely person in a city crowd of a million. There will be when we build cities without human wellbeing in mind. Time for the government to put human wellbeing before buildings. After all, cities are manifestations of decisions by politicians, policymakers and planners. Decisions make or unmake cities.