City profile Iskandar Malaysia Agatino Rizzo a,⇑ , John Glasson b,1 a Department of Architecture and Urban planning, College of Engineering, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, State of Qatar, Room C070 221 (Females Campus), Qatar RAEE b Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, School of Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK article info Article history: Received 14 March 2010 Received in revised form 8 March 2011 Accepted 12 March 2011 Available online 5 May 2011 Keywords: Transnational urban region Mega city-region Johor Bahru Singapore Metropolitan planning Iskandar Malaysia abstract Since 2006, the Federal Malaysian government has developed the South-Johor Economic Region as a major corridor for economic development. A vision, known as Iskandar Malaysia, has been facilitated through a Comprehensive Development Plan underpinning strategies to boost the physical and economic development of the Johor Bahru metropolitan area. The latter borders Singapore; the two cities, separated by a one km. sea channel, are linked by two bridges. Thousands of people cross the Johor Straits to enjoy better wages (in Singapore) and cheap goods (in Malaysia). The paper provides an analysis of the Iskandar Malaysia Vision. A key message is the need for future plans to consider both cities, Johor Bahru and Sin- gapore, as part of an emerging transnational urban region. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Johor Bahru (JB), the capital of Johor State, Malaysia, is a city of 500,000 inhabitants located at the southern tip of the peninsular; the larger JB metropolitan area had a population of about 1.3 mil- lion in 2006. It is the second largest metropolitan area in Malaysia (after the capital Kuala Lumpur 2 ). A fragmented metropolitan area, in the sense described by Graham and Marvin (2001), JB is linked by a system of highways which have very little connection to the sur- rounding developments. Massive speculative developments of more than 15 storeys now mushroom randomly from a formerly low-rise built environment made up of linked houses or two and three storey buildings with workshops situated on the ground floor. JB city centre is pedestrian-unfriendly, marked by high rates of traffic congestion and resulting car accidents. Moving around the metropolitan area by public transport is time consuming and unreliable. The Causeway, built to link Singapore to the mainland in 1919, is the main generator of traffic during rush hour. An agglomeration of badly maintained housing estates, gated enclaves, and gigantic shopping malls extends radially from the causeway, stretching along the main regional highways and the north–south express- ways to Kuala Lumpur. The JB metropolitan area is an industrial and commercial hotspot in the region and almost any significant industrial brand has a branch here. Schematically, heavy industry is located to the east side of the JB agglomeration in the Pasir Gudang area, the main harbour for petrochemicals; electronic and semi-conductor factories are located around the Senai area, the airport, and with some near the PTP cargo harbour, in the new tax-free zone; while small and medium size enterprises are scattered all over the conurbation. In social terms, the ethnic background of the metro area is char- acterised by 60% Malay-Muslims and 30% of Chinese origins— either Buddhists, Taoists, or Christians; fewer than 10% have Tamil-Hindu roots (Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA), 2007). The current median age in SJER is 26 years; workers are mainly semi or un-skilled. In economic terms, the GDP US$ 14,790 per capita was considerably higher than the average of Johor State (US$ 10,757 per capita), yet only half of that of Singapore (Khazanah Nasional – KN, 2006 p. 4–1). High crime rates 3 and locations with poor sanitation contribute to the city’s main social issues, especially on the periphery. 0264-2751/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2011.03.003 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +974 4403 4352; fax: +974 4403 4341. E-mail addresses: a.rizzo@qu.edu.qa (A. Rizzo), jglasson@brookes.ac.uk (J. Glasson). 1 Tel.: +44 (0) 1865 483401. 2 The Klang valley, the metropolitan region surrounding Kula Lumpur, has about 7 million inhabitants. Singapore, on the other side of the Johor Straits, has about 4.6 million (2009). 3 The spread of this problem to the entire country pushed the Malaysian Federal Government to initiate an ad hoc programme in 2004. Yet in 2009 Johor Bahru still has one of the highest rates of crime in the country. Local newspapers have recently (2009) reported that even the chief of the city police and his family have been victims of crime. The Sun, a politically independent Malaysian newspaper, has also reported (October 2009) that thousands of CCTV cameras will be deployed in JB to deter criminal activity. Cities 29 (2012) 417–427 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Cities journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities