Satellite map of Petaling Jaya

Research Site Manager: Dr Yaso Nadarajah

Large-scale urban transformation in Malaysia is the most visible sign of the rapid development geared towards and symbolic of the new national development strategy Wawasan 2020 (Vision 2020), with the purported aim of turning Malaysia into a 'fully developed' country by that year. Since its independence in 1957 to the May 13, 1969 tragedy, right through the New Economic Policy (NEP) period from 1970s to the current phase of the post NEP era, Malaysia's concentration on 'development' has been its political underpinning strategy. Of nearly 23 million population in 2003, Bumiputeras accounted for 61 percent, the Chinese 30 percent and Indians 8 per cent; other ethnic groups made up the remaining 1 per cent. Whilst contemporary Malaysia has achieved economic growth, rapid modernisation and development have also created fractured tensions, at both the levels of cultural contestations and social meaning, involving the state, institutions, social classes, capital and global factors. How as a nation Malaysia makes this transition and link between the 'everyday-defined' cultural reality and its defined notion of national identity remains a crucial process in the whole phenomenon of the emergence and sustainability of the modern nation state in the global arena.

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Background

Southwest from Kuala Lumpur on the busy Federal Highway is Petaling Jaya (PJ). This satellite town is located in the Petaling District, is one of the nine districts that have made Selangor the most developed and prosperous state in Malaysia.

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