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Malay Urbanization and the Ethnic Profile of Urban Centres in Peninsular Malaysia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Lee Boon Thong
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Extract

Many writers have shown that Peninsular Malaysia is undergoing rapid urbanization. The proportion of the total population living in urban areas, for instance, increased from 15·9 per cent in 1947 to 28·7 per cent in 1970. This growth is more readily appreciated if it is noted that the per annum urban population increase after independence (that is, between 1957 and 1970) is nearly twice the per annum increase in the previous inter-censal period (1947–1957). This rapid urbanization ushers in many political, social and economic problems among which is the unbalanced ethnic constituents of the urban population.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , September 1977 , pp. 224 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1977

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References

1 See, for instance, Sendut, Hamzah, “Patterns of urbanization in Malaya”, Journal of Tropical Geography, Vol. 16 (1962), 114–130Google Scholar; Pryor, R. J., “The changing settlement system of West Malaysia”, Journal of Tropical Geography, Vol. 37 (1973), 53–67Google Scholar; Bee, Ooi Jin, “Urbanization and the urban population in Peninsular Malaysia”, Journal of Tropical Geography, Vol. 40 (1975), 40–47Google Scholar.

2 Malaysia, 1970 Population and Housing Census of Malaysia: Community Groups, (Dept. of Statistics, 1972), p. 30.

3 Hamzah Sendut, “Patterns of urbanization in Malaya”, op. cit.

2 Malaysia, 1970 Population and Housing Census of Malaysia: Community Groups, op. cit., p. 23.

5 The same argument is forwarded by Sendut, Hamzah, “Some aspects of urban change in Malaya, 1931–1957”, Kajian Ekonomi Malaysia, Vol. 2 (1965), 87.Google Scholar

6 The same threshold was also adopted by Hamzah Sendut, ibid.

7 The contiguity of urban physical fabric and a dominant centre were checked on topographic maps and aerial photographs.

8 The proportion of ‘Other’, which constituted 3·6 per cent of the total urban population in 1957, was added to the proportion of Indians. This did not substantially affect the analysis given its diminutive proportion in each of the urban centres.

9 Sandhu, K. S., “Emergency resettlement in Malaya”, Journal of Tropical Geography, Vol. 18 (1964), 157–183.Google Scholar

10 Blalock, H.M., Social Statistics, (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1960), p. 280Google Scholar.

11 Lieberson, S., “Measuring Population Diversity”, American Sociological Review, Vol. 34 (1969), 850–862.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 ‘Other’ is also included in the analysis.

13 Urban areas which had a population of less than 5,000 in 1957 but which had achieved the size criterion by 1970 are included in the analysis so that individual comparisons can be made. However, four of these areas are omitted because no data are available for 1957.

14 About 13 per cent of the urban areas recorded no change in their Aw indices between 1957 and 1970.

15 See Thong, Lee Boon, “Changing ethnic patterns and the residential structure of urban areas in Peninsular Malaysia”,Paper presented at the Symposium on The City in the Third World, Institute of British Geographers Conference (Coventry, 1976).Google Scholar