The nature and trends of the national urban system

Definition of urban population

The population censuses in Malaysia define "urban" as "gazetted areas" with a minimum population of 10,000. The term "gazetted area" refers to a local administrative unit with clearly defined boundaries (Malaysia, 1983). The 1970 and 1980 censuses also classified urban areas into three categories: "metropolitan," with a population in excess of 75,000; "large town," with a population size of 10,000 and over; and "small town," with a population size of 1,000 to 9,999 persons. "Small towns," however, are excluded from the consideration of urbanization levels. Based on this definition, there are 14 metropolitan areas, and 53 towns with a population of 10,000 to 75,000 (fig. 10.1)

Undoubtedly, there are problems associated with such a methodology and these difficulties have been discussed by Lee (1977) and Aziz Othman (1988). A good example is the reclassification of the local authority areas conducted in 1976. Before 1976, local authority areas were classified into five categories: municipality, town council, town board, local council, and new village. From 1976 onwards, they were reclassified into two categories: municipal council and district council. This regrouping has led to some 12 urban centres with their boundaries extended to incorporate neighbouring local authority areas. For example, in 1972 Kuala Lumpur annexed Jinjang, which had a population of more than 27,000.

Fig. 10.1 Urban centres in Malaysia with a population over 10,000 in 1980

Level of urbanization

From the earliest census available in 1911 until the last published census in 1980, the share of the urban population grew at a much faster rate than the natural rate of increase for Malaysia as a whole. Table 10.1 shows the level of urbanization for Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak and for the country as a whole. It is clear from the table that the share of the urban population in the total population in Malaysia from 1911 to 1990 has been increasing, from 10.7 per cent in 1911 to 26.6 per cent in 1957, to 34.2 per cent in 1980 and 40.7 per cent in 1990 (Malaysia, 1986). Immediately after World War II, the urban population was just over 1 million. By 1957, it was 1.6 million and continued to grow to about 2.8 million in 1970, 4.75 million in 1980, and 5.91 million in 1985. During the period 1980-1990, the total urban population would have increased by 34.2 per cent to 7.3 million (40.7 per cent) - an increase that is much faster than the growth in the rural population. Peninsular Malaysia continues to be the most urbanized part of the country (37.5 per cent in 1980 and 44.7 per cent in 1990), with Selangor State having the largest urban population in the country.

Table 10.1 The urban population as a percentage of the total population in Malaysia, Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak, 1911-1990

	Peninsular
Year	Malaysia	Malaysia	Sabah	Sarawak
1911	-	10.7	-	-
1921	-	14.1	-	-
1931	-	15.1	-	-
1947	-	18.9	-	-
1957	-	26.6	-	-
1970	26.7	28.8	16.5	15.5
1980	34.2	37.5	20.0	17.6
1985	37.4	41.1	22.6	19.2
1990	40.7	44.7	25.6	20.9

Sources: Census reports, 1911 to 1980; Malaysia (1986).

In Sabah, the share of the urban population increased from 16.5 per cent in 1970, to 20.0 per cent in 1980, and to 25.6 per cent in 1990. Its urban population of 205,000 is concentrated in only five urban centres, namely, Kota Kinabalu (59,500), Kudat (10,938), Sandakan (73,114), Tawau (45,249), and Lahad Datu (16,526) (fig. 10.1). The settlement system in Sabah is considered to be at an early stage of development because of poor road networks. The same might be said of Sarawak, where the proportion of urban population increased from 15.5 per cent in 1970, to 17.6 per cent in 1980, and to 20.9 per cent in 1990. Sabah's urbanization level in 1990 was far higher than Sarawak's level (25.6 per cent compared with 20.9 per cent). This may be attributed to the smaller urban population base in the 1960s and the impact of the in-migration of rural youths and young families in the past 20 years (Abdul Samad, 1989).

Rates of urbanization

Three phases of urbanization may be discerned in Malaysia in the past three decades. The first period was immediately after Independence in 1957 until 1970, when the rate of urbanization was rather slow (3.21 per cent per annum compared with 5.84 per cent between 1947 and 1957). This could be partially explained by the fact that the bulk of the Chinese population, having been resettled in new villages after the war, was substantially depleted. This immediate post-Independence period also witnessed the implementation of large land development schemes, which had the effect of redirecting some rural migrants to other rural areas (Lee and Bahrin, 1989).

The second discernible phase was from 1970 to 1980, when there was a resurgence in the rate of urbanization. Between 1970 and 1980, the level of urbanization rose from 26.7 per cent to 34.2 per cent, giving an annual rate of growth of 5.3 per cent, or 2.2 times faster than the national total population growth rate. This upsurge was primarily attributed to the growth in the construction, manufacturing, utilities, and service sectors, which offered increasing job opportunities. Regional development and the establishment of new growth centres also encouraged migration from rural areas (Kok, 1988). To assert that the urbanization rates had increased because of rural-urban migration alone may not be totally correct because other factors, too, such as natural increase, the expansion of the urban boundaries, and the reclassification of smaller centres into the urban spectrum were important (United Nations, 1986a). None the less, rural-urban migration was an important factor, especially with the implementation of the New Economic Policy (NEP) from 1970 onwards, which specifically encourages the involvement of the Bumiputras, who are largely rural based, in the industrial and commercial sectors of the economy. This has had a profound effect on the rate of urbanization in Malaysia because the Chinese rural base has been largely depleted.

The third phase is after 1980. When compared with the 1970s, the rate of urbanization has slackened slightly from 5.3 per cent per annum to 4.3 per cent per annum. This is despite an overall increase in the proportion of the urban population. In Peninsular Malaysia, the rate declined from 5.3 per cent to 4.2 per cent, in Sabah from 6.7 per cent to 6.1 per cent, and in Sarawak from 4.6 per cent to 4.3 per cent. The declining urban population growth rate may be due to the economic slowdown of the 1980s, which affected the pace of economic development to some extent (Chan, 1987). Although the rate of urbanization has slackened slightly, the percentage and absolute growth of the urban population can be expected to be maintained in the 1990s. The United Nations (1986b) projects an increase in Malaysia's urban population from 7.32 million to 10.32 million between 1990 and 2000, giving estimated urban proportions of 42.3 per cent and 50.4 per cent, respectively.

Trends in urbanization

The year 1970 is also significant from the viewpoint of an accentuated directional bias since Independence. This may be expressed as the increasing growth of the urban population in the metropolitan areas, defined in the Census as urban centres having populations of more than 75,000. The proportion of the total population living in metropolitan areas was 45.1 per cent in 1957, increasing to 58.5 per cent in 1970. By 1980, almost three-quarters of the urban population were living in the 14 metropolitan centres of the country.

In a sense, a large portion of the increase may be attributed to the growing number of metropolitan areas being reclassified in the 1980 Census compared with 1957 or 1970. In fact, the number of such centres increased from 4 in 1957 to 8 in 1970 and to 14 in 1980. Even by holding towns constant without reclassifying the various categories over the three censal years, the proportion of the urban population in the metropolitan-size category increased from 47 per cent to 58 per cent, and between 1970 and 1980 increased by six percentage points, whereas the other size categories showed negligible increases (Lee, 1985).

This increasing polarization in the metropolises is, of course, not new and has been happening over the past 30 years or so, but its primal tendencies have become more apparent over the past one and a half decades. This pronounced tendency towards a preponderance of population in a few cities may be largely due to the fact that it is more economical to centralize production to avoid the high costs of infrastructural development. The existence of net benefits in urban areas therefore encourages people to move towards those areas (Tolley, 1987).

One significant trend in the process of urbanization in Malaysia in the period 1960-1990 is the increasing dominance of Kuala Lumpur vis-à-vis other cities in Malaysia (Lee, 1987a). In 1957, Georgetown was about three-quarters the size of Kuala Lumpur in terms of population, but in 1980 it was only one-third (table 10.2). A simple four-city primacy index showing the quotient of the population in the largest city divided by the combined population in the second-, third-, and fourth-largest cities shows an increase from 0.75 to 1.17 over the period from 1957 to 1980. Other measures of primacy also reveal the dominance of the capital region of Kuala Lumpur. It is in view of this pattern of urbanization that a National Urbanization Policy is being formulated to guide and manage urban development throughout the whole country in a systematic and orderly manner.

Table 10.2 The next four largest towns in relation to Kuala Lumpur

	1957	1970	1980
Kuala Lumpur	100.00	100.00	100.00
Georgetown	71.80	59.60	32.00
Ipoh	38.50	54.90	27.00
Klang	23.10	25.10	20.90
Johore Bahru	22.90	30.20	26.80
2-city primacy index	1.39	1.68	3.13
4-city primacy index	0.75	0.69	1.17
11-city primacy index	0.80	0.74	0.94

Sources: Census reports, 1957, 1970, 1980; Lee and Bahrin (1989); Kok (1988).