Sustainability Statistics of Kuala Lumpur

Sustainability is no longer about doing less harm. It's about doing more good. ” said Jochen Zeitz. The definition of sustainability is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, according to the UN World Commission on Environment and Development. The three main issues that make sustainability is important in today’s world are fossil fuel depletion, climate change due to CO2 emissions and the increasing costs of energy and water. The number of population and its consumptions are rapidly increasing contrary to the number of resources. People usually consume the resource to develop the country without thinking that those resources can be depleted like the concept “grow dirty now, clean up later”.

Therefore, this is reasonable enough to humanity to consider sustainability as an important concept. RFSC(The Reference Framework for Sustainable Cities) is an online toolkit which is designed for cities to develop, check an urban strategy or project and monitor the progress of them. Kuala Lumpur, officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, or commonly KL is a capital of Malaysia which is is enclaved within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It had a population approximately 1. 73 million in 2016. This research paper, in particular, aims to highlight the society sustainability in Kuala Lumpur. The first aspect of sustainability in Kuala Lumpur is traffic congestion. Traffic congestion is one of issues that make Kuala Lumpur far from being sustainable city. Kuala Lumpur has struggled with this problem for a long time and it seems to be more difficult to solve it when there the number of population who live in the city are increasing all the time. According to the consumer data company Nielsen, Malaysia is ranked the first place of having the highest car ownership in the world. There is at least one car in every households. Media also said that there are more 1, 000 cars which are registered in every day. Moreover, many motorists revealed that they plan to purchase new vehicles in the next two years. Kuala Lumpur is a capital city of Malaysia, it is a business area which has high population identity and people have to commute all the time. Thus, this is the main reason that causes the traffic congestion in Kuala Lumpur. Status symbol is one of factors that encourage people to purchase more vehicles.

This social value is widely spread in many southeast asian countries, they have an idea that owning cars is equal to success and wealthy. It is not only wastes people’s time but also wastes their money to fuel due to being stuck in the traffic congestion. However, the government does not overlook to this problem. They are planning several projects and the most important one of them is constructing MRT, as know as mass rapid transit. The rails were design to be circle line looping around Kuala Lumpur. Moreover, the another significant plan is charging money in congestion zone and motorbike which come to the center of the city. In the other word, the government try to make it more difficult for private vehicles to enter the congestion zone. (Kim J., 2017 )

One of the most important projects is the construction of MRT (mass rapid transit) Circle Line looping around the city. Like Singapore and London, the city plans to charge motorcycles that enter the central part of the city. Aside from traffic congestion, discrimination is one of significant issues in Kuala Lumpur. Ethnic discrimination still high in Kuala Lumpur, although it has been 60 years after nation-building, Many people still have an idea that racial discrimination is common in developing country such as Malaysia. Pusat Komas programme director Adli Zakuan Zairakithnaini revealed that discrimination does not only happen between government and citizen, but it is also committed by private corporation and individual. People who are mostly affected are the minorities such as Chinese and Indians.

Kuala Lumpur is consisted of three major ethnicities, Malays, the Chinese and Indians. These racial differences and unequal treat lead discrimination to the society. The discriminated action that we can obviously see is Bumiputera policy which is provided by government. According to The Economist, Bumiputera is a policy which Malay ethnic and other indigenous people can recieve benefits the most. On contrary, the Indians and Chinese who are non-muslim Malays are in the big troubles because they are exploited by this policy. For the examples, in term of business, to establish a new company in the country, one of the partners must be muslim-malays, otherwise we will not be able to run business. In term of education, bumiputeras have schools or universities guaranteed for them, but if it come to non- muslim malays, other people will look at them differently. The concept of this policy started during British colonial rule. At that time, British colonialism was suited to divide and rule tactic which viewed minorities as non-indigenous. (malaysiakini, 2015) Although non-muslims malays face serious issues of discrimination simply because of their religious beliefs and races. Some of minorities still have ability to success in life, especially chinese.

According to Forbes, more than 40 Chinese dominated out of 50 of Malaysia’s richest people. This problem impacts daily life of non- indigenous people. Abirami Durai, many students and workers have a trouble with finding rooms to rent. Some students spent about 5 months to find a new resident because the homeowners do not want people from other races to be their tenants. The other sustainable aspect that Kuala Lumpur looking for is that decreasing high crime rate. Crimes have been struggled with Kuala Lumpur for a long time. It is such a big trouble for citizen which is difficult to solve. Malaysia ranked number 1 in south east Asia for highest crime rate in 2017 and level of crime in Kuala Lumpur is 73. 71 which considered to be high according to Numbeo. Kuala Lumpur is also ranked as No. 2 on their list of Most Dangerous Cities In Asia according to Worldatlas. com. The main booster that increase the crime rate of Kuala Lumpur to be higher relates to crime in densely-populated areas. According to OSAC The most kind of crimes that occur in the society is petty theft such as stealing items from people’s bags or clothes, car theft smash and grab and burglary. Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Mazlan Lazim revealed that the number of snatch thefts and unarmed robberies are 57% increasing comparing with previous year.

Common targets are men or women who walking alone or with children. Thieves will carry knife and cut victims waist to make them be frightened so they will be able to steal valuable asset from victims easily. Many economist indicated that an increasing number of inequality in society can be the cause of crime. (A. H. Baharom) By receiving income inequality, it might encourage people to commit crime so they can get money to spend on a daily basis. The opinion of Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Mazlan Lazim is that criminals can take whatever they see so, people should be aware of their asset, otherwise the criminals might have opportunities to strike because they are always looking for a chance.

This problem should be considered to be one of factors that obstruct Kuala lumpur from being sustainable. The more crimes happen in society, the less quality of life people have. To reduce the crime rate, government should strengthen the rule and punishment for people who committed crimes. If people still ignore this problem, it is impossible for Kuala Lumpur to be sustainable city.