A building project is not merely about keeping below a certain number of units per acre. It is also about airflow, green spaces, traffic congestion and public transport. Development is too serious an issue to be left solely to developers.
I WOULD LIKE to touch on the issue of the type of development towards which Penang, in particular Penang Island, is headed.
Let me begin with an anecdote. Recently, I had dinner with Ramesh Chander who was chief statistician in the Department of Statistics of Malaysia in the 1970s before he went to work for the World Bank and became an advisor to many countries in setting up their statistics departments. He was here on a visit from Washington DC to advise SERI, now Penang Institute, on improving its data collection. He said that the last time he came to Penang was about three to four years ago, and the thing that struck him most this time was the enormous number of high-rise buildings all over Penang Island. He is not the only one to have said this. Many other visitors have observed the same thing. And he continued that he fears we are heading towards a housing and construction bubble.
