Intan Syuhana Azizuddin bt Sahaimi Toturial Discussion - 2

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The legacies of colonialism were important for later development in Malaysia. What are the legacies of colonialism and how have these influenced the development of Malaysia cities. The legacies of colonialism, can defined as the use of violence along with the strategy to divide and conquer, as the means of terrorizing and undermining resistance among the people inhabiting lands considered valuable by the colonial powers. Structures and institutions of economic enslavement, and the exploitation of natural resources, which were both initiated during the era of conquest and colonization, also have their contemporary manifestations. How have these influenced the development of Malaysia cities is when British colonialism helped found a modern urban system in Malaysia. Although one of the countrys historical cities, Melaka, grew into a centre of world commerce in the fifteenth-early sixteenth century, this city-state failed to provide the impetus for traditional system of urban centres. The urban centres set up by the British provided basic commercial, financial, social and administrative functions to strengthen and further the cause of British colonial exploits in the country. Port towns along the coast, resource based towns in the main tin mining areas in the Kinta and Klang valley and rubber growing areas, and administrative centres grew mainly by immigration of Chinese from China and Indians from India for several decades in the presecond world war years. Urban growth after the war was sustained by internal natural population increase in the absence of the new international immigration. The increase was due in part to rural to urban migrations, albeit small in number due to the limited urban opportunities for work, and largely to relocation of some 573,000 people, mainly Chinese, in scattered rural areas into new villages during the Emergency period (1948-1960) which were often counted as new urban centres in previous urban research in Malaysia. At least three significant points emerge of urban growth and development during colonial period. First, these urban centres provide systems of urban centres for the independent government to utilise its development strategy for the country. Second, these urban centres left legacy of an internal physical urban structure that required much attention to planning in order to make urban centres in line with the demand of contemporary urban living. Third, the colonial internal urban social mosaic that tended to segregate the main ethic groups into different areas of the individual urban centre doing clearly differentiated work required policies, strategies and programmes to

deconstruct it in order to make the urban centres more sustainable according to contemporary requirements.