urbanization

Urbanization and urban growth are phenomena of increasing concern to both planners and policy makers alike since trends and patterns of urbanization have wide ranging implications on socio-economic development. During the past decades, both the scale and pattern of urban growth in Malaysia were transformed continuously and with increasing rapidity. Like many other countries, the growth of the urban population in Malaysia was much more rapid than that of the population growth in rural areas. The extent of growth in some urban centres was not just seen within their legal boundaries but had led to a spillover of the population into their peripheries. This situation can be attributed to two factors: firstly, the availability of vast employment opportunities which drew migrants from the rural areas to settle in these peripheries and, secondly, the population moving away from the densely populated urban core centres to settle in the outer limits of their urban boundaries.