SYNOPSIS

Petaling Jaya and Shah Alam were new towns built by the state-owned agency PKNS in 1950s and 1960s respectively. Since 1970s, Malaysia appeared to have adopted neoliberalism policies and housing development was left largely to private enterprises. In 2004-2016 serious price hike occurred and middle-income earners found affordable housing beyond them. The paper examines the role of free-market as promoted by the neoliberalists, and the critics of neoliberalists who promoted government in economic development. The paper concludes that the government ought to play a major role in affordable housing provision to meet the demand of M40.


BIODATA OF SPEAKER

Ir. Dr Wang graduated in Civil Engineering (National University Singapore), earned two Masters degrees, Master in Business (University of Newcastle, Australia), and Master in Real Estate (University Malaya). In 2013 he obtained Ph. D (University Malaya) in Urban Land Economics.

He is a Fellow of IEM, a registered Professional Engineer, a Member of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, United Kingdom, and Honorary Fellow, Asian Federation Engineering Organization.

Ir. Dr Wang spent 31 years working in the property industry. He turned around three companies. From 2014-2020 he joined TARUC as their Principal Lecturer, and retired in 11 June 2020.