People's engagement with public open spaces is complex and affected by different factors.The importance of people's needs differs according to their age groups. In this respect, what this article aims to unveil is the priority of needs in public open spaces across age groups. A self-administered questionnaire survey collected the opinions of 400 people aged 13 years and above using the time-interval sampling method. The results revealed that the strongest inverse relationship existed between age and social needs. This illustrated that old people are less likely to carry out social interaction with other groups or to explore public open spaces compared to younger people. In turn, old people are more concerned about their physical and environmental needs. Exploring the dichotomies between the needs of old and young people highlights the intergenerational conflicts that challenge urban designers and decision makers to ameliorate the design and management of future public open spaces. URBAN DESIGN International (2015) 20, 93-106.

In 2001, the Town and Country Planning Act 1976 (Act 172) was amended through Act A1129 (2001). The amendments included provisions to allow four levels of government involvement (Federal, Regional, State and Local Authority) in spatial planning, with the intention of establishing a more effective development plan system in Malaysia. However, an assessment of the relationship between legislative provision and the implementation of development planning is urgently required to consider a number of issues, including delays in adopting plans and the continued existence of out of date plans. Therefore, this paper discusses issues and problems encountered by selected local planning authorities in the implementation of the development planning system. The discussion focuses on the capacity and capability of these authorities with regard to legal aspects, administration, finance, human resource issues and technical support. The data were obtained through mixed methods i.e. postal surveys, interviews with representatives from selected local authorities and focus group discussions with selected professional town planners. The findings demonstrate that most of the issues and problems encountered in implementing the development plan system at each plan level in Malaysia are legal in origin.

Home ownership for the urban poor poses a major challenge to metropolitan management and urban governance. The key aim of this study is to determine the role of the state in providing the opportunity for the urban poor to become home owners. Secondly, it also seeks to examine the level of sustainable owner-occupation amongst the urban poor given the opportunity to enter into homeownership. Drawing upon a case study of low-income housing in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur the study establishes that for many decades the governance of Kuala Lumpur has played an active role in designing and implementing a wide range of housing policies to house the low-income groups. The study argued that the establishment of strong institutional capacity is vital towards successful implementation of urban poor housing programs. Further insights into the level of sustainable owner-occupation amongst the households of low-income housing project confirm that the state has been successful in providing decent and affordable housing to its urban poor.

Town planning is seen to have imposed some degree of constraint on housing development and is discussed in a voluminous literature on the relationship between the planning system and housing land supply. The constraints are believed to have partly contributed to the increase in housing production costs leading to a mismatch between housing supply and demand. Since the government has entrusted the private sector to play an important and bigger role to meet housing needs, local planning authorities and planners should be more cautious in fulfilling their role in housing development. This paper attempts to raise some pivotal aspects of town planning that relate to the problems associated with housing land development in West Malaysia. The primary data was gathered through personal interviews with selected housing developers and analyzed using the factor analysis tool in SPSS. The result of the analysis shows that several aspects of town planning are strongly correlated with development plans and development control factors particularly on land identified for housing, layout planapproval and complying with planning standards.

This paper presents the role of fabric banners as a communication medium for community engagement, which would be the relevant communication medium for public participation in the development plan process. Discussions are based on findings from a study conducted in Subang Jaya-USJ, Selangor where the main objective was to evaluate the relevance of fabric banners as a communication medium in eliciting public participation in community engagements. The study was within a theoretical framework that links community engagement, urban way of life and the Media Richness Theory. Primary data were collected through self-administered survey under the purposive sampling method and in-depth interviews involving 100 local residents of Subang Jaya-USJ. Findings demonstrated that fabric banners are still relevant and functioning as an effective communication medium in community engagement, particularly in Subang Jaya-USJ. Thus, this type of communication medium should be seriously considered in town planning public participation process.