Johor Bahru's response to transnational and national influences in the emerging Straits Mega-City Region

The ‘reverse bamboo network’: Sociocultural dialectics of China’s FDI in housing (FDIH) in Iskandar Malaysia

“…IM possesses locational advantages that have ensured its vision of internationalisation being part of the historic Singapore–Johor–Riau empire and the connecting link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore (Rizzo and Khan, 2013). This location factor has been instrumental for the most part in its urban development, as manifest in the social, spatial and economic landscape of JB.…”

“…JB and Singapore are only separated by a 1-km sea channel and connected by two bridges, the historic Causeway and the newer Second Link Bridge (Rizzo and Glasson, 2012). These physical connections have allowed JB to capture investments and economic spill-overs from the island nation in the areas of employment opportunities, property and manufacturing (Rizzo and Glasson, 2012; Rizzo and Khan, 2013). Prior to the entry of mainland Chinese developers, the Malaysian Chinese developers, with the strong backing of the state government, also benefited from the Singapore link in terms of demand and higher prices for their residential units from the more affluent Singaporean house buyers, as evidenced by medium- to high-end developments such as Danga Bay (Nasongkhla and Sintusingha, 2013).…”

“…The Federal government allocated approximately USD1.5 billion in various programmes as contained in the Sixth Malaysia Plan (2006–2010) and set up a ‘super developer’ company with the State government to undertake strategic and catalyst developments (Khazanah, 2007). As was the case, the development master plan required a further USD100 billion investment from government-linked companies and FDI to complete the necessary infrastructure (Rizzo and Khan, 2013), amounts that were pursued by investor-friendly institutional support, for instance the facilitative role played by the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (MIDA).…”

“…IM comprises five flagships with different development focuses (see Figure 1). At 2217 km 2 with a population size of about 1.3 million, IM is three times the size of Singapore and encompasses the state capital city of Johor Bahru (JB) and other surrounding areas (Rizzo and Khan, 2013). Its development authority, the Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA), has acknowledged internationalisation as a strategy to bring economic growth in IM.…”

Special Issue 4 : 2016

“…In terms of regional contexts IM will add competitiveness to the region and will benefit significantly from the air and sea linkages within Asia-Pacific countries. According to Rizzo & Khan, 2013, IM will receive wider impact in relation to the zones of influence of the global cities of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The rapid socioeconomic development in IM has brought two major transformations (Bunnell, 2002;Sabri,et al, 2012).…”