By Rohana Mustaffa
This is the second feature from a series of three on urban development.
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 24 (Bernama) -- When Shah Alam was adjudged the most sustainable town inconjunction with the recent World Town Planning Day celebration, the spotlight fell on the criteria that made the city to be accorded the recognition.
Shah Alam, the state capital of Selangor, was among the 46 towns assessed and found to be the town that exhibit the highest level of sustainability based on 56 indicators in 11 sectors -- demography, housing, economy, utility and infrastructure, public facility, environment, sociology and social impact, landuse, tourism and heritage, transportation and accessibility, management and finance.
The indicators were developed by the Town and Country Planning Department and named the Malaysian Urban Indicators Network (MURNInet). The objective of MURNInet is to determine the level of sustainability for each town in the country.
Its main aim is to identify the strength and weaknesses of each town according to these indicators.
The MURNInet application system was created based on a computer network designed to analyse the present urban conditions, effects of development, survey temporal changes and formulate sustainable urban scenarios for the future based on fixed standards.
OPPORTUNITY FOR IMPROVEMENT
MURNInet is to suggest the opportunity for improvement in order to upgrade the level of sustainability.
Specifically, MURNInet aims to gauge the progress made by a town towards meeting sustainable development, drawing attention to the development predicament faced by a town and clarify the environmental features complementing the direction towards sustainable development.
MURNInet, while identifying specific issues that needed to be resolved in a town, also recognises the relevant agencies that can provide collaboration and assistance towards achieving the objectives of a sustainable town apart from drawing the attention on the need to reinforce the capacity building on data and statistic collection.
The sustainability of Shah Alam and other towns under the MURNInet is gauged in terms of the demography such as population density, average annual population growth, median age and average household size.
SUSTAINABLE TOWN INDICATORS
For the housing sector, the indicator is the housing price to income ratio, housing rental ratio against income, individual floor space ratio and percentage of non-selling housing stock.
MURNInet measures the economic sector of a town via indicators such as the unemployment rate, job growth rate and others.
Meanwhile, the total daily garbage collection and doctors to the population ratio are indicators for the utility and infrastruture sector while the indicator for environment sector involves the number of asthma cases per 10,000 population and air quality index.
The social impact in Shah Alam for example is measured through indicators like the crime index per 10,000 population and divorce rate per 1,000 population.
And of course the transportation sector involves indicators like the quality level of public bus services and percentage of public bus users.
WHO BENEFITS FROM MURNInet?
MURNInet gives significance to the federal and state governments in evaluating the appropriate financial assistance for a town that exhibits unsustainability and to improve services to the public.
The indicators of MURNInet can be made as basic evaluation to upgrade an urban area's status and urban indicators can be made as measurement for the government to channel investments.
For the local authorities, MURNInet indicators can be used to identify problems, urban quality issues and addressing those issues, to improve service levels to the public and to provide feedback to national integrity plan target.
With the presence of MURNInet to measure the service level, facilities level in an urban area or local authority, it shows the government is sensitive with the problems and improve the service and provides allocation to resolve the problems faced by the residents.
IMPLEMENTATION
The implemnetation of MURNInet is crucial for a town to have the basic data for sustainability indicators.
The other significance of MURNInet is identifying and measuring the level of a town's issues and quality, can act on issues that represented the unsustainable indicators and the basic data can systematically stored and easily retrieved.
MURNInet allows the City State Report to submit the findings as well as proposals for quality and sustainable town development.
The criterion for MURNInet urban indicators is actually applicable for all urban hierarchy and size, measureable through data collected at local or district level and the data is readily gathered and cost effective to collect them.
The indicators given by MURNInet are also easily measurable and the data is able to show the magnitude of the problem. The benchmarking is based on international standard, national standard, technical departments guidelines and pilot study and continuing programme.
PILOT PROJECT
MURNInet utilises three measurements on sustainability where the town that gets the score of 80 per cent and above is categorised as sustainable, the score between 50 and 80 per cent is considered under the moderate category while the town with the score lower than 50 per cent is categorised as having unsustainable development.
The pilot project for MURNInet was implemented in six towns -- Kuching, Georgetown, Batu Pahat, Pasir Mas, Kuantan and Johor Baharu. The monitoring was expanded to eight more towns in 2004.
As of June this year, the programme was implemented in 75 local authorities and the monitoring was done every six months with the naming of the most sustainable town done once a year.
MURNInet differs from other 'markers' in Malaysia as it comprises 11 components of town planning that covers up to 56 indicators, uses a computerised system to produce results, automatically, fast and accurate and the sustainability of a town is measured based on the stipulated high standards.
The website for MURNInet is at http://www.townplan.gov.my/murninet. Overall, its function is to complement the implementation of the sustainable town indicators and its findings asisted in town development planning apart from providing the reference centre and information retrieval related to sustainable town study projects.
MURNInet also provide various modules on the integrated basis to help the various parties including the local authorities to compile data on making the decision at the town planning level.
-- BERNAMA
