For decades, the weekend night market was the heart of Kampong Bharu. The people of this ethnic Malay enclave would wander through the stalls, catch up on the local gossip and settle in front of the stage to watch a dance or a shadow puppet performance. It was a world apart from the march of glass-walled skyscrapers across the rest of Kuala Lumpur.

But in 2014 the stage, along with the simple homes around it, were razed to the ground.



“When I was a child I loved this place,” says Maizan Ariff, 43, who grew up in Kampong Bharu. He still lives there, but has seen many of his neighbours forcibly moved to apartments on the city’s outskirts. “I’d go over to the weekend market and there were so many things to do. I could see wayang kulit (shadow puppets) and dancing. It was so lively and there was such a community spirit.”

Kampong Bharu is a village seemingly dropped into the centre of Malaysia’s capital. Life here is lived not in the air-conditioned, glass-walled towers of the modern city but on the streets, among family and community. But those skyscrapers now surround Kampong Bharu, dwarfing the traditional houses and looming over the corrugated roofs and gardens of banana trees and frangipani. The village’s borders are no longer defined by the river in which children once swam but by a tangle of elevated highways. The centre of the modern city – Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) and the iconic Petronas Twin Towers, the symbol of Malaysia’s ambition – is just a kilometre away.

Now, with the night market demolished in order to build a high-rise complex of offices, luxury apartments and a shopping mall, locals are worried that Kampong Bharu can only hold out so long.

The Petronas Twin Towers dominate Kuala Lumpur’s skyline. Photograph: Bob Strong/Reuters

For the officials championing Kampong Bharu’s redevelopment, the razing of the market is just the first step in the area’s transformation into a inner-city suburb worthy of a 21st-century capital.

“Considering it’s right in the centre of Kuala Lumpur, Kampong Bharu lags behind in many aspects,” says Affendi Zahari, chairman of Kampong Bharu Development Corporation (PKB), the government agency that was established five years ago to lead the transformation. “Development is the only way forward.”

Locals know they can't fight the tide. Now the only question is, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Dollars and cents Affendi Zahari

You can see PKB’s vision on the posters that adorn the walls of their conference room. There will be a cluster of curtain-walled condominiums, futuristic office towers and hotels; a manmade lake and park; and a pedestrian bridge, inspired by New York’s High Line, to connect the neighbourhood to the city centre.

A “Manhattan city” is how Shamsuri Suradi of the Malay Agriculture Settlement, a body set up in colonial times to oversee the area but now largely superseded by PKB, describes this new vision. “We want development with a soul. That’s important.”

Kampong Bharu originated more than 100 years ago as a home for the native Malays. At the time, Kuala Lumpur – part of the British-ruled Federated Malay States – was a rough and ready mining town, prone to floods, violence and fire. Even today, Malays are the only ones allowed to own or lease land in the neighbourhood. It is a situation, coupled with its status as agricultural land, that keeps prices significantly lower than in the rest of the city centre – and feeds landowners’ anxiety about developers on the hunt for an easy profit.

Tourists pose for a photo outside one of Kampong Bharu’s historic houses. Photograph: Kate Mayberry/The Guardian

Johari Abas’s family home is surrounded by a garden of palms and tropical plants. He renovated and modernised the traditional house in 1990, even building a swimming pool in the garden, with the hope of inspiring other landowners to do the same. It didn’t happen.

“In my younger days, there were so many beautiful houses,” the 67-year-old recalls over coffee in his living room. “At Ramadan everyone would have decorations, there would be kerosene lamps, the whole place was like a fairyland. But what kind of living is this? Is it a kampung [traditional village] life? I’m lucky to be in a position where I can maintain this place, but I don’t think I can do it anymore. Look at the surroundings. I’m definitely feeling the pressure.”

There are around 5,000 plots of land in the 90-hectare village, but only about 30% of the families with deeds still live here. Many houses have been converted into shops or restaurants, or simply left to decay. But those who remain feel an abiding connection to their village, one that is bound up in Malay customs that emphasise community spirit and respect for elders.

Zainal Abidin. Photograph: Kate Mayberry/The Guardian

“In other parts of the world, that area could be destroyed within a year, but here it takes so long – and seems almost impossible,” says Norsidah Ujang, an associate professor at Universiti Putra Malaysia, who spent two months living in the neighbourhood as part of her research into the proposed redevelopment. “They don’t just live there. They are emotionally and spiritually attached to the place.”

Malaysians visit Kampong Bharu to eat and stock up on Malay delicacies, and during the Muslim fasting month, thousands queue at the mosque to collect a portion of its renowned bubur, a local porridge dish. Foreign tourists have also discovered the neighbourhood through the walking tours that give an insight into its past (it was here that the first stirrings of independence were felt) and its future.

Near the mosque, itself recently rebuilt, is the home of 76-year-old Zainal Abidin. Painted yellow and raised on stilts to keep cool in the tropical heat, the century-old building looks across a busy road to a towering 40-storey apartment and hotel complex that is nearing completion. Abidin is struggling to comprehend the changes that have taken place, and is wary of further development.

“I’m not very happy about it,” he says softly. “This is a traditional kampung. It’s the only one left. If you take it away, what do you have left?”

The authorities insist they intend to preserve the past, saying they have catalogued 12 historical houses worth saving. They intend to group them together in a heritage village, but have yet to settle on an appropriate site.

“It’s fake,” says Shamsuri of the proposal. “These are people’s houses. They want to build everything new. They never think about the people or the past.”

Shamsuri pulls out yellowing handwritten records documenting the ownership of each plot, passed down and divided, according to Muslim law, from each generation to the next. In some cases, a single plot now has scores of owners. It’s a complex web of ownership that will only get more labyrinthine as the years progress.

Kuala Lumpur’s famous Petronas Towers are just a kilometre from Kampong Bharu. Photograph: Kate Mayberry/The Guardian

The 2014 masterplan was greeted with uproar, even though PKB held forums with the villagers as it was drafted. Over the past two years, the agency has held more than 400 more meetings and insists the landowners have been won over. “With my hand on my heart, there doesn’t seem to be the level of opposition there was,” Affendi says. “It’s only a question of, ‘If I partake, what’s in it for me?’ It’s the dollars and cents. They know they cannot fight the tide of development.”



The lake, which would have submerged much of the village centre, has now been dropped, and attention focused on a 16-hectare site between the market and the mosque that will be known as Kampong Bharu City Centre. Officials also seem to have abandoned a plan for landowners to transfer their rights to a special development company, instead giving them the freedom to manage the development themselves. There are also promises of providing affordable housing for those who are displaced.

Former village chief Mashuti Mat Soom set up a trust last year with some fellow landowners to develop their plots.

“Our purpose is to help the landowners get the best deal possible so they can reap the benefit for their family and the next generation,” Mashuti says. He believes his approach can be a model for others to follow.

But for others, Kampong Bharu retains a special place in their hearts: it’s not just where they live but an expression of who they are. They are suspicious of plans from outside, and want more balanced development that preserves the intimacy of the neighbourhood and maintains its unique heritage.

“I’ve seen [the plan] but I don’t really like it,” says Shahrom Sidek, 53, taking a break from trimming the lush bougainvillea spilling over his garden fence as his daughter cycles up and down the street like generations before her. “I don’t want to develop. All around is already developed. Why not keep it as it is?”

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