Preliminary assessment of the impact of the National Housing Policy on the housing sector in Kuala Lumpur

Public policy making is a full action plan resulting from systematic collaborations of politicians, bureaucracts, the mass media, interest groups and other actors involved either directly or indirectly in the decision making process of a public policy. Malaysia’s National Housing Policy (DRN) outlines the direction and foundation in the planning and development of of the nations’s housing sector at the federal, state and local levels. Based on the findings of field research this article explains the long term geopolitics, geo-economics and geosocial impact of the DRN on the development of a housing in Kuala Lumpur. It was found that the DRN which encourages rapid development of the housing sector had influenced the geopolitical distribution of voting rights and thus the election results by locality. It was also found that the DRN had strengthened local geo-economics with rising standards of living, purchasing power and product market. Finally, in geosocial terms, the DRN had enhanced the social facilities of local community and neighbourhood helping it to cope better with population increase, social security, solidarity and safety.