Housing crisis: back to a humanistic agenda

Abstract

The main intention of this book is to instil a sense of responsibility to the developers and policymakers as well as create an important awareness to the public about the conditions of our housing estates. We are living in a time bomb or a volcano that has shown ripples of signs of eruption. From issues of children dying of accidents and falling from buildings to health hazards for adults as well as the effects air conditioning might have on community interaction and cultural violations which increase inter–racial tensions, we must re–look at our attitude towards our billion ringgit investment. Malaysia is a country that no longer has a third world infrastructure but can be considered as a modern and up–to–date first world infrastructure. But our housing is still left in the throes of this third world mindset of ‘basic shelter’. We have evolved so far as a nation ironically, our housing attitude has not gone a far. The book presents a series of criticism and thoughts on our housing and community architecture based on a series of articles and seminar papers presented. It is hoped that this book might create a rethinking of the way we live in a radically new way.