A comparative study of smart city initiatives in Malaysia: Putrajaya and Iskandar Puteri

Abstract

The Smart City concept has grown exponentially and is rapidly accepted by wider international communities and developed countries. Smart City implementation may lead to a high-quality, more resilient, liveable and sustainable development for a nation. Malaysia's urban population will increase from 74.3% in 2015 to 79.6% in 2025. By 2040, Malaysia is expected to reach 84% of the urbanisation rate. In managing and solving daily urban issues (e.g., congestion, energy, crime, pollution, waste management, etc.), urban planners are searching for implementing Smart Cities as a primary solution. This study aims to investigate two (2) cities’ experiences in implementing these initiatives, namely, Putrajaya and Iskandar Puteri. Both cities act as administrative centres at the national and state levels. Since established in 1995, Putrajaya promoted as the 'Garden City' and 'Intelligent City'. This is followed by the new administrative city of Johor State, Iskandar Puteri (previously known as Nusajaya), officiated in 2009 in the Southern part of Peninsular Malaysia. Both cities introduced their own Smart City blueprint, with 93 strategies in the Putrajaya Smart City Blueprint (2018), and 28 in Smart City Iskandar Malaysia (2012). By comparing the Smart City strategies or initiatives in both areas, this study concludes that Putrajaya’s strategies are more focused on micro-city-level implementation. Iskandar Puteri (in Iskandar Malaysia Development Region) has a brief and wider context at the regional level (macro). In both cities, there are still no clear measurement methods or indicators that can assess the achievement of Smart City initiatives implemented at the local level.