The Urban Green Space Provision Using The Standards Approach: Issues And Challenges Of Its Implementation In Malaysia

Standards approach is conventionally used to attain consistency and certainty in urban green space planning. It has been widely used in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia since 1920. However, in 1970s, the standards approach received wide criticism and some questioned the relevancy of the approach in high density cities. Most of the local authorities that faced development pressures often failed to achieve the standards due to limited urban spaces and land scarcity. In Malaysia, the National Urbanization Policy has set the standards of 2 hectares per 1000 population by the year 2020. However, due to high urbanization rate and increased densification, some cities, particularly Kuala Lumpur and Penang, are facing difficulties in achieving the target specified in the policy. Therefore, this paper attempts to review the broad literature on the implementation of urban green space provision using the standards approach, the issues and challenges of its implementation in urban green space planning from Malaysian perspectives.