Affordable housing and public administration of a historic city: the perspective of a local community in a UNESCO World Heritage Site, George Town, Penang State of Malaysia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Urbanization process accelerates the economic growth of cities through offering economies of scale in productivity and public investment. It is a monumental responsibility for an urban government to ensure socially inclusive public administration to warrant the city’s sustainability, historic cities notwithstanding. George Town together with Melaka, has been inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) in 2008. As a joint UNESCO inscription, George Town World Heritage Site (GTWHS) which has a high proportion of formerly controlled rental housing, and is noteworthy for its multicultural community has witnessed significant gentrification. Gentrification, the repeal of Control of Rent Act, and the inscription of GTWHS have led to house price and rental hike. Generally, this study aims to investigate if there is a research gap pertaining affordable housing in WHS via literature search. Specifically, it seeks to examine housing affordability issues of GTWHS from the perspective of local communities. The findings demonstrate that affordable housing issues and its public administration are very much understudied in GTWHS. The majority of the study’s respondents perceived rentals in GTWHS as “Unaffordable,” and none of the 318-surveyed respondents has been engaged by the government on affordable housing issues. The article ends with a discussion of implications of the study’s findings.