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Petaling Jaya

City in Selangor, Malaysia

  • 18 min read
  • 15 chapters
Skyline of Section 17, Damansara Uptown and the other neighbourhoods of northern Petaling Jaya at sunrise.
Slleong · CC0

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Through Satellite city and Municipality

Petaling Jaya is surrounded by Kuala Lumpur to the east, Sungai Buloh to the north, Shah Alam, the capital of Selangor, and Subang Jaya to the west, and Bandar Kinrara (Puchong) to the south.

History

Under plans developed by Francis McWilliams, the city was developed during post-war British Malaya on a 1,200-acre (486 ha) rubber estate, the Effingham Estate, around Old Klang Road to address the overpopulation of the capital Kuala Lumpur in the 1950s. Since 1952, PJ witnessed a dramatic growth in terms of population size and geographical importance. The development of Petaling Jaya commenced in 1952 with the construction of 800 houses centred on the area known as "Old Town" today.

Lieutenant-General Sir Gerald Templer (then the British High Commissioner of Malaya and Petaling District council chairman) planned for Petaling Jaya to be a satellite town to prevent people from assisting the communists; the earlier housing areas were fenced off from the surrounding area. The first two main roads built in Petaling Jaya were simply called "Jalan 1" or Road 1 and "Jalan 2" or Road 2. Road 1 was later named Jalan Templer after former British High Commissioner in Malaya, Sir Gerald Templer, while Road 2 was named Jalan Othman.

Until the end of 1953, the town was administered by the Kuala Lumpur district officer. The Petaling Jaya Town Authority headed by N.A.J. Kennedy commenced administering Petaling Jaya in 1954. On 24 August 1959, Encik Abdul Aziz bin Haji Mohd Ali became the first Malayan to head the PJ Authority. Administratively and historically, it was considered part of Kuala Lumpur. However, Petaling Jaya ceased to be part of Kuala Lumpur when the latter became a Federal Territory on 1 February 1974. It then became a township in its own right within the state of Selangor.

Petaling Garden Berhad was the pioneer private development company, responsible for the development of some areas of Petaling Jaya. It was started in 1957 by a group of Chinese businessmen including Ang Toon Chew, Robert Kuok, Tan Kim Yeow, Tan Chin Nam, Ho Yeow Khoon and Low Boon Chian. The company went on to develop thousands of acres in Petaling Jaya more specifically, Section 5, 6 and 17, to become the townships Taman Petaling Klang and Sri Petaling to name a few. Petaling Garden was brought to the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange and became one of the first publicly listed Property Development Companies in Malaysia. The company was bought over by Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) in the year 2007, it was valued at RM 964 million at time of purchase.

Southern Petaling Jaya, from Section 8 to PJ Old Town, had the first settlements that were established around 1953. Across the Federal Highway in the 1950s, Northern Petaling Jaya was further developed with industrial lots. The first shopping complex in Petaling Jaya was Jaya Shopping Centre (better known as Jaya Supermarket). Built in 1974, it is located in Section 14.

On 1 January 1977, following the passing of the Local Government Act the previous year, the Petaling Jaya Town Authority was reorganised to become Petaling Jaya Municipal Council or Majlis Perbandaran Petaling Jaya (MPPJ). Petaling Jaya progressed rapidly due to the massive rural-urban migration. As more people from rural areas immigrated, Sungai Way and Subang districts along with areas such as Subang Jaya, Seksyen 52 (New Town or colloquially known as "State", the name of the first, former cinema in the area) developed in areas under the jurisdiction of the municipality.

Following a boundary realignment exercise in January 1997, parts of Petaling Jaya including Subang Jaya, USJ, Putra Heights, and Bandar Sunway were ceded to the newly formed Subang Jaya Municipal Council or MPSJ at the time. In exchange, the MPPJ annexed Bandar Utama, Sungai Buloh, Bukit Lanjan, and Kota Damansara from the Petaling District Council (Majlis Daerah Petaling, MDP), which disestablished itself after the cession.

Due to the proximity of the city to the capital of Malaysia, Petaling Jaya had and have been the headquarters of many federal government departments such as the Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara (National Registration Department, 1958–2004), the Jabatan Arkib Negara Malaysia (Malaysian National Archive Department, 1961–1982), and the Jabatan Kimia Malaysia (Malaysian Chemistry Department, 1957–).

COVID-19 pandemic

In 2020, the city was part of the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, or the movement control order (MCO), where residents were confined to their homes and only allowed out for essential purposes.

On 27 April, the market in the city's oldest quarter, Old Town, was shut down after a seafood trader there tested positive for the virus, prompting health authorities to call for customers to get themselves screened.

Less than two weeks later, large parts of Old Town came under a full government lockdown on 10 May after the discovery of 26 COVID-19 cases from the market area. Over 2,900 people in the quarter were fenced in and prevented from leaving the area, as authorities cordoned off 40ha of the area with barbed wire from the rest of the city. Scheduled to last until 23 May, the lockdown was eventually lifted on 21 May.

After a lull in cases thanks to a nationwide lifting of restrictions, the city began to see a rise in cases in October following a spike in virus infections after infections rose in the eastern state of Sabah, where elections were held in September.

Over 800 people working at the Tropicana Golf and Country Resort were barred from leaving their hostel, as authorities put the compound under a total lockdown. Five people there tested positive for COVID-19, including two who had just returned from the eastern state of Sabah.

In the first two weeks of the month, at least four malls in the city reported COVID-19 infections. This included the 1Utama shopping mall, which was ordered to close for seven days from 12 October.

Meanwhile, a teacher at the Taman Sea secondary school also tested positive for the virus on 7 October, leading students and staff members there to self-quarantine. A few days later, education authorities in the country ordered 298 schools in Selangor state's Petaling district, which include Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam and Subang Jaya, to shut down from 12 October to 25 October as COVID-19 cases in the country rose.

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