A City That Keeps Building, Even as the Cradle Grows Quiet

Preface: Something Quieter This Time

I’ve only written one post so far, and already I find myself slowing down for this second one.

The first was easier. It came with a bit of rhythm, a bit of sarcasm, a city-wide side-eye. But this one feels different. I’m not sure it wants to be witty. Or at least, not too much. The subject sits quieter. Not sad, exactly, but softer. Something you feel more than solve.

So if this post reads a little slower than the last, fewer jokes, more noticing — well, that’s intentional. I’m still thinking through it. Like standing at the edge of something, unsure whether it’s the beginning of change or the end of something we never thought would leave.

It’s about cities, still. And people. And the space between them. But mostly, it’s about the ones who aren’t arriving.

The Familiar Noise

If you live in Kuala Lumpur, the idea of a declining population might feel a bit off.

Malls are busy. Playgrounds are loud. In the evenings, there’s always a toddler screaming somewhere (usually near an escalator). When I pass by schools, I see cars double-parked and kids in matching uniforms dragging oversized backpacks that look heavier than their futures.

People say things like, “There are ten classes just for Standard One,” and it doesn’t sound like a country running out of children. It sounds like we’re overflowing.

But then I read the news.

"Malaysia’s fertility rate falls below 2.0 for the first time." "Malaysians disappearing, or a case of dropping birth rate" "Only 3 states in Malaysia produce enough babies to replace their populations"

And I wonder — maybe what we’re seeing is not the start of something, but the last full chapter. The final swell before the quiet sets in.

The Numbers We Build Against

Planning is an optimistic profession by default. Everything begins with the assumption that the future needs more.

More houses, more roads, more rail lines. Each project lives on a chart that leans upward. But what happens when that curve stops curving?

Malaysia’s fertility rate is now below replacement. It’s not unique — we’re joining the company of Japan, South Korea, China, and most of Europe. The difference is, we haven’t quite caught up to the implications yet. Not in our policy, and certainly not in our buildings.

Cranes still swing. Launches still happen. “Family-friendly” remains a favourite phrase in brochures, even as the shape of the family quietly shifts. We still build three-bedroom homes for families that might never move in. We design for traffic that may never arrive. And we plan as if a child born today will walk through a city designed yesterday, with no friction.

In reality, that child may be one of fewer. And the city may feel slightly too large for them.

In Japan, whole neighbourhoods like Akiya clusters have emerged — areas with empty houses, priced cheaply, often left abandoned because the population simply isn't there to inherit them. Malaysia may not be far behind.

All the Right Ideas, Arriving Slightly Late

Cities are full of good ideas. But in Malaysia, they tend to arrive fashionably late, and sometimes dressed for the wrong occasion.

Walkability, green infrastructure, compact living, mixed-use neighbourhoods—these were all once considered niche, maybe even idealistic. But lately, they’ve found their way into planning conversations, white papers, and glossy public brochures. We talk about sponge cities, urban farming, transit-oriented development, and now, the fifteen-minute city.

These are good ideas. Necessary ones. They speak to something we’ve long felt missing in our cities: a sense of coherence, of dailiness. But the problem is not the concept. The problem is timing.

Malaysian cities were built during an era when growth was a default setting. The planning logic assumed more—more homes, more people, more cars, more lanes. We spread outward because we could. Land was plentiful. Population was rising. The future was big, and the only question was how fast it would arrive.

And now, just as we begin to adopt the language of compactness, slowness, and human scale, the conditions beneath us have shifted. The population curve has softened. Some places are not growing anymore, at least not in the way we expected. And yet, our development patterns continue, almost on autopilot.

The fifteen-minute city, for example, makes perfect sense in theory. It offers a return to nearness—homes near schools, shops near homes, parks near lives. But Malaysian cities weren’t built that way. We separated things—residential here, commercial over there, school somewhere further, and parks wherever land was left over. Now we want to reconnect it all, but we’re stitching fabric that was never designed to be seamless.

Even our zoning tools struggle with this. Mixed-use still feels like a loophole rather than a principle. Public space is drawn into plans, but rarely lived into reality. Our cities have been built to expand, not settle. They know how to launch, but not how to age. We’re better at opening new roads than maintaining old sidewalks.

There’s also a kind of polite denial in the way we plan. We launch homes as if families will come in droves, even though the birth rate says otherwise. We widen roads as if future traffic is inevitable, even though car ownership is slowing among the young. We build schools for tomorrow’s children, even as today’s classrooms begin to thin.

But again, the ideas are not wrong. Perhaps they matter more now than ever. It’s just that the energy behind them has changed. We are no longer planning to catch up with growth. We are planning to hold on to presence. To make what we already have feel more whole.

This shift is subtle, and not always easy to admit. We are a nation raised on expansion.

Slowing down can feel like failure. But maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s something else. A kind of quiet pivot. A moment to ask whether a city built to grow can also learn how to stay still. And still feel alive.

How Ghost Cities Actually Begin

Ghost cities are rarely born from collapse. They don't crumble overnight, nor do they announce their arrival with silence. In fact, they often begin with applause. A ribbon-cutting ceremony. A CGI flythrough. A soft-launch roadshow at the mall.

They begin with optimism. A masterplan. A name. Usually something that includes the words “Residensi,” “Metropolitan,” or “Eco.” And then they wait.

At first, the signs are small. A block that fills up slower than expected. A school built with ten classrooms that opens with three. A playground installed, but rarely used, its slides too clean for too long. The roads are smooth, the streetlights bright, but the shops stay shut. You drive past at night, and the windows are mostly dark. Not eerie — just blank. Like something still waiting.

The place still functions. But something doesn't quite settle.

In Malaysia, ghost cities don’t look like the abandoned shells you see in other parts of the world. Ours are newer. Shinier. Often half-alive. They are projects that remain frozen in anticipation. They were planned when the population curve was still pointing up. When GDP charts guided housing targets, and growth was baked into the modelling software.

Think of Johor’s Forest City. It was once envisioned as a gleaming eco-metropolis for hundreds of thousands, rising from reclaimed land with promises of vertical greenery, smart technologies, and international prestige. Billions were poured into infrastructure: high-rise towers, sparkling waterfronts, lush podium gardens.Yet today, it sits curiously subdued, an architectural mirage of ambition against the reality of sparse residency and geopolitical headwinds. Forest City glows at night, but often without the throb of everyday life.

The curve has bent now. Our spreadsheets have not caught up.

This is not just about unoccupied units. It is about the dissonance between how we imagine cities and how they are actually lived. A school built in anticipation of young families ends up merged with another. A clinic quietly reduces its operating hours. The bus comes, but no one boards.

And yet, we continue. Not because we believe the crowd is still coming, but because there’s no clear instruction on what to do when they don’t. Our planning system doesn’t have a setting for “pause.” It knows how to expand. It knows how to rezone, incentivise, densify. But what does it mean to build in a city that has stopped growing, or is growing only at the edges while the centre quietly thins?

Often, the ghosting isn’t even physical. It’s emotional. A city starts to feel hollow before it looks hollow. The sense of purpose loosens. A place built for 10,000 feels off when only 4,000 live there — not because the buildings don’t work, but because the scale whispers something it can’t quite explain.

You see it in some of the newer townships — well-paved, well-lit, well-promoted. But oddly still. They look like postcards, yet something about them feels like they’re waiting for life to start. For a while, they become investment assets. Units bought, not lived in. Streets driven through, not walked on. And eventually, their presence in planning documents outpaces their presence on the ground.

But this isn’t failure. Not yet. It’s just the lag.

It’s the echo of planning that ran ahead of reality. It’s what happens when we mistake construction for community. When we assume that infrastructure alone will summon life, and that demand will always rise to meet supply.

Ghost cities do not begin with emptiness. They begin with assumption. And they persist because no one wants to admit the story changed.

Not a Crisis. Just a Change in Rhythm.

This isn’t a warning. This isn’t even an argument.

It’s more like standing at the shore, watching the tide pull back. There’s no panic. No urgency. Just a sense that something old is retreating, and something else is being left behind.

Maybe the strollers in malls, the crowded classrooms, the noise — they’re still real. But maybe they are also the end of something. The last wave before the shoreline smooths out.

Urban planning is used to future-proofing. But maybe the future we’re planning for has changed shape. Maybe it’s time we plan not for expansion, but for attention. Not for more, but for meaning.

The City Is Still Here. The Question Is Who It’s Waiting For.

Who are we building for now?

If the answer is no longer families, no longer growth, then maybe it’s time to shift what we value. A smaller city doesn’t have to be a sad one. A quieter neighbourhood doesn’t mean a lifeless one.

But it does mean we have to listen differently. We have to learn to hear the silence, not fill it. And maybe, for once, stop before we build again.

Because the city is still here. But it may not be growing anymore.

And that changes everything.