How To Make An Attractive City Essay

Tan Yi Hong BEE140030
Synthesize and discuss the implication from the videos in relation to property development in Malaysia
Based on the video “How to make an Attractive City” from Alain de Botton, the six points that he pointed out that makes a city attractive are order and variety, visible life, compact, orientation and mystery, scale and local. Are these six manifesto from De Botton really practicable and applicable in property development in Malaysia?
The first implication is to make a city not too chaotic, not too ordered. De Botton argues that balance, symmetry and repetition like Paris are pleasing to humans but too much order would make the city boring and “feels alien”. Hence, the balancing point is to establish certain restrictions

The assumption that people don’t like living close to one another which cause them to own lands in the suburbs led to isolation, soulless sprawl and wasteful of the environment. However, I argue that people moving out do not create a boring suburbs. For instance, cities like Shah Alam and Putrajaya is not cold, boring and wasteful of the environment. In addition, De Botton says that all of the most beautiful compact cities have human-scaled square where people can gather. I agree to this point where a square for public use is a necessity to make a city attractive. Therefore, Merdeka Squares in Kuala Lumpur and Padang Kota Lama (Penang Esplanade) are what making Malaysia cities more attractive.
The fourth point of the video is orientation and mystery. A city should be easy to navigate for both humans and vehicles, with big boulevards for orientation and warrens of alleyways and small streets to allow us to wander and create a sense of mystery and exploration. Major cities in Malaysia actually do have a balance of small streets and big ones. For example, Penang has small lanes like Armenian Streets, love lane, King Street which are lovely where people can feel cozy and lost in the beauty of the