New towns
The primary function of Third World new towns has been as a catalyst for regional development
most evident in the construction of new capital cities, such as Brasilia. The other traditional function of British new towns, decongestion of crowded urban areas, has received less emphasis. A major problem has been that most Third World new towns have been located too close to the major city to act as counter-magnets for either migrants or existing urban populations. The result has been to reduce the new towns to dormitory suburbs for middle-class residents. In Malaysia the new town of Petaling Jaya, 6 miles (10km) south-west of Kuala Lumpur, was designed to be a satellite city of 70,000 linked with the redevelopment of squatter areas in the central city. Following independence in 1957, growing demand for middle- and upper-income
housing fuelled speculative developments in the new town. Petaling Jaya is now an overwhelmingly
middle-class suburb from which white-collar residents commute to office jobs in the city, passing enroute blue-collar workers from Kuala Lumpur travelling to take up industrial jobs in the 'new town'.