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“It’s the density, stupid!” – on Kuala Lumpur sprawl
TL;DR: Kuala Lumpur’s problem isn’t simple sprawl. Compared with global peers, KL is unusually compact but still relatively sparse. That means KL has room to grow inward, connect better, and make density liveable. Before I’ve even begun, I’ve alienated many of you with this post’s title.” For my younger readers and those who may have…
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On Hopeful Monsters in the Interregnum
Did Gramsci write “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters” or “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
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What makes Singapore’s public housing system unique?
For Lee Kuan Yew, home ownership = defending one’s homes (and country).
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A Worker Reads and Asks: A poem by Bertolt Brecht
A victory per page. Who cooked the victory feast? A great man per decade. Who paid the bill?
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The ForeSyCat Urban Innovation Framework – Think City’s urban innovation guiding principles
I drafted this ForeSyCat urban innovation framework for my job in my role as the Lead of the newly established Urban Innovation unit at Think City Malaysia. This is a condensed version (Version 1.0) for public circulation. A PDF version can be found on LinkedIn (here). Many of the ideas and frameworks are the work…
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Reality check: Did home ownership among Malaysia’s middle-income (M40) group really fall below the low-income (B40) group?
On 15th January 2026, it was reported that a Rehda Institute representative stated that “home ownership rates among Malaysia’s middle-income M40 group has fallen below the rate of [the] low-income B40 group”. I checked the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) figures to verify this claim.
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3 facts you probably didn’t know from Malaysia’s International Migration Statistics Report
A fun Malaysian fact to end 2025: A grand total of 14 (yes 14!) Malaysian students studied in Singapore in 2023. OK, this fun fact was clickbait, but it is “accurate”. Read on to find out why.
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Moving the needle and connecting the dots – visualising voter swings, seat flips, and vote clusters in Peninsular Malaysia
A Christmas-themed (lol) data visualisation of election results using the festive colours of Pakatan Harapan red and PAS green (representing non-PH votes and seats).
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Malaysia without Greater Kuala Lumpur – 18.4% poorer
TL;DR: Malaysia is highly centralised, centred around the Klang Valley and is more geographically concentrated than Germany, the US, or the UK. Fun fact: Bintulu district in Sarawak has GDP per capita (PPP adjusted) that nears San Francisco levels!
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My 2025 Reading Round-up – 42 books and 53 links
This is a summary of recommendations from my book and online reading in 2025, alongside a few bonus reflections.
Joel Goh
Perfect is the enemy of done. Exercises in shipping.
Joel Goh 