INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE 4 : PLANNING MALAYSIA JOURNAL

This issue of Planning Malaysia Journal includes a mixture of articles addressing various issues in contemporary urban planning. Article 1 raises the question of whether green initiatives in educational institutions, especially universities, were successful in producing green graduates. A survey among green and non-green universities students showed that there is no significant difference in the level of perception, attitude and responsible environmental behaviour between green and non-green universities graduates. Thus, it suggests that students’ involvement in universities’ green initiatives should be increased.Article 2 discusses the impacts of street urban design on the perceived safety by women respondents. As women’s role in the cities becoming more pronounced, the authors suggest that streets and urban design should consider the safety of women so that street can become a safe and highly utilised public space. Article 3 looks at the factors affecting house prices in Malaysia in order to determine the alternative benchmark for Islamic home financing scheme. It shows that house price index are influenced by economic growth, demand for housing loan and construction materials. Article 4, in the meantime, compares the Islamic home financing schemes on offer in Malaysia nowadays, and suggest that there is a need for banks to move on from the Al-Bay Bithaman Ajil to Musharakah Mutanaqisah Partnership housing financing scheme.Article 5 looks how innovative management of natural resources leads to increased participation of the local community and improved revenue for rural businesses. These, in turn, motivates local stakeholders to continue preserving the resources. Article 6 examines the practices regarding food waste management in hotels in Langkawi. It found that there was a lack of emphasis from the hotels on their policy related to wastage of food and unsustainable food consumption pattern by their guests. This reflects on the lack of practices towards sustainable food waste management by the hotel sector.Article 7 identifies changes and threats to Malay landscape preservation in traditional Malays houses in Melaka and Kelantan. It concludes that threats to such preservation include inappropriate use of garden space, problems regarding house ownership, inadequate fund for maintenance, and current development trend that leads to traditional Malay garden setting being replaced by modern setting.Article 8 discusses the use of agroforestry approach to improve sustainability of oil palm smallholdings. Rapid development and expansion of natural forest into oil palm land has decreased the agricultural sustainability of Malaysian oil palm production. However, the article shows that sustainability of oil palm smallholdings can be improved through agroforestry, which at the same time was found to also improve income of the smallholders.