WHAT was imperceptible is now perceptible. Internal migration in Malaysia is in reverse gear. When it first started, perhaps in the 1980s, it was an imperceptible move away from Kuala Lumpur to Seremban.
Later, it grew into an all-city phenomenon. If in the past many left the rural hinterland for opportunities-rich cities like Kuala Lumpur, now internal migration is in reverse gear. The narratives are about push-and-pull factors and others in between. Man can only take the concrete curse up to a point.
That point — when boon turns into bane — appears to have arrived for many. Consider one critical push factor: housing. Cities and other look-alikes are running out of space, and are heading skywards. The walk-up three- or four-floor flats and condominiums are a thing of the 1970s. Today, they are too many floors too high. And that is too dizzy for living.
And their prices — for rent or purchase — seem to have a correlation with their height. In short, exorbitantly unaffordable. By the way, Kuala Lumpur, a close proxy for all major cities in the country, is the 32nd most expensive city in Asia for expatriates. Imagine how expensive it is for low-wage Malaysians?
Malaysians — generally speaking — are a family type. We hanker after family attachments — a pull factor — even after migrating for work some hundreds of kilometers from home. This longing heightens when the family grows. Call it "the grandma and grandpa" effect. They are the best child minders.
No contest here. The cities aren't made for family living. Try hiring a replica grandma in the city to look after your child. Your child will have a child before you find one.
Initially, annual balik kampung (loosely translated, homeward bound) trips during festivals were enough, but as the cities became compact, a permanent breath of home air became necessary. Other factors — neither push nor pull — are helping to reverse the flow of internal migration in the country. One such is the increasingly improving public transport network.
Buses and trains are making daily trips from home to work and back possible. But long commutes come with a price: a toll on physical and mental health. Such daily trips make an eight-hour sleep impossible. All troubles start from here. A body that doesn't rest well, won't have the time to heal its injured cells. Unhealed cells mean death.
So what do policymakers do? Make reverse migration illegal? That would be foolish in more ways than one. If rural-to-urban migration is legal, then so must the reverse be. Build cities in all the rural areas? This would mean not understanding the reasons for the reverse migration.
Malaysians are moving away from cities, not to them. There is a misconception among some policymakers that rural means poverty. Make rural urban, swoosh poverty is gone. Get real, we tell them. Haven't they heard of urban poverty? Putrajaya isn't too far away from Kuala Lumpur to witness poverty on display.
Mind you, poverty isn't just a Kuala Lumpur city story. Other cities, too, are afflicted by poverty. The trick is to create jobs and other opportunities in rural areas so there is no need for people to travel 200 or more kilometres to the cities to work. Concrete cities don't create wealth. Jobs and opportunities do.