KL’s waterfront and its washed up issues: Part 1

Figure 1. The muddy confluence– Masjid Jamek (National Mosque) located on the junction of Sungai Gombak (left) and Sungai Klang (right).

The muddy confluence

‘The complex web of the “Metabolism of the Cities” surely relies on an incessant flow of water’.

With Swyngedouw’s statement in mind I’d like to dedicate the next few posts to Kuala Lumpur’s long-standing relationship with water including its drainage and wastewater management systems. This multiple part series will build the foundation for future posts and (hopefully) make it easier to understand the processes of hybridity within KL. In order to do so we must first acknowledge how this metabolic link came about and recognise the transformations it underwent over time. 

Starting off with the city’s name, KL has been and always will be connected to water. Although the origin of the name remains a topic of debate, one of the most common interpretations suggests that the city got its name from the confluence of the two rivers Gombak and Klang. In Bahasa Malay kuala stands for the junction of two rivers and lumpur means wet mud, so when putting these words together, ‘Kuala Lumpur’ becomes a muddy confluence. While it seems much less glamorous than ‘Garden City of Lights’, it’s a good summary of what the earliest settlers of KL discovered upon their arrival. Furthermore, despite the multiple theories about the origin of KL’s name, one point stands out: many interpretations lead back to the junction of Sungai Gombak and Sungai Klang, which is fairly unsurprising considering it kick-started KL in becoming what it is today.

KL’s mining history

Lured in by the promise of finding tin, 78 Chinese miners disembarked and started digging at Ampang, a few miles upstream of the confluence. Shortly after, the river junction, now occupied by the Jamek mosque, became the hub for Sumatran Malay and Chinese traders to supply the nearby mining communities (Figure 2). As a result, the river was transformed into a trading route that supplied the livelihoods of miners and town labourers alike. Boats carried the goods of market gardens upstream reaching all the way to the mines, whereas miners used this system to transport supplies and tin extractions. Arguably this was the beginning of the metabolic link between water and humans in KL.

Figure 2. Map of the junction of Sungai Gombak and Sungai Klang, (1) the market, (2) the town centre, (3) footpaths, (4)  vegetable plots, (5) narrow path acting as boundary between Chinese and Malay quarter, (6) Klyne Street, (7) Yap Ah Loy Street, (9) the predecessor of what was to become Central Market (1885).

But, why dig into the past?

Well, KL’s history with water gives insight into an important component of UPE, being the ‘interest in cities as dynamic hybrids, constantly (re-)produced by humans and non-humans’. The river wasn’t just transformed into a trading route, but equally modified the early settlement with its frequent floods, showing how environmental and social transformations regulate each other. Yet, there’s more to it than just co-determination. Kuala Lumpur’s history highlights how there is nothing unnatural about the Gombak and Klang rivers nowadays, regardless of KL’s rapid urbanisation (Figure 3). Instead it exemplifies how environments are historical products of socio-environmental processes, based on already existing bio-physical and chemical features of the landscape. In KL’s case, the hydrological landscape provided the means for the city to become the cyborg it is now.

Figure 3. The river confluence in 1977 (left) and now (right).