In the opening epigraph former Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng expressed his vision of transforming Penang into a ‘world-class international city’ by 2021 (Ng, 2016). To do that, his government embarked upon a US$6.3 billion upgrade of transport infrastructure in the island-city, known as the PTMP, which would consist of new highways, LRT and monorail lines, cable cars, new buses and a 2km undersea tunnel linking Penang Island to the Malaysian mainland. If given full approval by the federal government, Lim suggested that Penang could be ‘a showcase of modern Malaysia’, and ‘be well on its way to being a global city that could rival Singapore’ (Ng, 2016: np). This is consistent with broader urban redevelopment strategies which focus on modernization of infrastructure as a means to achieving economic growth and investment, while also meeting the demands of rapid urbanization (see Bunnell, 2004; Colven, 2017; Connolly, 2019b). Eng's statement can also be seen as a precursor of the Penang ‘Smart State’ ideology – discussed in Chapter 3 – which connects with broader global discourse promoted by aspirational city managers.

Yet, as Hutchinson (2012: 15) has cautioned, ‘the desire to pursue worldclass competitiveness in a wide range of areas needs to be tempered with a real appreciation of the scale, resources and time required to attain this’. Similarly, Douglass (1998) has warned that calculated attempts at world or global city formation can have devastating consequences for most people in the city. In the case of Penang, there is a fundamental tension and incompatibility between the state government's ‘global city’ aspirations (and associated mega-development projects), and the realities of its existing landscape, infrastructure and finances, which has become been a major source of concern for local residents and civil society activists.