Back Lanes as Social Spaces in Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur

Abstract

The back lane is often associated with annoying, disgusting, narrow and dark. This paper concerns the use of the back lanes of the old shop houses in China Town, Kuala Lumpur. The instruments used in collecting data include observation, unstructured interview and literature review. The use and physical characteristics of back lanes were identified. It was found that the back lanes of China Town in Kuala Lumpur showed the success of turning back streets into lively alleys. Thus, the back lane could be considered as part of urban design strategies and not as leftover spaces.