DESPITE being the second-smallest state in Malaysia after Perlis, Penang boasts the highest population density in the country. It is home to about 2,500 people per sq km on the island and about 1,000 people per sq km on the mainland.

When presenting The Edge/Raine & Horne International Zaki+Parners Penang Housing Property Monitor for 4Q2009 (the article appeared in City & Country, Issue 793, Feb 15 to 21, 2010), Mike Geh, director of Raine & Horne International Zaki+Partners (Penang), noted that the number of transactions for residential properties in Penang increased 5.4% y-o-y last year. More transactions took place in 4Q2009 than in the previous quarters combined, he said.

By Francis Hutchinson.

The nexus between national government initiatives and private sector expertise is often seen as the locus where the success of many Asian countries is decided. However, economics, like politics, always has a local base. Sub-national governments, which are often given minor roles in expert analyses of national development, are therefore necessarily important players in this equation. Despite the lack of financial might, a state such as Penang, can make effective use of its many local advantages.

FROM the successful development of Korea’s steel and shipping industries to Israel’s software cluster, and from the US’s semiconductor giants to Japan’s automobile empire, the “visible hand” of government has been involved, and due credit is now being given them 

By Ooi Kok Chuen.

Reading travelogues about one’s own home is always an exciting pastime. All the more profound is the experience when absorbing visual art created in one’s home by visitors, be they temporary or permanent. Penang holds an attraction for foreign artists that locals find hard to comprehend. Perhaps what is most obvious is what is most difficult to notice.

STRANGE how artists locate to places they may not expect to end up in. Penang is such a place for quite a few of them. This is the story of four expatriate artists now working there – Helen Kim Yeon Tae from South Korea, Susanna Helena Hernesniemi  from Finland/Denmark, Femke Ligthart  from Holland and Drew Harris from Canada.