Interesting article I stumbled on another forum.
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On the surface, Johor Bahru's development can appear somewhat lopsided, seemingly with too many residential projects. However, if you take a step back, I think you'll see that all of this is a result of very strategic planning.
There are indeed, parallels between Johor Bahru today and Bangkok pre-1997 Asian economic crisis. We began to see an oversupply of homes in the Thai capital as construction began to accelerate in the early to mid-1990s, and by 1997, the city was blanketed with empty apartments. Sure, it was a sad time and all, but this glut in oversupply actually encouraged massive urbanization, which in turn, encouraged critical mass for employment centres such as commercial business districts, industrial estates for manufacturing everything from Est cola to A&F apparels and Japanese cars.
It's for this exact reasons why the Chinese are so vested in Johor Bahru's (and Southeast Asian) development - even with the recession, China's tier-1 and tier-2's growth rates are so high that it's gradually becoming too expensive to keep manufacturing within the country. Rather than go to tier-3 cities (where there are problems with stability or they're simply too expensive in terms of transport costs), it's cheaper to outsource manufacturing to its export markets where growth rates are more consistent and labour costs are still manageable. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Chinese brands such as Oppo or Vivo that are popular in Asean and Malaysia especially, open manufacturing or quality centres in Southern Johor once JB has a sustainable population.
Now, don't get me wrong. These people that eventually fill up JB wouldn't necessarily be Chinese - there's no point any way. Do remember that Asean is now a single common market - there's free movement of labour (provided they have approved employment) so it could be Malaysians who were previously staying in far-off towns and villages like Kota Tinggi or Kluang or Batu Pahat for example, Indonesians, Thai, Vietnamese, Singaporean, Filipino or what-have-you.