Setting the stage for criteria and indicators for Malaysia garden cities: Putrajaya green city as a case study

Malaysian Government has embarked greening initiative to urban landscapes by planting trees and shrubs. This is in line with ultimate moves to transform the country into a Garden Nation by the year 2020. The policy on landscape was focused to planting of trees and shrubs along roads, sidewalks, highways and rivers together with establishment of many nurseries. The image of garden nation would be materialized when all cities in the country become green cities that portray the garden image in their design and visual dimensions. For Malaysia, however, there are no criteria and indicators to be based on as fundamental basis for green cities. A study was conducted to develop a reliable set of criteria and indicators for an ideal, green city or garden city. Delphi method was adopted to solicit the opinion from 30 experts through a series of questionnaires. As a result, it was able to generate and identified 8 criteria and 42 indicators for an ideal Malaysian green city where the top three criteria selected were: (i) safe, healthy and beautiful living working environment, functiona