BATU MAUNG is on the island of Penang. Its inhabitants pay the same rates and taxes as all other Penangites. But the area looks second hand and derelict.  In its "developed " areas, the grass verge runs wild. Some parts of it are hardly distinguishable from the road it was created to demark; some parts are appropriated by neighbouring houses; some parts are planted with vegetables, and some even serve as drying yards of anonymous laundries whose drying apparel are disquieting flags of despair. The roads are noticeably bare of shady trees. 

This is in sharp contrast to the manicured "ang mor" areas, stretching from Northam Road through Brown Road to Macalister Road. The lucky and favoured ones residing in those areas have the roadside grass regularly cut, the roads tarred and retarred and the trees looked after as if they were rare botanical specimens 

When will City end this mindless discrimination, this one-sided policy that creates Cinderella areas such as Batu Maung? Dr Teng and his crew should take a week-end drive and discover these second-class areas, and take action. #