A total of 744,000 new housing units were built during 1970–80, and an estimated 923,300 units—43% public and 57% private— were planned under the 1981–85 development plan. About 92% of all housing units were detached houses, 7% were apartments, and 1% were single rooms.
The need for urban housing is acute: an estimated 24% of Kuala Lumpur's population consists of recently arrived squatters living in overcrowded shantytowns with few urban amenities. A government plan for low-cost housing was expected to provide 80,000 units per year from 1986 to 1988. In the mid-1990s, the total number of housing units was 3,403,000.