Ecological factors have tremendous impacts on administrative machinery. It is understood that public administration at any level of government is in a causal relationship with its ecology. Investigating the ecology of public administration is a useful way to understand policy process and the values placed by public organizations/officials upon a program within their jurisdiction. Change is the major concern of ecological approach because it has important impacts on the balance of power, decision-making and resources allocation. Urbanization would accelerate the changes of ecological factors which in turn would alter the use of resources. All these would exert new demands upon existing government and its urban administration. In order to provide steady support to those changes, it requires an atmosphere in which political leadership, the integration of policies at various levels, and skilled public personnel to be established. Using the case of Penang state of Malaysia, this article investigates the interactions between Penang administrative machinery and its ecology which give impacts to its new affordable housing program. Focus group discussion and in-depth interviews were conducted to elicit primary data with key informants. Secondary data from literature survey was used to position the research within the context of Penang. Findings show that the creation of the new urban program was a response to the ecological changes of Penang. Results also indicate that the ecological changes have great impacts on public officials’ behavior in administrating the new program. The article ends with a discussion of implications of these findings for research and practice.

The ecological approach of public administration was first introduced by Gaus in 1947. The approach has been actively applied by Riggs (1961, 1962 & 2006) in the wider and newer areas of developmental and comparative public administration. To Riggs, a truly scientific study of public administration must be empirical, nomothetic and ecological. “Empirical, nomothetic and ecological” are the three major trends Riggs (1962) identifies in the comparative study of public administration. The ecological approach—the proposed third trend—emphasizes on interactions between institutions and their environment or contextual factors.