The development of Petaling Jaya commenced in 1952 with the construction of 800 houses centred on the area known as "Old Town" today.

[citation needed] Lieutenant-General Sir Gerald Templer (then the British High Commissioner of Malaya and Petaling District council chairman) planned for Petaling Jaya to be a satellite town to prevent people from assisting the communists; the earlier housing areas were fenced off from the surrounding area.

On 24 August 1959, Encik Abdul Aziz bin Haji Mohd Ali became the first Malayan to head the PJ Authority.

[4] Petaling Garden was brought to the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange and became one of the first publicly listed Property Development Companies in Malaysia.

The company was bought over by Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) in the year 2007, it was valued at RM 964 million at time of purchase.

[8] In 2020, the city was part of the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, or the movement control order (MCO), where residents were confined to their homes and only allowed out for essential purposes.

[9] On April 27, the market in the city's oldest quarter, Old Town, was shut down[10] down after a seafood trader there tested positive for the virus, prompting health authorities to call for customers to get themselves screened.

Less than two weeks later, large parts of Old Town came under a full government lockdown on May 10 after the discovery of 26 COVID-19 cases from the market area.

Over 800 people working at the Tropicana Golf and Country Resort were barred from leaving their hostel, as authorities put the compound under a total lockdown.

[17] Meanwhile, a teacher at the Taman Sea secondary school also tested positive for the virus on October 7, leading students and staff members there to self-quarantine.

But due to normal global temperature variations, Petaling Jaya is experiencing severe drought with frequent water rationing among neighbourhoods.

[23] A prominent landmark in PJ is the Kota Darul Ehsan arch which symbolically marks the boundary between Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya.

A short drive ahead is PJ State, the nickname for the Central Business District of Petaling Jaya with the landmark Menara MBPJ as a focal point.

The Atria provided the opportunity for residents to patronise either the Japanese Kimisawa or the French Printemps department stores, as well as a Burger King restaurant.

Jaya Jusco, a Japanese department store which had operated since 1984 at Taman Tun Dr Ismail later relocated as one of the anchor tenants of 1 Utama.

Cambridge Analytica claimed to have an office in Kota Damansara; checks shown that the reported address was used for residential purpose.

These high-end properties are mostly located at Bukit Gasing, Section 16 & 17, SS7 Kelana Jaya, and more recent ones such as Tropicana, and Ara Damansara.

[citation needed] Some SEA Park residents may recall the old Sri Jaya Leyland Albion buses on the No.

The introduction of the IntraKota bus system by DRB-HICOM saw the replacement of Sri Jaya and the mini-buses by the early 1990s.

[citation needed] Around the same time, some of the Petaling Jaya-Kuala Lumpur bus routes were serviced by Metrobus.

In the future, the upcoming 11 LRT Shah Alam Line, will serve twenty-six stations in central and western Petaling Jaya starting from Bandar Utama, Glenmarie 2, SS7 to Johan Setia.

The 2 Tanjung Malim-Port Klang Line, a commuter rail service operated by KTM Komuter, mainly serves southern Petaling Jaya via Petaling, Jalan Templer, Kampung Dato Harun, Seri Setia and Setia Jaya stations.

Essentially it was also the inspiration of Dato' Onn Jaafar, the founder and former president of UMNO or the United Malays National Organisation.

[28] Petaling Jaya is the headquarters for newspaper and online news companies such as: Free Malaysia Today, Malay Mail, Malaysiakini, Nanyang Siang Pau, Sin Chew Daily, Star Media Group (Menara Star),[29] The Edge Media Group (Menara KLK),[30] The Malaysian Reserve and The Sun Daily and the radio and television division of Media Prima Berhad (Sri Pentas),[31] all of them are located near Kuala Lumpur.

Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah at Jalan Templer is likely the oldest mosque in Petaling Jaya.

The Sri Sithi Vinayagar Temple at Section 4 along Jalan Selangor serves as the main religious facility for Petaling Jaya's Hindu community.

There is a Sikh Gurdwara located in Lorong Utara B, beside the Tun Hussein Onn Eye Hospital and the Geeta Ashram.

The city made international headlines on 13 February 2017 when Christian pastor, Raymond Koh was ambushed on SS4B/10 by around fifteen men in SUVs and subsequently "disappeared".

[34] Koh led the Hope Community in Kuala Lumpur which helps the city's poor, single mothers, and drug addicts.

[35] In 2019, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia accused the Malaysian Special Branch of the abduction, carried out because Koh was suspected of attempting to convert Sunni Muslims to Christianity.