Annette M. Kim

Talking Back: The Role of Narrative in Vietnam’s Recent Land Compensation Changes

As in other rapidly growing economies, Vietnam’s urban land development has been a source of social conflict as those who are relocated contest the distribution of economic gains. More recently, the relocated have increased their bargaining power and receive better compensation packages. The paper analyses this situation to discuss further developing our understanding of how property rights institutions change. The case study shows the efficacy of social narratives to renegotiate the terms of the social contract supporting property rights even in a society with limited means for public participation in governmental reform. Secondly, it illuminates that modern property rights are entwined with public finance and so property rights reforms are tied to the organisational structure of government and fiscal relations.

North versus South: The Impact of Social Norms in the Market Pricing of Private Property Rights in Vietnam

Despite a centralized political system, country-wide legal reforms, and similar high housing demand pressures, property rights have evolved differently in Vietnam’s two leading cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), during the transition period. Using ethnographic fieldwork and a hedonic price model, the study shows that the two land and housing markets price tenure ambiguity differently. The different price structures indicate the importance of norms, as socially constructed by local political interests and culture, in the efficacy of land title regularization programs.

The Mixed-Use Sidewalk: Vending and Property Rights in Public Space

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Around the globe, streets and sidewalks in cities are being contested as spaces that should be used for more than transportation. This article challenges our understanding of both property rights and public space by applying a property rights framework to situate sidewalk use debates. It analyzes and maps the sidewalk property regimes of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, through a novel integration of surveying and ethnography. The case illuminates the feasibility of a mixed-use sidewalk that can be shared between various kinds of uses and users. A mixed-use sidewalk that is both cooperative and livable is possible if planners incorporate time into planning space in order to expand the sidewalks flexibility and if local society can renarrate and enforce new legitimacies on the sidewalk. Takeaway for practice: Sidewalk space deserves more attention as an important public space. In our era of historic urbanization, we should reconceive sidewalks as a mixed-use space rather than an exclusively pedestrian zone. Moreover, North American planners would benefit from engaging with public space experiments happening in cities in the developing world. Research support: This research was supported by MITs School of Architecture and Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.

Unimaginable Change: Future Directions in Planning Practice and Research About Institutional Reform

Problem: Planning aspires to intervene and make positive change. However, our ideas about how to create institutional reform need to be revisited because they do not fully account for the changes we have witnessed. Purpose: This article assesses the state of our knowledge about institutions and of how we construct and change them. It identifies the major deficiencies in new institutionalism in planning theory and searches for ideas about how to influence positive institutional change. Methods: I analyzed over 90 publications in the planning literature and other social sciences that discussed “institutions,” and identified the varying definitions and underlying epistemologies and philosophies that are at odds with each other. I then examined empirical studies of successful economic development cases in order to critically appraise the efficacy of different theories to account for the observed changes. Results and conclusions: Disparate new institutionalism theories in the social sciences have been starting to converge by focusing on social cognition. The unimaginable, fundamental changes that have occurred in our lifetimes have not been the result of rational state planning, manipulation by political elites, or activist organizations. A society-wide process of tacit learning from peers and exemplars built new paradigms and practices, ultimately normalizing new realities. Takeaway for practice: Planning practice that aims toward large institutional changes rather than incremental ones should incorporate the empirical lessons of contemporary history and the latest findings in cognitive science. Knowing more about the social cognition process can help planners to more effectively engage in fundamental change. Furthermore, if it retains its strengths in empirical research and multiscalar, interdisciplinary analysis, planning practice and research can make policy-relevant contributions to our understanding of social cognition change. Research support: None.

Change Detection from SPOT-Panchromatic Imagery at the Urban-rural Fringe of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Abstract This paper proposes a simple, automated method to detect rural to urban land use changes at the pixel level of SPOT-Panchromatic images in the developing world. The proposed method entails two tasks: (1) classification of images as either urban (built-up) or rural (non built-up) at a relatively high level of spatial detail (pixel level) in order to include the classification of houses made of natural materials. The binary classification was performed through a combined thresholding of spectral information and spatial information derived by a normalized high-pass filter. An automatic procedure was used to determine the optimal threshold (2) classified image comparison of two different dates by overlaying them to detect changes from rural to urban land use during the corresponding period. An accuracy of 82.31% was achieved for the final change map.

Seeds of Reform: Lessons from Vietnam about Informality and Institutional Change

Ordinary North Korean citizens have been coping with economic hardship by eking out livelihoods for themselves. Grassroots markets and local petty economies have become commonplace. A point of conjecture amongst scholars and policymakers is whether these developments may be the start of significant economic system change towards a market economy. This article reviews lessons learned from the transition economies about the informal and social processes required to effectively realize major economic transitions in order to discuss the preliminary evidence we have about North Koreas current informal civilian economic activity. Applying a social cognition theory of institutional change focuses our attention onto the discretionary behavior of local government, the social structure and networks that form firms and exemplars, and the social trust needed to move to new economic paradigms. It also discusses what the operations of hwa-gyo entrepreneurs, ethnic Chinese living in North Korea, pose to the existing state of the literature.

From Workers to Owners: Survey Evidence on the Impact of Property Rights Reforms on Small Farmers in Two Regions in Romania

In Romania, the 1991 Land Reform marked the beginning of a series of transformations in the ownership structure and the production system in agriculture. Nevertheless, after recently joining the EU it became evident that the agricultural sector is in need of major improvements in performance. We present preliminary findings from a unique village-level panel data at household level. Preliminary findings suggest that there are wide regional differences in terms of agricultural performance and organizational forms. Also, we find that productivity levels do not differ significantly between farming arrangements, and that labor supply, capital endowment, and contractual arrangements might be more important.