Danielle Labbé

Periurban Land Redevelopment in Vietnam under Market Socialism

Starting in the 1990s, the Vietnamese state sought to expand and modernise the country’s urban system after four decades of anti-urban policies. This paper examines the reworking of the socialist land regime that followed from this shift. It begins by explaining how new legislation and institutions combined market and socialist principles to lure domestic enterprises into realising the state’s new urban ambitions. It then shows how this hybrid reordering of policy triggered local experiments with periurban land redevelopment and new forms of alliances between the state and private capital. Using the case of the Land-for-Infrastructure mechanism, which uses land as in-kind payment for the building of infrastructure, it is found that this experiment undermines the implementing of official planning orientations and regulations. Finally, the paper explores the relationship between this problematic outcome and the political-economic environment within which recent land policy changes have been implemented in Vietnam.

Local Integration Experiments in the New Urban Areas of Hanoi

In the peri-urban zones of many South East Asian cities, capital has flowed into the development of new, middle class urban enclaves. A significant body of scholarship sees these places as embodying some of the worst elements of American-style suburban, gated communities: sterile, disconnected from their surroundings, isolating wealthy people from the surrounding urban life, etc. While it is no doubt true that such a negative view is frequently warranted, through a closer examination of two projects in peri-urban Hanoi, the authors show that Vietnams new urban enclaves can hardly be assimilated into the hermetically sealed enclaves described in much of the critical literature. The study cases from Hanoi reveal much more porosity: a strong influence of traditional modes of housing production and allocation, a mixing of built forms and the integration of the new enclaves into the surrounding communities.

Youth-Driven Tactics of Public Space Appropriation in Hanoi: The Case of Skateboarding and Parkour

Starting in the 2000s, there has been a rise in youth-led appropriation of public spaces in Hanoi, Vietnam. Through case studies of skateboarders and traceurs (practitioners of parkour) in two of the citys formal public spaces, we explore and analyze the tactics deployed by these young urbanites to claim a part of the characteristically overcrowded and socio-politically restrictive public spaces of the Vietnamese capital. These case studies show that, by seeking to access public spaces for their new activities, skaters and traceurs have had to confront multiple sets of rules, imposed by not only the state, but also corporate actors and resident-driven surveillance. We find that skateboarders and traceurs deal with these forms of control largely through small-scale, non-ideological, and non-confrontational tactics. As a result, these youth practices have become normalized in Hanois public spaces. These findings broaden the discourses on everyday urbanism and social-political transformations in post-socialist urban contexts, and shed light on the ways in which contemporary youths engage with the city.

Uneven state formalization and periurban housing production in Hanoi and Mexico City: Comparative reflections from the global South

In the early 2000s, Vietnam and Mexico turned to the private sector to respond to increasing housing demand and tame the growth of uncontrolled periurban settlements. Around Hanoi, such arrangements fostered the construction of vertical developments while large subdivisions of single-family houses spread over former lakebeds in the peripheries of Mexico City. A stronger role of the private sector in the planning and provision of housing is often seen as an outcome of crisis-driven and crisis-inducing neoliberal reforms. However, the cases of Vietnam and Mexico suggest that a fuller understanding of housing production strategies currently favoured by each state needs to account for important elements of continuity in social, political, and economic practices. This continuity is demonstrated through the comparative analysis of three aspects of the restructuring of housing production in Mexico City’s and Hanoi’s periurban areas: (i) the discourses of ‘order’ used to legitimate heightened private sector involvement, (ii) legislative reforms facilitating periurban land appropriation for redevelopment, and (iii) the socio-spatial outcomes of these recent changes in terms of housing affordability, liveability, and quality. We conclude that both city-regions, despite important differences in their institutional and economic systems display enduring state/market/civil society relations associated with processes of ‘uneven state formalization’. This continuity and unevenness, we argue, better explains recent transformations of periurban housing production than an emphasis on the ruptures resulting from neoliberal reforms.

Spatial Logic and the Distribution of Open and Green Public Spaces in Hanoi: Planning in a Dense and Rapidly Changing City

Abstract Vietnam recently started to recognise the multiple benefits brought by open and green spaces to urban population and environment. In this paper, we analyse the provision of open and green spaces (parks, public gardens and lakeshores) in Hanoi. Using a model proposed by Talen (2010), we examine the spatial evolution of these spaces between 2000 and 2010, their level of proximity to residential units, and the extent to which their distribution matches social needs (defined in terms of population density). We find that while the absolute number and surface area of parks and public gardens has increased significantly in Hanoi, these new public spaces are mainly built on the city’s newly urbanised periphery. As a result, in 2010, only 15% of Hanoi’s residential blocks had access to a park or public garden within a reasonable walking (1000m) or biking distance (2500m). Moreover, the city’s densest residential areas have only access to relatively small gardens and parks, resulting in overcrowding. Lakeshores, however, represent an opportunity to enhance access to open and green spaces in Hanoi due to their spatial distribution. We conclude by advocating for the integration of spatial measures of proximity and needs into Hanoi’s public space planning policy framework.

Examining the governance of emerging urban regions in Vietnam: the case of the Red River Delta

ABSTRACT This essay investigates the process of urbanization in the Red River Delta (RRD) of Vietnam and critically assesses its governance. Focusing on recent periurban dynamics, it shows that the rapidly increasing scale of urbanization in the delta along with new forms of urban development and modes of real estate investment have contributed to outstrip Vietnam’s established planning approach. The analysis contrasts the country’s current socio-economic and spatial planning systems with everyday urbanization and governing practices that have emerged in parallel to it. The preeminent role of these practices, conceptualized as ‘actually existing urbanisms,’ is illustrated through a discussion of periurban land redevelopments conducted by business-state coalitions. The paper concludes by calling for a better understanding of the role played by such alternate regimes, not only in shaping the RRD’s urban growth, but also in constraining avenues to adapt its governance in the face of increasing urban scale and complexity.

Chapitre 3. Extension de la ville par intégration des villages urbains

La ville de Hà Nội, édifiée dans « le coude du fleuve Rouge », s’est formée en partie sur un dense substrat de villages qu’elle a absorbés progressivement dans son tissu. À partir du noyau de villages urbains artisanaux et commerçants recomposés en « quartier des 36 rues et corporations » et de la Citadelle, elle s’est étendue sur ses marges, intégrant villages très peuplés et pluri-actifs dans son périmètre.