Globalization and the shaping of hanoi's urban landscape in contemporary vietnam by Christopher Tran

Globalization and the Shaping of Hanoiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Urban Landscape in Contemporary Vietnam By: Christopher Quy-Hac Tran

Photo by: Aaron Joel Santos Photography

University of Illinois at Chicago College of Urban Planning and Policy UPP 520: Globalization and International Planning December 2, 2013

Introduction This essay analyzes how Hanoi, Vietnam’s capitol and its peri-urban areas have transformed due to increased globalization throughout the past two decades. I focus on how global economic trends and theories such as Trilateralism and Neoliberalism, Free Trade and Dependency, and Export Oriented Industrialization (EOI) have implications on land and urban development, and its consequent impacts of peoples’ lives and their level of participation in the urban planning process as Hanoi continues to expand outward in congruency with the opening of the country’s market to foreign investment and increased capital flow. Like China, Vietnam shifted from a centralized government-controlled economy based on collectivization to a more liberalized, free-market policy. Through Doi Moi, Vietnam’s economic reform in 1986, the country has seen staggering rates of foreign direct investment (FDI); changing both the physical landscape of cities, as well as the stratification of its classes; a burgeoning gap between rich and poor. With the county’s inception into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007, many critics both within as well as outside the country have dubbed Vietnam the “Next Asian Tiger” as growth and development has swept throughout the country, from urban centers, to now peri-urban, periphery areas. Despite these immense gains Vietnam has felt through globalization, the very phenomenon of a more economically, politically, technologically connected system also produces negative, debilitating effects on a sizeable population of the country. Globalization produces both winners and losers. The economically dominant North, often the winners, the South, the losers is an argument made my many

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academics, but even within Southern countries like Vietnam, these dichotomized realities have emerged. Through analysis of the aforementioned economic trends and theories, I hope to expose through how land and people are affected through the urban development process. As the urban-core of Hanoi has historical value to the country, a city just celebrating its one-thousand years, agricultural land in the periphery is now being engulfed by key foreign actors for urban development. As land is repurposed, the people that tended the rural, farmland are not only displaced physically, but also economically as they are pushed into the informal economy to fend for themselves. This paper intends to explore how the global, with its macro-level benefits towards Vietnam, also has detrimental consequences which need to be addressed as both local and global actors contribute to the planning process. Globalization: Trilaterialism and Neoliberalism According to academic Leslie Sklair, the “global system is most fruitfully conceptualized as a system...where the dominant form of globalization in the present era is undoubtedly capitalist globalization…the primary agents and institutional focus of the economic transnational practices are the transnational corporations”1 There is legitimacy to such an analysis as we view the world in which we live today. Transnational corporations (TNCs), also known as Multi-national corporations (MNCs) of predominantly developed Western countries (the United States and West European states) have implanted into more underdeveloped, transition economies of the global South. Big box stores

Sklair, Leslie. “Transnational Practices, Corporations, Class and Consumerism.” Capitalism and its Alternatives, 3 edn. (Oxford University Press, 2002), 70 Page | 3

such as Wal-Mart and McDonald’s can be seen throughout the urban landscapes of big cities such as Bangkok and Maputo in Thailand and Mozambique respectively. This reality leads to a much larger conversation in discussing how such a global economic system—where TNCs thrive and dominate third world economies—have emerged and developed. One dominant theory academics argue for in the emergence of globalization is through the Trilateral Commission. Founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller, the Trilateral Commission’s purpose was to “engineer an enduring partnership among the ruling classes of North America, Western Europe, and 2

Japan…in order to safeguard the interests of Western capitalism in an explosive world.” This idea of safeguarding Western capital interest can be seen through the attempts to consolidate the world economy, where all national economies, particularly Southern ones, are connected or are beating “to 3

the rhythm of transnational corporate capitalism” The Commission’s efforts in unifying one world market has made great strides throughout the last half century since its inception, as various trade agreements between regions have emerged. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA), and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as the creation of the World Trade Organization, are prime examples of an increasingly liberalized world market system. Through this system, the trilateral elites, those controlling transnational corporations, “hope to guarantee a stable supply of raw materials, cheap labor, and an expanding market place for global corporations by strengthening the bonds which keep Third World “development” defined by and

2 3

Sklar, Holly. (1995) “Trilateralism: The Trilateral Comission and Elite Planning for World Management.” 2. Sklar, Holly. (1995) “Trilateralism: The Trilateral Comission and Elite Planning for World Management.” 14 Page | 4

dependent upon the expansion of the leading capitalist economies” This process of action –creating modes of economic fluidity for TNCs—has created a duality, a dichotomy between nations, broadly defined as North (Developed, affluent nations of the West) and South (Third-world, developing nations), where capital flow, trade, and specific economic models have emerged in order to sustain such a divisive structure. The relationship between the Global North and South, through the lens of the West, has been considered one of development, where third-world nations need the financial assistance, the consultancy of developed nations to be able to catch up to the West. This theory is seen through Walt Whitman Rostow’s Modernization Theory in his work of The Stages of Economic Growth: A NonCommunist Manifest. He focuses on the varying stages of economic development in different societies and highlights the duality between a traditional (Global South) and a modern society (Global North). Rostow argues that the traditional societies possessed a ceiling that limited their ability to develop or produce. Because of this impediment, developing nations must experience a take-off, or development, which is needed in order to transform into a modern society. The key issue of this form of development, or modernization was not particularly internally based, but rather influenced by the external, the modern societies. Within this stage of take-off, the modernizing society benefits greatly because “new industries expand rapidly, yielding profits a large proportion of which are reinvested in new plant; and these new industries, in turn, stimulate, through their rapidly expanding requirement for factory workers, the services to support them, and for other

Sklar, Holly. (1995) “Trilateralism: The Trilateral Comission and Elite Planning for World Management.” 14. Page | 5

manufactured goods, a further expansion in urban areas and in other modern industrial plants.”

What Rostow refers to is the model of Export Oriented Industrialization (EOI), or Export-Led Growth (ELG), where many developing nations, particularly in East Asia and Southeast Asia, have followed to integrate themselves into the world economic system. Export Oriented Industrialization strategies “have originally been defined as a policy encouraging and supporting the production for exports.”6 These strategies followed by Asian Countries have led to increased economic growth and stronger international integration. According to the World Bank, these methods have been an essential part of elevating many developing countries in Asia to become the so-called “East Asia Miracle(s)”. Through this model, according to Rostow, developing nations not only within Asia, but throughout the globe has led to high economic returns. These returns developing nations gain from the modernizing process parallel that of Neoliberal doctrine, which “rests on the belief that open, competitive and unregulated markets, liberated from state interference and the actions of social collectivities, represent the optimal mechanism for socioeconomic development”7 Through deregulation of centralized government control, theorist believe that this form of development—based on Neoliberal concepts promoted by the Trilateral Commission—would benefit the countries of the Global South, ultimately bringing prosperity. The North, South dialectic of development also offers different interpretations of this mutually beneficial relationship. Development theorist Andre Gunter Frank argues that development and

Rostow, Walt Whitman. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960) pp. 4-16 6 Balassa, B., 1971. The Structure of Protection in Developing Countries, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore 7 Peck, Jamie, Theodore, Nik, & Brenner, Neil. (2009) “Neoliberal Urban: Models, Moments, Mutations. SAIS Review vol XXIX no. 1, 50, 49-65 Page | 6

underdevelopment are essentially two sides of the same coin. This is because underdevelopment results from a development that occurs through exploitation and suppression, which are a necessary component of the West's wealth accumulation and development.

Through this lens, one could

analyze Neoliberal doctrines—“deregulation of state control over industry, assaults on organized labor, the reduction of corporate taxes, the downsizing and/or privatization of public services and assets, the dismantling of welfare programs, the enhancement of international capital mobility, and the intensification of inter-locality competition”8—as negative impacts to nations with transitional economies. The heart of this essay lies within the impacts of Globalization onto the spatial urban landscape of Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam. By applying these abovementioned theories of a Neoliberal economic world order that thrive on free-trade mechanisms which impact local realities within Vietnam’s capitol, I attempt to reveal how development and underdevelopment are in fact two sides of the same coin. Vietnam’s urban development post Doi Moi (Economic Renovation Reform Policy), with heightened foreign direct investment, free trade agreements through ASEAN and the WTO, has altered and transformed the spatial urban and peri-urban landscape of Hanoi ultimately impacting the livelihoods of residents, both physically as well as economically, within the boundaries of these spatial changes. The following section explores the relationship between the global and the local through analysis of globalization and its implications onto Hanoi.

Peck, Jamie, Theodore, Nik, & Brenner, Neil. (2009) “Neoliberal Urban: Models, Moments, Mutations. SAIS Review vol XXIX no. 1, 50, 49-65 Page | 7

Doi Moi and its Impacts on Urbanization and Urban Form The economic renovation policy of Doi Moi that Vietnam adopted from1986 towards today which has felt heightened international interactions since the 1990s, has become the main engine to power socio-economic development of the country ever since.9

Through the Doi Moi policy, Vietnam

embraced a new era of economic reform, where the centrally-planned Socialist economic model transitioned into a market economy with emergence of the private sector, both local and foreign. This transition helped propel Vietnam into the world economy, promoting integration by creating a more liberalized market, where foreign actors were able to invest and increase capital flow into the country. This dismantling of the centrally-planned economy to a more focused liberalization of the markets has dominated the process of urbanization and changes of urban forms in major Vietnamese cities. Through decentralization policies of Vietnam’s economy, there has been encouragement of increased production of the urban and peri-urban space by local city governments. As the nation has liberalized, land has become more of a commodity than previous decades, which has led to demand for urban growth. As Vietnam’s economy has seen increased flows of capital from foreign investors, TNCs as well as international actors such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB)—a vital aspect of the country’s integration into the global economy—the spatial, urban form of the largest cities in the country has also seen rapid change. As such, urban space has become repositions to attract both local and international investment. This symbiotic relationship between Vietnam’s desire for urban growth and increased foreign direct

Geertman, Stephanie and Le Quynh Chi. “The Globalization of Urban Forms in Hanoi” Universite de Neuchatel, 2010. Page | 8

investment and free trade—core components of Western Neoliberal ideology—has ultimately transformed the urban and peri-urban landscape. The urbanization process and changes in urban forms throughout many Vietnamese cities can be seen in Hanoi, a microcosm of what is occurring throughout the entire nation. Hanoi, the capitol and second largest urban area, trailing only that of Ho Chi Minh City, is surrounded by agricultural land, which makes it a lucrative location for urban expansion as the country is in search of a path toward rapid industrialization. Through the Neoliberal agenda of the West and TNCs in free trade and building a global economic network, and the open arms of a country seeking to elevate its status from a third-world nation into a developed one by 2020, this ultimately inexorable urban development process of Vietnam has an undeniable consequence to its land and people. Land: Peri-Urban Industrialization and Development According to Socialist Republic of Vietnam’s Socio-economic Development Strategy for the period of 2011-2020, the country’s goal is to continue to promote “industrialization and modernization, developing fast and sustainably; upholding the whole population strength, building up our country to be an industrial one with socialist orientation.”10 These national efforts to industrialize and modernize can be seen in the country’s master plan for Hanoi, Hanoi Capital Construction Mater Plan to 2030 and Vision to 2050. The master plan intends to expand Hanoi outwards, keeping the current city center as a historical district, and expanding the central business districts to 3 suburban areas surrounding Hanoi. In addition to this, there are also 5 proposed satellite urban districts, 3

Socialist Republic of Vietnam. “Vietnam’s Socio-Economic Development Strategy for the Period of 2011-2020. Downloaded from http://www.economica.vn. 2013 November 30. Page | 9

eco-town/green corridors, as well 4 townships in the peri-urban and rural provinces outside of Hanoi. (See Appendix 1) Seen through this process, the peri-urban, rural lands surrounding Hanoi are being encroached on by future city and township development. These new and future urban developments are not new to those residing in the peri-urban areas, as “since the early 2000s a metropolitan area and indeed a conurbation – the Greater Hanoi area – has been configured” and “manufacturing plans have gradually been moved from Hanoi to industrial parks in its outskirts or in surrounding provinces.”11 As Vietnam has inevitably developed since its market liberalization reform of Doi Moi in 1986, through increased FDI, the spatial landscape of Hanoi has been transformed currently through new industrial parks and potential future developments of new cities and towns in the peri-urban areas surrounding the capital. Industrial Parks and Accumulation of Peri-Urban Land Surrounding Hanoi Nguyen, Van Suu, Professor of Anthropology at Hanoi National University, has also noted on the expansion of Hanoi’s urban center, where the country has seen increased economic development, industrialization and urbanized in the past ten years. Through his research, he reveals exactly how much of an impact on land seizure for the sake of development has had on Hanoi’s peri-urban areas. He notes: For a period of ten years, from 2000 to 2010, 11,000 hectares of land, mostly annual cropland in rural Hanoi, is planned to be converted into industrial and urban land for 1,736 projects, and it is estimated that these conversions will result in the loss of traditional work of 150,000 farmers. In practice, from 200 to 2004, Hanoi has converted 5,496 hectares of land for 957 projects, and this impacts critically the life 11

Nguyen Binh Giang. (2011) “Development of Industrial Estates, Ports and Metropolitan and Alternative Roads in the Greater Hanoi Area” In Intra- and Inter-City Connectivity in the Mekong Region, edited by Masami Ishida, BRC Research Report No. 6, Bangkok Research Center, IDE-JETRO, Bangkok, Thailand Page | 10

and work of 138,291 households, among them 41,000 are classified as agricultural households”12

These figures that Nguyen notes combine both industrial park as well as new urban city developments surrounding the Hanoi region. The first analysis will focus on the industrial parks surrounding Hanoi. Appendix 2 maps six out of the seven current industrial zones within the periurban, rural areas surrounding Hanoi. Out of these six, two examples, Phu Nghia 1IZ Industrial Zone and Bac Thong Tin IZ, will be highlighted to reveal how the peri-urban spatial forms of Hanoi have been affected through the global market.

Case A: Phu Nghia 1IZ Industrial Zone

Figure 1: Phu Nghia 1 IZ Industrial Zone Rendering Source: www.industrialzone.vn

Nguyen, Van Suu (2009) “Industrialization and Urbanization in Vietnam: How Appropriation of Agricultural Land Use Rights Transformed Farmers’ Livelihoods in a Peri-Urban Hanoi Village?” East Asian Development Network, 13. Page | 11

The Phu Nghia 1 IZ Industrial Zone, located 25km from the Hanoi City Center has been operational since 2008 and is located in the province formerly known as Ha Tay, which has been rezoned to be part of Hanoi through the expansion process. The site occupies 170 hectares of rural land. In addition to the factories themselves, there are also 10 buildings that could house up to 8 thousand residential workers. According to Industrial Zone Vietnam, the main function of this zone is mechanical, electronic, precision, and light industries. The workers, many of whom were formal farmers, are working and living within these industrial zones to create goods for foreign transnational corporations. A few TNCs based at Phu Nghia 1 IZ, are Toyota Electric Control Company, a part of Toyota’s car company, Sweden Wine Company, and Sunjin Miwon Company. All three TNCs operating at this particular site are from developed, foreign TNCs that have transferred their manufacturing sites to Vietnam. What this sheds light on is the changing spatial landscape of Hanoi through the relationship between global TNCs and countries, like Vietnam, that welcome them with open arms in the name of development.

The next example reveals similar

realities.

Case B: Bac Thong Tin IZ Like Phu Nghia 1 IZ Industrial Zone, Bac Thong Tin IZ, resides on the periphery of Hanoi’s City Center. Residing directly 35km south of the city, Bac Thong Tin IZ Industrial Zone consumes fewer hectares than Phu Nghia, as 112ha. Established in 2007, this site has attracted many foreign investors as well.

Three main foreign TNCs, Coca-Cola, Heineken – Tiger Beer, and Crown

Packaging, have facilities here. Figure 2 below shows how the rendered site has transformed rural Page | 12

Figure 2: Bac Thong Tin IZ Industrial Zone Rendering. Source: www.industrialzone.vn

farmland into industrialized sites. Furthermore, the land has been transformed as roads have been paved surrounding the facilities, as well as connecting the site to major highways. Like Phu Nghia 1 IZ Industrial Zone, Bac Thong Tin IZ Industrial Zone is an example of how global markets have penetrated the Hanoi peri-urban, and rural landscape. New Urban Areas: A Look at Gia Lam New Town Another transformation of the land surrounding Hanoi has also been felt by the development of new Urban Areas. Within these sites, new periphery cities, towns are erected, converting agricultural land into peri-urban centers. This expansion is in tune with Hanoiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2030 plan to create a new Great Hanoi.

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Academic, Michael Waibel, of University of Cambridge, has done extensive research on Vietnam’s development. Through his research, he highlights the sprawling effects of new urban areas as a State led phenomenon, where many state enterprises like Vietnam’s Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUD) under the country’s Ministry of Construction, has engaged in developing many new urban areas in the periphery at the urban-rural fringe of Hanoi City. These urban development projects, led by public State enterprises, are funded by foreign TNCs to develop and modernize Hanoi by 2030 and beyond. Through such a public-private partnership, these new spatial forms are intended to attract the upper and the quickly emerging new middle class of Hanoi residents.13 One of the peri-urban districts of Hanoi which has undergone transformation is located in the district of Gia Lam, just east of Hanoi’s core. The Vietnam Infrastructure Development and Finance Investment Joint Stock Company (VIDIFI) were appointed to oversee the construction of the project. The project itself covers 377 hectares in the outskirt of the capitol. The project will transform the town of Trau Quy and the communes of Duong Xa, Kieu Ky, and Da Ton into a new urban area, which would eventually be able to house close to 25,000 residents.14 Cite Design of the United States and Canada, in charge of the urban design of the entire project describes the Gia Lam New Town as:

a model for future sustainable urban growth in a rapidly evolving economic and demographic reality of contemporary Vietnam. The master plan, envisioned as 12 m2 of built area, reflects amalgamation of traditional and modern models of urban 13

Waibel, Michael. (2004) “The Ancient Quarter of Hanoi – A Reflection of Urban Transition Process” ASIEN, 92, 30-48 Viet Nam News. “Master plan for Gia Lam unveiled” downloaded from http://vietnamnews.vn/economy/220547/master-plan-for-gia-lam-unveiled.html. 30 November 2013. 14

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and rural life. The site is divided into two clearly distinct district types –along the highway, a dense commercial/residential center lies separated from low/medium density residential/educational and cultural districts by the flooded plain of the Red River. Green agrarian fingers further break down this low density pattern with the re15 introduction of rural Vietnam into the concept.” The description of the ‘green agrarian fingers’ reveals the concerted efforts of both the developers and urban designer to sustain a type of agricultural land that would be eradicated due to the development of this new urban area. As previously mentioned, this development would convert the already existent communes into a new urban form once the project is complete. Figures 3 and 4 below give a visual cue to the impacts of peri-urban agricultural land due to the projects development.

Figure 3: Site Plan of Gia Lam Source: Cite Urban Design

Figure 4: Rendering of Gia Lam New Town Source: Cite Urban Design

Gia Lam New Town, is just one of many proposed projects apart of the Hanoi 2030 Master Plan. As new urban areas sprout up on the peri-urban fringes of Hanoi’s core, there will be detrimental spatial changes on agricultural land. The urban landscape of Hanoi is sprawling further and further out, which ultimately has negative consequences on the rural residents that have tended to the land for most of their lives.

The following section explores how through this modernization and

Cite Urban Design. Gia Lam Master Plan. Downloaded from http://citeurbandesign.com/?page_id=642. 30 November 2013 Page | 15

urbanization process of Greater Hanoi in order to catch up to the more developed countries of the globe, the locality and its residents are gravely affected.

Global, Local Connections On a global level, TNCs, aiming to be most cost-effective, have shifted industrial sites from one emerging country to another. Countries progressively develop and lose their comparative cost advantage causing this shift of locale of TNC industries. Within Asia specifically, industrial zones shifted from Japan to lower developed countries (Hong Kong, Korea, etc.) then to other Asian countries (Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, etc.) and now to China and Vietnam.”16 As a result of increased industrialization within Vietnam, the spatial landscape is transformed, as agricultural land in the peri-urban and rural regions surrounding major cities have been converted. In addition to these changes, there have been detrimental impacts on people as well. Changes have impacted people on two levels. First, the seizure of peoples’ land has forced many to shift from farming to industrial factory work. These residents, who have been farmers for generations must now develop new skills in order to cope with the spatial changes that have affected their lives. Secondly, the impacts felt by the predominantly farming demographic have led to protests against the government throughout the land seizure process. Within a Socialist-Communist, one-party state, these movements of confrontation has opened a slight crack in the door to a more participatory process as the government has taken initial steps of acknowledgment of the problem.

The

industrialization and urbanization of agricultural land surrounding Hanoi is an inevitable process as the proposed master plans are starting to be implemented seen through the examples mentioned 16

Chaponniere, Jean-Rphael and Cling, Jean-Pierre (2009) “Vietnam’s Export-Led Growth Model and Competition with China” Economie Internationale, 105 Page | 16

above. These global impacts on the local population have erected a great divide between those benefitting and those losing from the modernization process. The only potential to bridge the gap of inequity within this process is the concerted effort of the government to create a more transparent, inclusive, participatory planning process. As urban planning has strong roots as a top-down process within Vietnam, like many other Socialist nations, the introduction of participatory collaborative planning may hold many challenges.

People: Shift in Occupation As much of the agricultural land has been converted to industry or new urban areas, many of the local farmers must shift occupations, learn a new trade in order to make a living. Facts and figures often reveal the overarching picture of the situation, but ethnography is also a powerful tool in understanding a particular issue at hand. The following three vignettes shed light on the livelihoods of farmers, and the ultimate shift to different occupations and give voice to residents in the PeriUrban district of Hanoi, Gia Lam, previously highlighted in the above section, and Phu Dien. The first two vignettes are part of an ethnographic research project, Project Kiem, through the University of California Education Abroad Program conducted by students as part of a book published just this year, “It’s a Living: Work and Life in Vietnam Today”. The last vignette is through Professor Nguyen Van Suu’s research of Land Seizures in the Peri-Urban District Phu Dien, of Hanoi. Farmer: Sure, there’s been progress since then. For example, plowing had to be done with buffaloes but now we have motorized tillers. In the future, rice fields will get smaller, and more and more land will be used for industry…there won’t be any more farming. People like me will be old by then, but our kids’ generation will still be Page | 17

young and they’ll have to leave the village. Even if they didn’t want to leave, there wouldn’t be any fields for them to work.17 Garment Factory Worker: My name is Khang, I’m 31 years old… I’ve worked here at Sewing Factory Number 10 for almost ten years now…People in my hometown have been farmers for 18 generations, so this is not really traditional work. Mr. Q from Phu Dien, Peri-Urban Area The price for job shifting is also too low. Currently, one area of 300 square meters of agricultural land can be enough for one laborer to farm rau muống to earn two million đồng a month. However, when the state seizes the land, they assist us only 25,000 đồng for one square meter for job shifting. This means that 300 square meters of agricultural land gives us the assistant money of only 7.5 million đồng. However, with such a small amount of money, how we farmers can change our work and business. These interviews give rise to the clear relationship between spatial changes to the peri-urban and impacts on resident livelivehood. The farmer from Gia Lam points to the inevitable reality of shrinking rice fields and the ultimate consequence of displacement. Khang, the garment factory worker, is a key example of an individual who has shifted occupations from farmer to industrial worker. Mr Q’s feelings of land seizures shows how the shifting jobs is detrimental farmers’ livelihoods as they are compensated less money they can actually earn by farming the land. These experiences shared by the interviewees are a mere three of many hundreds of thousands of stories that exist due to the spatial transformation of their land. The following section digs deeper into the lives of residents of the peri-urban, rural locales as dissent and protest has also emerged within the urbanization, industrialization spatial-altering processes. 17

Van, Irene, Nguyen Thai Linh, Seegers, Sharon, and Vu Hoang An. (2010) “It’s a Living: Work and Life in Vietnam Today” Edited by Gerard Sasges. National University of Singapore Press, 16. 18 Nguyen, Tracy, Truong Cong Tuan, Dinh Doan Vu, and Nguyen Thanh Ha. (2011) “It’s a Living: Work and Life in Vietnam Today” Editied by Gerard Sasges. National University of Singapore Press, 113-115 Page | 18

People: Dissent and Visibility Under a Socialist-Communist State, dissent and protest are almost considered taboo as the consequences of such actions may result in a much more critical result than what one may have been protesting. It is thus surprising to see the number of protests and acts of dissent from farmers within the peri-urban and rural areas surrounding major cities. The right to the land and its ultimate seizure for development purposes lies at the heart of the conflict between residents within these regions and the government. The ownership of land within the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a much different concept than that of land-ownership in the West. Under Communist doctrine adopted by the Vietnamese state, land is considered communal and owned by everyone. As the Communist Government is the party of all Vietnamese citizens, ownership belongs to the state. Professor Nguyen Van Suu of Hanoi National University considers ownership on another level, which he calls “practical ownership of various state and society entities…In the viewpoints of the state land tenure policy, when the state appropriates agricultural land, it only pays economic compensation for the use rights on agricultural land, which the state has allocated to the villagers for use for a certain period of time.” 19 In essence, the people who occupy the land only have the right to use the land, as opposed to ownership rights over it. This is often the key point of creating critical disputes between the state officials who in charge of land appropriation and the villagers who hold use rights on the appropriated land over a level of economic compensation for the seized land.

The contestation between villagers and the government is not over the actual ownership of the land, but over the compensation of the land. The compensation price for agricultural is not reasonable. The un-reasonability here is that this is a peri-urban area, close to the urban district, but the compensation price for our agricultural land is much lower than that of the neighboring urban district...For one sào, in 2007, we receive only 62 million đồng, while in the neighboring communes the prices varies from 140 to 180 million đồng. More importantly, we are afraid that they seize the land to build apartments to sell. While they paid us around 60 million đồng for one sào, the land area has then been filled to sell with the price of 40-60 million đồng per one square meter for house and villa building. The villagers said the state trấn lột (confiscates) their property. Actually they [the entrepreneurs who use the appropriated land] are private, not the state, the state does not do so. The private does this in the name of the state. (Interviewed Mr. Q., 60 20 years old, 11 September 2007) Not only do villagers feel undercompensated, their greater concerns lie within the transformation and use of the land. As private foreign actors have been the ones to spearhead these new developments, the global economic agenda penetrated onto Hanoi’s Peri-Urban landscape has been most felt by the residents. As seen through Mr. Q’s interview, the development of new urban centers, through new high-rise apartments, and their selling price is much higher than what the residents receive. Due to many of these reasons, there has been a growing dissent amongst the villagers throughout various regions of Hanoi, as well as throughout the nation. The issues of equity thus emerge from this discussion. As this urbanization process continues to seize land, the questions of how to address equity, how to plan a more balanced process arises. The final section of this paper looks at a potential method of introducing a more equitable planning process in an already inequitable situation.

Moving Forward: New Role of Citizens â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A Participatory Planning Processes? Through the voices of dissent and protest, there lies a divide between those who are affected the local government. As such, the first issue that must be addressed is harnessing community participation in both planning and governance. Vietnam, like many other Asian countries within the region, have made steps towards decentralizationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as seen through the economyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which has led to the empowerment of many civil society organizations to be participants within the government process. Despite this progress, the exclusion of direct community participation of people being directly affected by the urban development changes reshaping the country is still prominent. This holds true within the master planning process as the decision-making is left in the hands of a small group of professionals, both foreign consultants and the local government. This has prevented meaningful community participation amongst both civil societies throughout Vietnam, as well as those directly affected by urbanization within the peri-urban regions. Some questions that must be addressed to the government are as follow: What role can both community-based and civil society organizations play in the urban planning process and municipal governance? What can the current mold of the urban development process teach us in improving the process? How to increase capacity amongst both communities as well as planning agencies to promote a more collaborative process? As it currently stands, stakeholder participation is limited to foreign land developers and municipal government; it is vital to expand this level of participation to different levels. One key model that Vietnam can implement is through the compensatory schemes executed in Guangzhou City in China. Within Guangzhou exists informal settlements within the urban core

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known as Villages-in-the-city. These informal settlements have faced demolition as the city has policies to upgrade slum-dwellings within city. In order to be part of the redevelopment process, villagers and their representatives organized meetings to gather consensus on redevelopment and compensation. Within these meetings, surveys from the municipal government were given to the indigenous villagers of the area to input their concerns about compensation and placement arrangement, the future of their living conditions and source of income and temporary loss of income during the redevelopment process. Present at these meetings were only the villagers and village cadres; neither the property developers nor government officials were present. The accumulated demands and concerns were passed on to the government by village cadres.21 Although this particular scheme allowing a platform for citizenship participation revolves around inter-city slum-dwellings, the core model could be adopted to address the issues faced by peri-urban, residents as well.

Similar types of concerns are faced by both groups â&#x20AC;&#x201C;compensation, living

conditions, and income. Ultimately, the next steps that need to be taken should ease the divisiveness between villagers of peri-urban Hanoi, and the municipal government in addressing urban development.

As the country has industrialized within the past twenty years, reconfiguring the

urban, peri-urban, and ultimately the rural landscape with it, the next twenty years of urban development to reach modernization by 2030 to 2050 must promote a more equitable, collaborative planning process that involves citizens most directly affected in order to combat the injustices and detriments that have spawned from past processes.

Chung, Him and Zhou, Su-Hong. (2011) â&#x20AC;&#x153;Planning for Plural Groups? Villages-in-the-city Redevelopment in Guangzhou City, China. International Planning Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4, 333-353, 348 Page | 22

Appendix 1

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Appendix 2

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