Le quynh chi

Since Vietnam shifted to a market-economy in the 1980s, Hanoi has seen rapid urban expansion similar to that of other South East Asian cities - involving megaprojects, luxury developments, rural-to-urban migration, informal housing construction, and escalating speculation. Researchers have considered how unemployment and the disruption of community life followed the urbanization of rural areas. However, little has been said about how people adjusted their everyday life to cope with the changes. Through in-depth interviews, focus groups, participatory observation, oral histories, and surveys, this research investigated the adaptation strategies of low-income residents in the face of land use changes that are beyond their control. The main research site is Tay Ho district - previously a conglomeration of agricultural villages that has, in the past 20 years, witnessed rapid transformation through large-scale infrastructures, luxury housing, and smaller lodgings built individually for m...

Citation: Vansintjan, A., Nguyen V., Le C., and Nguyen T. “Adaptation Strategies Used by Low-Income Residents Affected by Land Use Changes in Hanoi, Vietnam”. Journal of Science and Technology in Civil Engineering (STCE) - NUCE, Vol. 13, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 78-88,

Since Vietnam shifted to a market-economy in the 1980s, Hanoi has seen rapid urban expansion similar to that of other South East Asian cities—involving megaprojects, luxury developments, rural-to-urban migration, informal housing construction, and escalating speculation. Researchers have considered how unemployment and the disruption of community life followed urbanization of rural areas; however, little has been said about how people adjusted their everyday life to cope with the changes. Through in-depth interviews, focus groups, participatory observation, oral histories, and surveys, our research investigated adaptation strategies of low-income residents in the face of land use changes that are beyond their control. Our main research site is Tay Ho—previously a conglomeration of agricultural villages that has, in the past 20 years, witnessed rapid transformation through large-scale government-funded infrastructures, luxury housing, and smaller lodgings built by individual households for migrant workers. We identify four main adaptation strategies used by residents. First, people turn to food as a safety net. Running small street stalls, selling goods in local markets, and delivering to restaurants are common. Second, as farms transform into roads and buildings, people take advantage of public space to garden and socialize with neighbours. Third, gender division is significant as women are often excluded from the male-dominated land inheritance system and the formal economy, so they turn to informal trade, which offers autonomy and helps to develop social connections. Fourth, as land is stripped away and compensated by a lump sum of cash, people build social capital to persevere. Our findings suggest that, in the context of rising global speculation, the urbanization of the countryside, and the need to ensure the sustainability and inclusivity of cities, urban planners and policy-makers must take into account the way by which low-income residents continue to rely on environmental and social capital to adapt to changes.

Peri-urban areas in developing Southeast Asia are undergoing profound transformations. Formerly agrarian places surrounding fast-growing agglomerations such as Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, and Hanoi have become dynamic sites of encounter between urban and rural built forms, activities and ways of life. The resulting urban formations belie conceptions of a neat cleavage between city and countryside. Since at least the 1980s, rural traditional villages at Hanoi's periphery have been absorbed into the urban fabric. The tightly knit community of traditional village life—based on religion, kinship ties and common use of space—has been breaking up. This phenomenon has been attributed to four processes. First and foremost, the formerly rural population has adopted what might be called " urban " ways of life, which focuses more on individuality—possibly linked to a decline in traditional values. Second is tighter control of the urban administration system. Thirdly, around Hanoi, as in many other densely settled regions of developing Southeast Asia, village-based urbanization processes have recently been confronted with a new, exogenous form of peri-urban space production: the massive development of so-called " new urban areas " —large-scale land redevelopment dominated by residential housing, geared toward expats and high-and middle-income residents. The consequent loss of farmland often leads to the reduction of communities' spaces of production and reproduction. Last but not least, urbanization has involved a high influx of underemployed and low-skilled rural migrants. This paper outlines how public space in peri-urban villages has transformed—with the assumption that these changes are reflecting broader changes in society. Relying on qualitative surveys and mapping, the research involved a case study of Nhat Tan village, a thousand-year old peach flower village strongly affected by Ciputra Hanoi (West Thang Long), the first new urban area in Hanoi. After describing traditional community space structures in the Red River delta and Hanoi's urbanism, we present the analytical results of the survey. The research identifies emerging networks of public space that help to make the community resilient. The paper also contributes an initial exploration of the uses of the terms of " public " space in the context of the Vietnamese contemporary city.

The paper analysis the change of natural water surface area in three zones in Hanoi (urbanized in 1960s, urbanized in 1990s, urbanized in 2000s) with hypothesis that the natural water system in each zone has changed in different ways; therefore, it needs specific strategy for each zone in order to maintain natural water surface effectively. The GIS will be applied to connect data, maps, satellite images as well as other ancillary data that can efficiently enhance the analysis of the city’s natural water surface transition through different periods. We particularly use the Landsat satellite images in 1989, 1999, 2009 for mapping the water bodies transformation.