URBANIZATION IN TRANSITIONAL SOCIETIES: AN OVERVIEW OF VIETNAM AND HANOI

Abstract

The rush of foreign investment that drives industrialization has disrupted the socialist ways of Vietnam. This unprecedented about-face in Vietnam's political economy, a process called doi moi, unfolds unevenly in what was formerly called North and South Vietnam. In particular, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC, formerly Saigon) accommodate this industrialization differently, owing to history, politics, infrastructure, and the allure these places hold for displaced rural peasants. This paper highlights the widening contradictions that doi moi has brought to Vietnam. It focuses on the nation's largest cities and assesses the impact doi moi has had on housing, infrastructure, and the basic provision of urban services. Postsocialist urbanization in Vietnam witnesses a new and diminished role for the state, despite a wide array of urban problems and petty enterprise in the wake of the doi moi process. [Key words: urbanization, Vietnam, doi moi, social services.]