Middle Class Landscapes in a Transforming City: Hanoi in the 21st Century

Abstract

Hanoi at the end of 21st century's first decade presents an urban landscape that is often described primarily as "chaotic". Chaos is certainly the impression left by the traffic-which almost all foreign visitors comment upon, as do most Hanoians, too-and the streetscapes which juxtapose buildings of different decades and centuries, architectural styles, functions, and states of repair, side-by-side. Chaotic also seems to describe the markets, the sidewalks, the jumble of advertising signage, and the noise of everyday life in the city.This city, which in 2010 celebrated its millenial anniversary, seems, upon closer inspection, to sit uneasily between old and new. The weight of those thousand years-and particularly the last one hundred or so-certainly hangs heavy over the built environment and the social and political discourse on the city. But the new is also certainly making its mark, scoring deep inroads into the built environment and its historical character. Observation of satellite images of the city (e.g. from Google Maps) reveals not only the clear enduring outline of the citadel, home of the pre-colonial emperors, but the small irregular streets of the pre-colonial Thirty-Six Streets, and the grid-patterned boulevards of the European-built colonial quarters to the south. But following the dike road out past West Lake on these maps also reveals the landscape alterations of a much more recent past-the densely villa-infested shores of West Lake and the river bank, then, almost at the Thȃng Long bridge, the high-rise towers and orderly townhouses of Ciputra, or Nam Thȃng Long, the private gated community ("international city" according to its builder) with its massive gate (modelled on the Brandenburg Gate) onto the airport highway, and, cleverly, its road inwards from the gate in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. Following the map further to the south reveals the transformation of the area around the Daewoo Hotel and zoo, with its wide new roads and new government buildings, and even further

Trading in broken things: Gendered performances and spatial practices in a northern Vietnamese rural‐urban waste economy

“…This process creates new urban spaces where the spatialization of class is visible (Zhang ). That is, social status is externalized in the architecture and zoning of living quarters and in the establishment of public spaces where middle‐class consumption is both conspicuous and exclusive (Douglass and Huang ; Drummond ; Harms ). Since migrant laborers are seen to upset urban order, in which the state‐sponsored notion of beauty represents an instrument of social control (Harms ), their presence in the urban space is considered the antithesis of that beauty.…”

Transport in transition: Doi moi and the consumption of cars and motorbikes in Hanoi

“…In Hanoi, the new economy brought along rapid urbanisation, new employment, new housing and new leisure activities (Drummond, 2012), and thus required increased mobility, both intra-urban and rural–urban. Vietnam quickly developed a good network of buses and trains nationally, but failed to keep up with the rising demand for intra-urban public transport.…”

“…The pace of the transition from bicycles to motorbikes has been extraordinary. In the words of Drummond (2012): ‘The changes in transportation in Hanoi over the last twenty years can be succinctly summarised as leaping from ‘bikes to motorbikes to cars in one generation’ (p. 89). This leap has seen Vietnam go from 4 million motorbikes nationally in 1996 to the same number in Hanoi alone by 2014.…”

“…In the consumption literature, Truitt (2008) has discussed motorbikes extensively, while Earl (2014) briefly discusses driving practices for middle-class women in Ho Chi Minh City. Drummond (2012) also touches upon changing transport consumption during doi moi .…”

Downgraded by Upgrading: Small-scale Traders, Urban Transformation and Spatial Reconfiguration in Post-reform Vietnam

“…Unlike street vendors, who move around the city in flexible patterns, market vendors depend on permanent retail spaces and are vulnerable to increases in stall fees and customers' shifting loyalties. At Hàng Da market, the 'upgrading' of old-style markets has 'downgraded' the longestablished vendors to make space for high-end shopping facilities that are deemed attractive for the new urban elite and upper middle-class (Drummond 2012). Rather than enjoying the comfort of modern architecture and design and benefitting from an increase in value of their assets in the marketplace, they now see themselves stuck with the responsibility of paying higher fees and bills despite the fact that their profits from trade have significantly decreased.…”