HANOI

High rises are sprouting ratherhaphazardly among the townhouses and French coioniaibuiidings of Hanoi, but thecity has so far maintained itstraditional character. A newplanning effort addresses thatissue and many others in thisdense Asian city, located in a bendof the Red River. Above right: TrueBach Lake, one of dozens of lakesthat dot Hanoi. Many others havebeen filled in for development.

noi is one of Asia's most charming cities.Nestled in a bend of the Red River, this com-pact city of 2.7 million residents is dottedwith lakes, and its backstreets are lined withtall, narrow town houses festooned with bal-conies and elaborate ornamentation. Frenchcolonial buildings frame its tree-lined bou-levards. On crowded sidewalks, shoppershaggle over produce, street vendors cookfood on braziers, and women in conical hatsdeliver everything from bricks to dragonfrioit on pole-borne baskets. Through it all,motorcycles, bicycles, and cars stream in a

chaotic flood of traffic that rises with eacheconomic uptick.

A thousand years after its founding, near-ly 40 years after American bombs stoppeddropping, and 25 years into the à)i moi pol-icy of economic liberalization, Hanoi is at acrossroads. As rising incomes transform themotorcycles into cars, it is easy to see dys-function ahead.

Will Hanoi become another Bangkok,choked with traffic and filled with interna-tional chain stores? Or follow Manila, wherewealth and poverty, malls and garbage dumps

34 Planning November 2011

ON THE BRINKA GROWING RIVER GITY PONDERS ITS FUTURE,

BY SUSAN K. MOFFAT

sprawl side by side? Will it wipe out most of

its historic neighl-Hirhoods, as Beijing has

done? Or will H;uioi succeed in maintaininga unique character defined by lively neigh-lx)rhoods of small-scale town houses withfirst-floor shops and punctuated with Bud-dhist pagodas, French villas, and lakes andrivers at every turn?

In July, Prime Minister Nguyen TanDung signed into law an ambidous mas-ter plan for the dty that aims to establish itamong the ranks of the world's great mod-em capitals while preserving its essendalqualides. The country's leaders began prepa-radon of die plan in 2008 with the goal ofcreadng a vision in dme for Hanoi's millen-nial anniversary in 2010, but approval wasdelayed by controversy over its content. Ina country that is sdll under one-party Com-munist rule, the heated debate was a strikingexample of how the government is gingerly

The intimate scale of many Hanoi streetsmakes for a lively street life.

exploring the value of a more open publicprocess.

Challenges

Some of the debate focused on moving thenadonal governmental center to a satellitecity west of Hanoi—an idea that has sincebeen rejected. But much of the discussioncentered on the cit\'s reladon to its lakes andwaterways, which present many of its mostdaunting planning challenges. Water is at thecore of Hanoi's idendty: The citT,''s foundingmyth concerns a dragon arising from theRed River, and Ha-noi means "in the bendof the river." The cit\' arose gradually overthe centuries from marshland, and today issurrounded by some of the most producdverice paddy and delta land in the world.

Hanoi, which lies well below the rainyseason level of the Red River, depends onextensive dikes for its existence. But devel-opment has leapt over die barriers and isgetdng dangerously close to the water. Onthe other side of the city, the smaller'Ib LiehRiver, which once carded royal boats amongpalaces, is now a stinking open sewer. Onlya fracdon of the city's liquid wa.ste is treatedbefore it pours into the 'Ib Lieh and otherrivers and lakes. And hundreds of the city'siconic lakes and ponds have been filled in fordevelopment, crippling die city's overloadedstormwater systems.

The master plan had to address manyother issues. Public transit is inadequate, andthere are no high-speed arterials within thecity. The air is thick with dust and soot fromvehicle exhaust. Whue Hanoi has avoidedthe sprawling slums of many SoutheastAsian cides, many people are inadequatelyhoused, and high rises have sprouted ran-domly around the city rather than cluster-ing in well-planned districts. Meanwhile, thecity's immensely producdve urban agricul-ture and aquaculture sectors are threatenedby rising land prices.

In 2008, the government more thantripled the area of the Hanoi administra-dve region to encompass more than 3,300

American Planning Association 35

Is Seoul a Model for Hanoi?South Korea and Vietnam have a fraught reladonship shaped by their shared experience ofdivision into communist and capitalist halves, the parddpadon of more than 300,000 SouthKorean troops in the Vietnam Wiir, and intensive investment by Soutli Korean companiesin Vietnam in recent years. Manufactudng and constiaicdon finns including 1 Iyundai, LG,Samsung, Daew(X), and Poseo are acdve in Hanoi and throughout the cotmtry.

In 2007, tlie Seoul Metro[X)1itan Government offered its development and pkuiiiingexperdse to I lanoi, presendng a plan diat envisioned $7 billion in liigh-densit\' develop-ment, flood control, and tirban parkland along 25 miles of the Red River, which separatesthe urban eore from newer ilevelo]iment to the north. (The development proposal wascreated before the recently approved master plan.) hi exchange for providing parks,flcxxi control, and transportadon infi^structure, developers would gain access to newlycreated or diked land.

The Seoul Metropolitan Gijveniment thought its own success could be eimJated.Like Hanoi, Seoul has a very large dver— t̂he Han—flowing through its center. With 27bridges, an efficient public transjxjrtadon system, and diotisands of acTes of waterfrontparks and trails, Seoul has created a city with a single idendty despite die major harder oftlie dver.

Seoul is the capital of a cotintry that in 50 years has gone from lieing poorer than manyAfrican nadons to becoming one of the world's most prosperous and technologicallyadvanced. And although Seoul is the second largest metrojiolitan region in the w orld (afi:er'If)kyo), with 24 million people, it has escaped many of the misedes of other Asian megaci-des. Seoul is now a clean, mf)bile, and highly fimcdonal metropolis that has an increasinglyvibrant architecture and design culture.

So it was something of a surprise to some Koreans—and perhaps the Vietnamese lead-

ership who invited them—^when a number of Vietnamese architects, planners, and citizenspushed back against tlic Red River proposal. The Soudi Korean jienchant for concretewas not to some Vietnamese tastes. The opponents argued that high dses lining the dverdid not reflect the culture of Hanoi, that a lack of public transit to the new developmentwould increase congesdon. and that annodng the dver could lead to more rather tlian lessflcxxling and impact ferdle delta lands downstream. They were concemed with the need torelocate up to 150,000 people within the proposed development area. Density, they argued,should be fcxn.ised on higher groimd farther fi-om the dver.

Altliough Vlemam's Cx)mmunist Party makes all final land-planning decisions andcontrols the press, architects and engineers have some ability to cddque planning proposalsthrough their profes.sional assfxriadfms. Fheir comments in this case appear to have hadsome influence on lx)th the Red River development proposal and the I lanoi master plan.

"The Red River is very tough, not like the waterways in Bangkok or Shanghai or Seoulor other cides in Asia," says Pham Ngoc Dang, leader of a professional associadon of civilengineers, who argues that the dverbanks should Ix; reserv ed for eiivironmenüilly sotmdmethcxls of flood control. "If you change nature too boldly, it will create consequences."

Tran Huy Anh, an architect who is part of a cidzen's group called Acdon for the (>ity,jxjints out that much of tlie Red River lies within C l̂iina—Vietnam's tradidonal nemesis—and thus is beyond Vietnam's control. New dams upstream could impatt how water flowsthrough Hanoi.

One prominent scholar and ardst puts his thoughts about the dver's seasonal vada-dons in poedc fomi. "The Red River is delicate and capHcious, like a girl. You must treat itgendy, with lots of o|)en space," says Hoang Dao Thuy, who has wdtten many árdeles onHanoi's landscape. "A concept like the Seine or the Danulx; is imjxjssible."

The Hanoi Urban Planning Insdtute, an agency of the Hanoi city government,recommended that the Red River projxjsal be revised to reduce the intensity of waterfrontdevelopment "The plan sh(iuld not only be alxjut concrete and Hcxsd control," says LaThiKim Ngan, director of HUPI. "There are important ecological areas, and the islands willbe parkland to maintain natural systems."

For now, the Red River development proposal is on hold, and the latest drafr of the Ha-noi master plan establishes a lower level of density along the dver than odginally proposed.

square kilometers, the majority of which isin rural districts. That move bumped up thejudsdicdon's ¡xjpuladon to 6.4 million, withmost residents living amongst rice paddiesand farms.

The high populadon density of the Ha-noi region strains both the built and naturalenvironments. The Red River delta is amongthe most densely populated rural areas in theworld, while Hanoi's teeming historic corecontains 163 people per acre. Remarkably,this density is contained in a fine-grained,low-dse urban fabric of buildings mosdyjust four to six stodes high. Undl now, thatpattem has largely survived both war andeconomic growth, but as Vietnam entersthe ranks of lower middle-income countries,many wonder how long the character of thecity can be preserved.

Hanoi has not yet been hammeredwith the breakneck pace of development ofmegacides in neigbbodng China. Vietnamis an economic latecomer, following in thefootsteps of Asian "dger economies" such asSouth Korea and Taiwan. That gives Hanoian opportunity to avoid many of the mistakes

of too-rapid urban growth. Aiid just as Viet-nam bas alternately fended off, assimilated,and managed its colonizing fxiwers, Hanoihas also incorporated Chinese, French, andSoviet influences while remaining essen-dally \^etnamese.

A plan of national importance

The master plan aims to preserve Hanoi'sspecial character while facilitating economicgrowth and a better quality of life for resi-dents. More than just a blueprint for a cityand its residents, it is a nadon's expression ofits idendty and ambidons.

Viemam is a medium-sized country of88 million people in a region dominated bygiants China and India. And in Asian tenus,Hanoi is a middling city, smaller than HoChi Minh City 700 miles to the south, andfortunate to have avoided the fate of Tokyo,Seoul, Bangkok, and Manila, all if which areburdened with the twin tasks of serving aseconomic and polidcal capitals. Hanoiansseem to prefer a livable city to a megacity;bigness for its own sake does not seem to bea local value.

The master plan was prepared by a Ko-rean and American team hired by the na-donal Ministry of Construcdon. The team,known as PPJ, includes Perkins Eastmanof New York, Poseo Engineering—one ofSouth Korea's largest engineering fimis—

36 Planning November 2011

:.iost of the produce sold dt i lanui 3 ubiquitous stit-ei i

within the city limits or at nearby suburban farms.is grown

and Jina, Inc., an architecture and planningfirm from Seoul.

"Hanoi has the potendal to be one ofthe great world capitals if it doesn't lose itsspecial charm," says Bradford Perkins, chair-man and CEO of Perkins Easunan, who hasworked extensively throughout Asia. "Theyknow they must avoid the mistakes of manycides in China," where unbridled growth hasoften destroyed precious historic and envi-ronmental resources.

The PPJ plan draws in part on a 2007plan for Hanoi known as the HAIDEP plan,which was produced hy the Tokyo-basedplanning firm Almec. That earlier plan iden-tified key historic and landscape resources,but it predated Hanoi's expansion. The newmaster plan echoes the approach of manyEuropean ddes, preserving a low-rise his-toric core and concentrating density at theouter rings, with a firm edge at the fourthring road to stop urban sprawl.

Some 70 percent of the land within thejurisdicdon is to be preserved as open space,including famis and greenbelts. A projectedpopuladon of nine tnillion by 2030 and 11million by 2050 will be accommodated infive satellite cides and the historic core, andserved by a subway system and four ringroads. The densely packed streets of thedty's Old Quarter near the iconic HoanKiem Lake are to be protected from large-scale redevelopment.

"The goal is for Hanoi to keep its iden-dty while growing its economy," says JiyounLee, senior associate partner at Jina, whocoordinated a team of Vietnamese, Korean,and American planners and navigated the

bi.'zandne system of inter-min-isterial approvals needed.

The dty's lakes and pondswill be preserved, not filled infor more buildings. DeiLsitywill instead be focused alongthe outer ring roads and—tosome e.xtent—along the RedRiver.

Along the Red River

The fate of the Red River isperhaps the most controver-sial planning issue in Hanoi.Unlike many urban rivers, theRed River remains largely wild.Its name derives from the 100million tons of reddish sedi-ment it carries from China'sYunnan province to the Gulf

of Totikin each year. Ranging from a half-mile to nearly a mile in width within the citylimits, the river has sandy banks and islandsthat shift with the seasons and are lined withfarmland—even in the center of the city.The river swells from shallow stream in thedry winter to a torrent in the wet summer.Because of this wide variadon, the cit\' doesnot have a significant port, and there is litdeindustry along the water.

Establishing the Red River as the cen-ter rather than the edge of the futtire me-tropolis presents a significant urban designchallenge. Unlike the Seine in Paris or theThames in London, the Red River is not atame flow that draws the city together, but amuch wider and unpredictable presence thatdivides it.

Today, a half-mile-wide swath of vegeta-ble farms lines the southem bank where theriver deposits its alluvium, and more fanns(Kcupy midstream islands. The ubiquitousfresh greens served with pho noodles in Ha-noi's street stalls ofren make the one- or two-mile joumey from riverside field to table bymotorcycle or bike.

This fannland is being encroached onhy more than 75,000 homes built in recentyears outside the dikes, direcdy in the path offloodwaters. These setdements, which havebeen built without official approval, are notriverside shacks (except for a few f)ockets),but substandal neighborhoods of five-storybrick and stucco houses and shops.

The 2007 HAIDEP plan proposed re-locating these residents to safer grotindand reserving a wide swath of riverfront asfloodplain, designed as parkland. At about

the same dme, a Korean team led by theSeoul Metropolitan Cíovemment presenteda compedng vision consisdng of intensivehigh-rise development along the river. Thisdevelopment projxjsal, which was not a mas-ter plan for the city but one that foctised onlyon the waterfront, met sdff resistatice amongmany Vietnamese architects and planners(see sidebar).

The PPJ master plan represents some-thing of a compromise and leaves manyriverfront details to be determined in thefriture. However, the general concept envi-sions nodes of high-densit)' developmentalong the river that will help pay for neededinfrastnicture improvements.

Historically, while the Red River definedthe northern and eastem edges of the dty,the city's westem edge was oudined by themuch smaller Tb Lieh River. Today, die ToLieh runs in a concrete channel through theheart of dense urban districts. In places, theTb Lieh brings to mind Amsterdam's canals,lined as it is with walkways and streedampsand four- and five-story buildings.

The To Lieh has great potendal as anurban amenity, but it sdnks from the rawsewage that pours into it. Moreover, sinceits elevadon is below that of the Red River,the Tb Lieh fails to perform its chief ftinc-don of draining urhan neighborhoods. Theproblem has been made worse by the fillingof lakes and ponds for development. Duringcatastrophic rains in 2008, severe fl<x)dingwas caused not by the Red River breachingits dikes, but by the fiiilure of the To Liehand other parts of the city's stormwater sys-tem to convey urban rtinoff.

TTie good news for Hanoi is that manyof its most valuable assets, pardailarly thehistoric Old Quarter and lakes and pondsthroughout the city, are beginning to be pro-tected. But succeeding in the tasks of man-aging its other water resources, of housingits people, and of moving goods and morethan six million people within its borders,will depend not only on the vision laid outin the new master plan but on finding theinfi^stmcuire fimding resources to cany outthe plans. Hanoi's challenge is to harnessnew development to help finance the city'sneeds without destroying its unique anddelicate fahric in the process.

• Susan K. Moffat is a planner with the San FranciscoBay Conservation and Development Commission.The views in the article are her own and not thoseof the commission.

American Planning Association 37

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