Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Cities

j ourna l homepage: www.e lsev ie r .com/ locate / jc i t

City profile

Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City

Thanh Bao Nguyen a,⁎, D. Ary A. Samsura a, Erwin van der Krabben a,b, Anh-Duc Le c

a Institute of Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlandsb School of the Built Environment, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, UKc Colleges of Construction No. 2, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of GeographInstitute for Management Research, Radboud Univer6500HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

E-mail addresses: thanhgems@gmail.com, thanhbangkd.samsura@fm.ru.nl (D.A.A. Samsura), e.vanderkrabben@farchleduc@gmail.com (A.-D. Le).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.08.0070264-2751/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

a b s t r a c t

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 9 January 2015Received in revised form 23 July 2015Accepted 6 August 2015Available online xxxx

Keywords:City in transition periodStalled developmentOut-of-plan developmentInstitutional change

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) has existed for over three centuries and has developed into the financial capital andmost important economic hub of Vietnam. This profile outlines the history of HCMC's development and its impacton current conditions and physical structure of the city. The paper analyzes some of the problemswith respect tourban land use that have occurred in HCMC in the transitional period after DoiMoi and discusses the city's futurechallenges, in the perspective of climate change and further economic and population growth.

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC)—once known as Saigon—is nowadays themost populous city in Vietnam with 7.97 million inhabitants (2014).The city is situated in the Southern part of Vietnam, around 1,730 kmby road to Hanoi—the capital city of Vietnam—in the North (Fig. 1).HCMC covers an area of 2,095 km2 with 494,01 km2 urbanized areaconsisting of 19 districts and counties, and rural area that comprises 5subdistricts with 98 communes (Fig. 2). Nowadays, HCMC is thenation's financial capital and the prime economic hub that has attractedpeople from all across the country.

The profile aims at providing a brief review of HCMC's developmenthistory as well as the institutional changes that have affected the plan-ning and urban form of the city, followed by a discussion of the currentand future major land use management challenges for the city. Thepaper is structured as follows. Section 2 outlines the context for urbandevelopment in HCMC, providing a brief historical overview of thecity. Section 3 describes HCMC's economic and real estate market dy-namics. In Section 4, some issues and problems related to HCMC'surban land use in the transition period are analyzed followed by the dis-cussion of future challenges in urban spatial development in Section 5.The final section contains some concluding remarks both with respectto HCMC's history and its future urban planning challenges.

y, Planning, and Environment,sity Nijmegen, PO Box 9108,

ok@yahoo.com (T.B. Nguyen),m.ru.nl (E. van der Krabben),

2. Overview of the historical and urban development of the city

HCMC has evolved through time under different regimes and expe-rienced many institutional changes related to urban planning and de-velopment. Here we distinguish four periods in the history of HCMCbased on significant change of institutional regimes especially relatedto planning and urban development, from its ancient period till now.

2.1. 1698–1859

Information regarding HCMC's early period in ancient times is onlyprovided in reports from Chinese traders translated by Pelliot (1903).According to these reports, the area belonged to the Kingdom of NokorPhnom (or Kingdom of Funan, which today comprises part of Thailand,Cambodia and Vietnam) until the 6th century and then the ChenlaKingdom until the 8th century. In this paper, however, we start the his-tory of HCMC's development in the late 17th century (Fig. 3) becausethere is not enough information about those kingdoms and long periodsafterwards until the Chinese and Vietnamese people arrived in that areaduring that time.

In 1698, the Nguyen Dynasty gave an order to establish a Vietnamesetown from a junk seaport area called Prey Nokor thatwas occupied by theKhmer. The Vietnamese named the town Gia Dinh. The Vietnamese rulerestablished a newadministration system in this new town that allowed itto organize itself and benefit from its revenues without any interventionfrom the central government in the North part of Vietnam (Wook, 2004).During this period, everybody could more or less freely use and develophis/her land, although permission from the authorities was needed(Wook, 2004). It was also common at that time that property, especiallyland, tended to be communal within family or clan (Smith, 1972). The

Fig. 1. Ho Chi Minh City in South East Asia.

17T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

Nguyen Dynasty also established foundation of commercial, monetaryand taxation system in the area. The city has then developed mainlyalong the Saigon river as the port played an important role and is stillthe city's nucleus. In 1790, French architects were hired to build a Vaubanstyle citadel for military purposes, which became the most prominentlandmark of the town at that time (Fig. 4) (Vo, 2011). Ironically, it wasalso the French who destroyed the citadel (tabula rasa) when they con-quered and took control of the town in 1859.

2.2. 1859–1975

In 1862, the French built a totally new city in the area, at firstfor 500,000 residents, and adopted Saigon as the name for the city(Fig. 5). The French planned to make Saigon the administrative andcommercial hub of South Vietnam (Bird, 1883). From 1887–1902,Saigon served as the capital of the Cochinchina region as part of theFrench Indochina or the United Indochinese Federation which comprisedparts of themodern Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, with Hanoi (Tonkin)as its capital (Anh, 2005).

During the French occupation, several subsequent master plans in-cluding the plan by Coffyn in 1862 (Trân & Trương, 2011), ErnestHébrard in 1923, and Cerutti in 1942 (Thai, 1998) were made whichtransformed Saigon from a small town into a modern city. It was duringthis time that the main layout of the city in a straight style with widetree-lined avenues and parks was introduced and soon the city devel-oped a reputation for its beauty and cosmopolitan atmosphere. Saigonwas called the "Pearls of the Far East" (Hon Ngoc Vien Dong) for its ele-gance, diversity, and prosperity (see the remnants of French Architec-tural buildings in HCMC in Fig. 6). With regard to land use regime,the French preserved the communal ownership over land in Saigon,although under supervision of the colonial government. Later in 1946,the state enacted a law that clearly recognized three different kinds oflandownership: state, collective, and private ownership.

During this period, Chinese migrants from Guangdong provincemoved to Cholon (today China Town in District 5), 6 km away fromthe city of Saigon. They lived mainly on boats along the river or in tem-porary small houses (Bird, 1883). In 1932, Saigon and Cholon weremerged and called Saigon-Cholon, later, in 1956, the Region of Saigon.

The French ruled Saigon for nearly a century. After the GenevaAgreements in 1954, the US came to replace the French military pres-ence, and Vietnam was divided into two parts: the Democratic Republicof Vietnam in the North—influenced by socialist ideology from theformer Soviet Union and China—with Hanoi as the capital; and theRepublic of Vietnam in the South—influenced by the US and its capitalist

ideology—with Saigon as the capital. As the war broken between theNorth and the South from 1954 to 1975, Saigon also served as the mili-tary headquarters for US forces in the area. During the war, after theFrench had left, the land and property ownership regime more or lessremained as it was and served as the main rationale for any urbandevelopment.

Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, at least amillion immigrantsfrom the rural areas poured into the city to avoid the war (Goodman &Franks, 1975). Rapid population increase created serious housing prob-lems and overcrowding. Many slum areas appeared along the river(Fig. 7). To solve these problems, the SouthVietnamgovernment imple-mented a series of master plans for Saigon's development, including theHoàng Hùng plan in 1958, the Ngô Viết Thụ plan in 1960, the Doxiadisplan in 1962, and theWBE plan in 1972. However, proper implementa-tion of these plans was prevented by the war (Thai, 1998).

2.3. 1975–1985

The civil war ended in 1975 resulting in the reunification of Vietnaminto the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Saigon lost its status as capital, andin 1976 it was renamed intoHo ChiMinh City to honor the late Presidentof the Vietnamese Revolution. The new government adopted a strongcentralized socialist system. It took responsibility for providing housingfor those working for the state (Coit, 1998). Unoccupied houses andprivate enterprises were nationalized (Gainsborough, 2004). The newgovernment abandoned private landownership and established thecollectivization of agriculture land.

In the first fifteen years after the war, hardly any spatial develop-ment took place in HCMC (Thái, 2015). The few developments weremostly concentrated in a radius of less than 5 km from the city center.Nevertheless, even during the difficult situation after the war, peoplefrom the rural areas still moved to the city. Due to housing shortages,people usually had to share houses. HCMC's typical alley system,which has lasted until now, was then formed (Kim, 2012).

2.4. 1986–Now

In 1986, the central government decided to introduce the Doi Moipolicy aiming to create a more market-oriented economy, in order toimprove the country's economic power (Tsuboi, 2007). Along withthis policy, the state enacted a land law in 1988 that, permitting thegrant of land use rights to organizational and individual land users,still affirmed that only the state, in the name of all citizens, is the sole ad-ministrator of the land. This law still prohibited many types of land

Fig. 2. Districts of Ho Chi Minh City.(Source: Statistic Year Book 2014).

18 T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

transactions. Additionally, the decision, in 1991, to sell all of the statehouses to existing users has fuelled urban development all overVietnam and mobilized private capital (JBIC, 1999; Labbé & Musil,2014; Yip & Tran, 2008). The privatization of house ownership andland use rights has also encouraged home owners to improve the qual-ity of their houses (Vinh & Leaf, 1996).

In 1993, the state introduced again a new land law inwhich land userights now consisted of five specified rights: the right to transfer, to

exchange, to lease, to inherit, and to mortgage. Despite these rights,the 1993 law restated that all land was still owned by the state. Never-theless, soon new commercial and residential developments appeared.A revision of the land law in 1998modified the right to use land (includ-ing leased land) as capital for joint ventures of domestic and foreigninvestors (AusAID, 2001).

A decade later, in 2003, again the state enacted a new land law,strongly reflecting the ideas of Doi Moi. With this law, new provisions

Fig. 3. Ancient Saigon in 17th century.Source: Le (1997).

Fig. 4. Urban morphology of Ancient Saigon.(Sources: Tran Van Hoc, 1815).

19T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

Fig. 5. Saigon during the French Era.Source: http://hinhanhvietnam.com.

20 T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

with respect to the establishment, review, and proclamation of land useplans strengthened both openness and transparency. This law also pro-vided administrative procedural reforms to simplify and ease the bur-dens of land users; the mechanism for receiving petitions and claimson land and resolution of land disputes; and the equal treatment toland users whether they are domestic companies, households, individ-uals, or foreign investors, or Vietnamese permanent residents overseas.The law established the initial legal basis for the emergence of a marketfor land use rights in Vietnam, by setting out provisions on land userights in the market for immovable property, land pricing and financialissues related to land.

With this new law, HCMC has experienced strong growth of large-scale projects, starting with Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone. Severalmega projects have been completed since then, such as the implemen-tation of 12 industrial zones, the construction of the Nhieu Loc-Thi NgheCanal and the Vo Van Kiet high way, mixed-use high-rise buildings, PhuMy HungNew Town, and 4 bridges to Thu Thiem,Hiệp Phước, and Cát Láisea port. However, the state's limited capability with respect to urbanmanagement and to deal with market pressure still impedes a smoothtransformation of the city (Fig. 8).

HCMC's morphology has also changed into a capitalist urban modelwith the increase of density in the city center (Fig. 9). The separation ofresidential and commercial zones is mostly absent in HCMC, due to thefact that a zoning system with regard to land use in HCMC does notexist. Almost every house along a busy street supports some kind ofshop on the ground floor.

Recently, the state introduced the newest 2013 Land Law, whichtook an effect on July 1st, 2014. This new law contains some improve-ments with respect to land transactions and land prices, by regulating

the procedure to take decisions on land acquisitions and upgradingthe rights of foreign investors. It enables foreign investors to getinvolved on their own in residential projects for lease or sale (beforeforeign investors had to establish a joint venture with a domestic inves-tor). This new law also provides a legal basis for a more transparentprocess by which foreign enterprises can now obtain land use rightsthrough auction and sublet land from domestic enterprises or overseasVietnamese. The state, however, still holds full ownership, while indi-viduals can only obtain prolonged lease rights over land.

The historical periods as described above somehow can be tracedthrough the zones of expansion and physical growth of the city. Ittook the form of four polylines as shown in Fig. 10, where the periodictimeline is moving in a centrifugal direction (Fig. 11). The main institu-tional changes that have affected HCMC's land and property rightsregime have been summarized in Fig. 12.

3. Current real estate market dynamics in HCMC

3.1. Real estate market

From the Doi Moi policy up to 1993, real estate market activitiesmainly consisted of small-scale upgrading of existing houses, withonly few transactions with formal registration. After 1993, however,the real estate market emerged as speculators bought unused plots toaccommodate new demand caused by rapid urbanization.Many privatereal estate investors took the chance to invest. At the same time, existingusers used their own saving money for home improvement and toupgrade the quality of their houses for commercial rent (Phe, 1997).Soon, the real estate market was complicated with many types of

Fig. 6. Remnants of French Architectural buildings in HCMC.Source: Field Survey, 2015.

21T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

legal, illegal, and unclear land ownership structures (Kim, 2004). A sub-stantial amount of foreign capital nevertheless led to a booming real es-tate market and has contributed to the modernization of the city. Asforeign investors still had limited rights with regard to land use, theyusually entered a Joint Venture Company with domestic investors.Nguyen, Van der Krabben, and Samsura (2014) found that, despite thefact that a level playing field for domestic and foreign real estate inves-tors is still missing, both domestic and foreign investors seem to be ableto position themselves in this market. The new Land Law 2013 has fur-ther improved the rights of foreign investors, but it is unclear yetwheth-er thiswill change theway that foreign investors operate in HCMC's realestate market.

Fig. 7. Aerial view of Saigon in 1960.Source: Colonel O'Neill Barrett.

3.2. High-rise

Perhaps themost significant recent change to HCMC's features is theappearance of many high-rise buildings in the city. Before 1975, therewere a few high-rise buildings in District 1 and 5. From 1975 to theend of 1980, the city did not develop any new building due to a lack ofdemand and finance. However, the 1993 revision of the land lawattracted foreign capital to invest in real estate, and for the first timenew high-rise buildings in District 1's center were developed, includinglots of new commercial high-rise buildings, large-scale modern offices,and new luxury hotels like Saigon Centre, Sheraton Hotel, New WorldHotel, Sunwah Tower, and Price Hotel (Fig. 13) (Huynh, 2012; Jung,Huynh, & Rowe, 2013; Nguyen et al., 2014). Up to 2010, the city had225 high-rise building projects. Between 2008 and 2012, HCMCDepart-ment of Construction approved 104 high-rise projects, amongwhich 41locate in the central area (Kien, 2015). These projects contribute to thecity's economyand increase land and real estate prices, while—althougharguably—adding to the city's attractiveness. The institution reformshave made real estate market grow strongly in HCMC.

4. Urban land use in the transition period

The transition from a socialist and centralized system to amore openand market-oriented system is still ongoing in Vietnam at the moment.This transition has surely affected urban land use patterns in HCMC. Todeal with the situation after Doi Moi, HCMC authorities issued the firstcity master plan in 1993, which later on has been adjusted for severaltimes.1 However, many developments still do not fit in the masterplan. The city authority seems to consider these plans in the first placeas a “facilitation device” for the city government, to negotiate with

1 The first master plans for HCMC after Doi Moi policy was introduced in 1993, then itwas revised and adjusted in 1998, 2005, and 2011.

Fig. 8. Downtown area of HCMC.Source: Field survey, 2015.

Fig. 9. Population Density in Built-up Area in 2009.Source: World Bank (2010).

Fig. 10. City development in different periods.(Source: Cuong (2012), author sketched base on http://www.bing.com/maps 2014).

22 T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

Fig. 11. Urban morphology of Ho Chi Minh City.

23T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

the central government greater fiscal and policy autonomy, to huntfor international donors' financial contributions in urban redevelop-ment, and to lure private businesses to participate in building the city(Huynh, 2015).

4.1. Out-of-plan developments

Since the early 1990s, HCMChas developedwith little control bymas-ter plans. Many developments concern in fact illegal transformations ofagriculture land to residential (Huynh, 2012). One example of such illegaldevelopment is the Phu My Hung residential area by a Taiwanese devel-oper. In 1993, the developer persuaded the city authorities to provide abuilding permit, although the proposed development was not in line

Fig. 12. Institutional changes in

with the master plan. In 1997, the investment was approved under thecondition that the developer had to build a 17.8 km highway to connectthe Tan Thuan Export Zone to the national highway in exchange of receiv-ing 50 years lease rights for the 300 ha residential development project.Another type of out-of-plan developments is related to the violationof a building permit received by a property owner. One example is theDiamond Island project in District 2 in 2012: the developer contravenesthe building permit by adding two floors in every block creating anextra 2,899.6 m2 floor area in the project (Khanh, 2012).

One explanation why these situations occur is the municipality'slack of financial resources to provide facilities and infrastructure. Therapid urbanization created by the real estate development industryhas led to a high demand for public investment, which was not

HCMC urban development.

Fig. 13. High-rise buildings besides tube-houses in the city center.Source: Field Survey, 2014.

Fig. 14. Twenty golden lands call for investment in Ho Chi Minh City.Source: HCMC Department of Architecture and Planning, 2009

24 T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

available. As a ‘solution’, the municipality has then allowed privateinvestors, based on the so-called ‘Land-for-Infrastructure Mechanism’,to develop projects that were not consistent with the master plan,with the private investors in turn agreeing to construct some of thenecessary infrastructures (Labbé & Musil, 2014).

4.2. Stalled developments

In 2014, the HCMC Department of Construction have listed around536 housing and commercial development projects that have beenstalled, covering a total area of over 5,397 ha of reclaimed land (Hien,2014). This situation has not only directly affected the interests ofother investors but also ‘wastes’ the city's land resources. Examples ofstalled developments include the Binh Quoi–Thanh Da Ecology UrbanDevelopment project for 4,000 households in Ward 28; Binh Thanhdistrict with a total area of 450 ha, which has been stalled since 1992;and Vinh Loc ecology lake project in Binh Chanh district, stalled since2000 (Xuan, 2012).

Wemight suggest several factors that cause the substantive amountof stalled developments in HCMC. First, it seems to be the consequenceof the long-lasting procedures in obtaining a development permit orapproval from the state. Meanwhile, the development costs may haveincreased which makes it difficult for the developer to continue withthe project. Also, state officials in Vietnam still have strong discretionover tenure rights. Despite attempts by the 2003 and 2013 Land Lawsto clarify private ‘land use rights’ and restrict state discretionary powers,to this day, state officials retain considerable powers over the calcula-tion of compensation payments, influencing the profitability of privatedevelopers' investments.

The second reason relates to the insufficient capital, management,and administration capacity of some investors to carry out the projects.They bought the land anyway, with the intention to resell the land toanother investor or developer and enjoy profits from selling the landagainst a higher price. This speculative behaviour of land developersalso happens when a new master plan is announced for a particulararea. It immediately attracts many small developers to acquire land,which in the end creates deadlock due to fragmented rights to carryout the development (Quertamp, Pandofli, & Petibon, 2013). When adeveloper cannot quickly come up with a compensation agreementfor the current users, the latter can even further improve their activities,for instance by increasing the number of floors of their current building,which then will rise the acquisition price even more.

The third reason relates to land disputes caused by the highlycomplex and fragmented land administration system. This has beena long-standing issue in Vietnam. Although there is no private landownership in Vietnam, occupants are entitled to land use rights thatrange from long-term leases for urban residential land to 20-year leasesfor farmland.

4.3. Fragmented landownership

Zhu (2012) argues that the current situation of fragmented land-ownership in many parts of HCMC—as a direct result of the (almost)

privatization of landownership since the 1993 Land Law—has led to un-sustainable urban forms in the city. In large parts of the city redevelop-ment shows a piecemeal development pattern, with owners of smallplots of land ‘self-building’ at low densities on their own plots. Thismay lead to unsustainable, extensive use of land, andwasted natural re-sources. Zhu suggests a new urban form target for the future city withsmall land coverage with high-rise building to increase open spaceand public space. Zhu's statement that fragmented landownership inHCMC has led to unsustainable urban forms can however be questionedaswell. The fragmented land ownership in HCMC has perceptibly creat-ed a very compact and dense model of urbanization with widely devel-oped networks of alleyways and many buildings with three or fourfloors which has actually avoided urban sprawl (Gibert, 2014).

4.4. Enforcement of urban planning policies

We have argued above that substantive developments have takenplace without sufficient planning control, conflictingwith ‘official’ plan-ning policies. One of the consequences is that developments take placewithout proper infrastructure and urban services (Tan Binh, Tan Phu, GoVap, and Binh Thanh district), while planned developments according tothe master plans cannot be implemented (Thu Thiem, Tay Bac NewTown, Ba Son).

In recent years, the local authorities have tried a more pragmaticstrategy for the transformation of downtown HCMC, based on a piece-meal ‘block-by-block’ development model, by announcing redevelop-ment opportunities in these locations (Loan, 2008). Private developerswill receive the rights to redevelop one of these blocks (which are called‘golden locations’; Fig. 14), under the condition that existing users willbe replaced and properly compensated. In reality only few of these‘golden locations‘ have been successfully transformed, such as Vincom(Dong Khoi St., Le Thanh Ton St.), Duc Khai (25 bis Nguyen Thi MinhKhai St.), and Twin Tower (close to Ben Thanh Market).

5. Future challenges in urban spatial development

In the context of continued rapid urban growth, HCMC facesmany challenges to future sustainable urban development. This sectiondiscusses two of them: climate change and urban sprawl.

25T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

5.1. Climate change

Because of its location in an intra-tropical coastal delta zone withlow elevation area, HCMC is at serious risk of flooding, both from regularand extreme climatic changes. Recent studies have concluded that theimpact of climate change in the form of thermal stress, energy security,water resources, and mostly flood risk are occurring at a faster ratethan previously anticipated (ADB, 2010; Yusuf & Francisco, 2009). InVietnam, these impacts are already evident, for instance with theincrease of average temperature by 0.5 °C and sea level rise by about0.2 m over the last 50 years (MONRE, 2008).

In addition to the exogenous climatic increase, the rapid urbaniza-tion and the growth of the city's built environment both planned andunplanned into its lower-lying and former wetland surroundings canalso strongly contribute to the increase of flood risks in HCMC. The

Fig. 15. HCMC in RegiSource: Ministry of Co

current urbanization process in HCMC has evidently caused the degra-dation of valuable natural systems such as the channeling of naturalwa-terways, the creation of impermeable surfaces, and the increasingsurface run-off (Storch & Downes, 2011).

As the currentmaster plan is not explicitly taking the issue of climatechange and its profound thread of flooding into account, the safety andlivelihoods of the city's residents are in danger if no immediate action isundertaken. Flooding will happen more often, the quality of air andwater will get worse, and living conditions in general will become un-comfortable due to the increase of temperature. Moreover, without aproper and comprehensive plan, the current spatial developmentswill ultimately shape the urban pattern and long-term vulnerabilitiesof the city for decades to come. HCMC actually has several developmentpotentials thatmay support climate change adaptation. For instance, theriver banks development has a potential to support climate adaptation

onal Master Plan.nstruction, 2009.

26 T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

program by integrating the development projects with the improve-ment of the delta environment quality, with the restoration of theoriginal water system to create natural water storage areas and the en-hancement of the hydraulic connectivity of the city with its coastal zone(Lasage et al., 2014). In addition, the national and municipal govern-ment have also tried to develop a Climate Adaptation Strategy to thechallenges that climate changes poses to HCMC (VCAPS, 2013).

As has been institutionalized under the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), climate mitigation plans arecrucial elements of a city's climate strategy as well. However, the miti-gation plans to reduce human impacts on the climate, mostly with thediminution of greenhouse gasses emission, have not been developedso far in HCMC.

5.2. Urban sprawl

Another future challenge for HCMC is the reduction of urban sprawland the planning of the city in its regional context. The city has increas-ingly developed outside the city boundaries, which may create a mas-sive urban agglomeration in the area as it closely connects with thesurrounding provinces, Bình Dương, Biên Hòa and Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu(Kontgis et al., 2014). As argued by Thái (2015), a planning and gover-nance system that only focuses on the city scale will no longer be suit-able for HCMC. In order to support regional coordination, the centralgovernment has prepared the Key Southern Economic Regional Plan(Fig. 15), Vietnam's first mega-urban region (Waibel, 2009). Now in2015, this plan is under revision. One of the issues to deal with is tostrengthen regional economic networks by improving the infrastruc-ture between HCMC and its neighboring cities and regions. However,in general, lack of coordination and cooperation especially related to fi-nance and land acquisition issues has prevented the realization of theseinfrastructure projects. The city seems in need of innovative value cap-ture tools, together with public-private partnership constructions, tosupport sustainable development of the HCMC metropolitan region(Phu, 2007).

6. Concluding remarks

For the past two decades, HCMC, as many other large cities in Asia,has witnessed a very rapid urbanization. Although HCMC still keepssome of its image of a European garden city, it is not surprisingthat HCMC struggles to deal with this. Nevertheless, the compact citymodel with high-density land occupation has prevented urban sprawlon the one hand and has maintained sufficient living conditions forthe larger part of a growing population on the other hand, while thecity has also been able to largely avoid slum development. Low-income communities live in the alleys in the city center under reason-able living conditions.

This paper has described and discussed the dynamic of HCMC‘s ex-pansion and urban upgrading from the colonial period to the socialistperiod and during the transition into a market economy. No doubtthat the city will further expand and change. For instance, Thu ThiemNew Urban Area is under construction, which will change the city'simage dramatically in the coming years. We may also conclude thatnowadays HCMC urban development is very much fuelled by marketforces. We have argued, however, that the private sector unfortunatelydoes not always follow themaster plan prepared by the authorities. Thefuture sustainable development of HCMC, challenged also by the impactof climate change, will not only depend on good urban planning, butmay also require further institutional change.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.08.007.

References

ADB (Asian Development Bank) (2010). Ho Chi Minh City—Adaptation to climate change:Summary report. Mandaluyong City: Asian Development Bank, 53.

Anh, N. T. (2005). Saigon (Gia Dinh; Ho Chi Minh City). In O.K. Gin (Ed.), SoutheastAsia: A historical encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor. Santa Barbara, CA,USA: ABC-CLIO.

AusAID (2001). Viet Nam: land administration. Canberra: Australian Agency for Interna-tional Development.

Bird, I. (1883). The golden Chersonese and the way thither. London: John Murray.Coit, K. (1998). Housing policy and slum upgrading in Ho-Chi-Minh City. Habitat

International, 22(3), 273–280. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0197-3975(98)00011-3.Cuong, V. K. (2012). Không gian đô thị TPHCM và áp lực phát triển tự phát. Paper present-

ed at the Urban Spatial Development of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City.Gainsborough, M. (2004). Changing political economy of Vietnam: The case of Ho Chi Minh

City. Taylor & Francis.Gibert, M. (2014). Les ruelles de Hồ Chí Minh Ville (Việt Nam), Trame viaire et recomposition

des espaces publics. (Thèse de doctorat en géographie) Paris: Université Paris 1Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Goodman, A. E., & Franks, L. M. (1975). The dynamics of migration to Saigon, 1964–1972.Pacific Affairs, 48(2), 199–214.

Hien, Q. (2014, 05/07/2014). TP HCM xóa 536 dự án treo. Người Lao Động (Retrieved fromhttp://nld.com.vn/thoi-su-trong-nuoc/tp-hcm-xoa-536-du-an-treo-20140705230528857.htm).

Huynh, D. T. (2012). The transformation of Ho Chi Minh City: Issues in managing growth.(PhD Doctor of Design) Harvard University.

Huynh, D. (2015). The misuse of urban planning in Ho Chi Minh City. HabitatInternational, 48, 11–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.03.007.

JBIC (1999). Urban development and housing sector in Viet Nam. In K. Kosumi (Ed.),Research Institute for Development and Finance, Japan Bank for InternationalCooperation.

Jung, D., Huynh, D., & Rowe, P. G. (2013). The pattern of foreign property investment inVietnam: the apartment market in Ho Chi Minh City. Habitat International, 39,101–113. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2012.11.003.

Khanh, N. (2012, 02/05/2012). Sai phạm ở dự án đảo Kim Cương: Khó xử phạt "nhà giàu"?Thanh Nien Online (Retrieved from http://www.thanhnien.com.vn/pages/20120502/sai-pham-o-du-an-dao-kim-cuong-kho-xu-phat-nha-giau.aspx).

Kien, T. T. (2015). Phat Trien Cong Trinh Cao Tang Tai Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh-Xu The Cua DoThi. 40 Quy Hoach& Kien Truc Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh: Thanh Tuu, Kinh Nghiem, Van De,and Giai Phap. Ho Chi Minh: Hong Duc.

Kim, A. M. (2004). A market without the “right'" property rights. Economics of Transition,12(2), 275–305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0967-0750.2004.00179.x.

Kim, A. M. (2012). The mixed-use sidewalk. Journal of the American Planning Association,78(3), 225–238. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2012.715504.

Kontgis, C., Schneider, A., Fox, J., Saksena, S., Spencer, J. H., & Castrence, M. (2014). Mon-itoring peri-urbanization in the greater Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area. AppliedGeography, 53(0), 377–388. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2014.06.029.

Labbé, D., &Musil, C. (2014). Periurban land redevelopment in Vietnamundermarket social-ism. Urban Studies, 51(6), 1146–1161. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0042098013495574.

Lasage, R., Veldkamp, T. I. E., de Moel, H., Van, T.C., Phi, H. L., Vellinga, P., et al. (2014).Assessment of the effectiveness of flood adaptation strategies for HCMC. NaturalHazards and Earth System Sciences, 14, 1441–1457.

Le, Q. N. (1997). Studies of canal landscape conservation in HCMC. Ho Chi Minh City: ChiefArchitects Office in HCMC.

Loan, D. T. (2008). Investment opportunity in Ho Chi Minh City real estate market.MONRE (Ministry ofNatural Resources and Environment) (2008). PrimeMinister: National

target program to respond to climate change (Decision No: 158/2008/ Q-TTg). (Hanoi).Nguyen, T. B., Van der Krabben, E., & Samsura, D. A. (2014). Commercial real estate invest-

ment in Ho Chi Minh City—A level playing field for foreign and domestic investors?Habitat International, 44, 412–421.

Pelliot, P. (1903). Bullentin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient, 3, 248–303.Phe, H. H. (1997). Housing and urban form in Vietnam: A study of home improvement in

central Hanoi. (PhD) London: UCL.Phu, N. T. (2007). Value capturing: A realistic funding source for urban transportation in

Ho Chi Minh City? Paper submitted for the 15th annual Conference on Pacific BasinFinance, Economics, Accounting and Management held in Ho Chi Minh City on July 20and 21, 2007.

Quertamp, F., Pandofli, L., & Petibon, L. (2013). Faire la ville au Viêt Nam, lecture croisée desméthodes et outils de l'urbanisme en France et au Viêt Nam.Ho Chi Minh Ville: PADDI etIMV, 120.

Smith, R. B. (1972). The Vietnamese Élite of French Cochinchina, 1943. Modern AsianStudies, 6(4), 459–482. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X00004315.

Storch, H., & Downes, N. K. (2011). A scenario-based approach to assess Ho Chi MinhCity's urban development strategies against the impact of climate change. Cities,28(6), 517–526. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2011.07.002.

Thai, N. H. (1998). Phát triển Sài Gòn—Những cơ hội bị bỏ lỡ. Saigon Investment andConstruction.

Thái, N. H. (2015, 19/02/2015). 40 năm nhìn lại và hướng tới xu thế “đại đô thị hóa” của TP.HCM. Báo Công an Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh (Retrieved from http://www.congan.com.vn/?mod=detnews&catid=942&id=534011).

Trân, T. N. Q., & Trương, T. H. (2011). Viết thêm về quy hoạch Coffyn 1862. Khoa học xãhội, 2(201), 16–23.

Tsuboi, Y. (2007). Twenty years after the adoption of the Doi Moi Policy (S. o. P. Science,Trans.). Waseda University.

VCAPS (Vietnam Climate Adaptation PartnerShip) (2013). Climate adaptation strategy forHo Chi Minh City. Report VCAPS project (Grontmij).

27T.B. Nguyen et al. / Cities 50 (2016) 16–27

Vinh, N. Q., & Leaf, M. (1996). City life in the village of ghosts: A case study of popularhousing in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Habitat International, 20(2), 175–190. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0197-3975(95)00048-8.

Vo, N. M. (2011). Saigon: A history. McFarland.Waibel, M. (2009). Ho Chi Minh City—a mega-urban region in the making. Geographische

Rundschau, 5(1/2009).Wook, C. B. (2004). Southern Vietnam under the reign of Minh Mạng (1820–1841): Central

policies and local response. Southeast Asia Program Publications.World Bank (2010). Climate risks and adaptation in Asian coastal megacities: A synthesis re-

port. Washington D.C.: The World Bank.

Xuan, A. (2012, 24/11/2012). Unable to urban development at all costs. Retrieved 26/8,2014, from http://dienkhang.vn/Tin-tuc/Tin-bat-%C4%91ong-san/Khong-the-phat-trien-%C4%91o-thi-bang-moi-gia.aspx?page=7&lang=en-US.

Yip, N. -m., & Tran, H. -a. (2008). Urban housing reform and state capacity in Vietnam. ThePacific Review, 21(2), 189–210. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09512740801990253.

Yusuf, A. A., & Francisco, H. (2009). Climate change vulnerability mapping for Southeast Asia.Singapore: Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) (26 pp.).

Zhu, J. (2012). Development of sustainable urban forms for high-density low-incomeAsian countries: the case of Vietnam: the institutional hindrance of the commonsand anticommons. Cities, 29(2), 77–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2011.08.005.