The new Hanoi: Opportunities and challenges for future urban development

Hanoi is the political capital of Vietnam but still ranks second in importance after Ho Chi Minh City, the economic hub of the country. Nonetheless, due to its ancient history, location and political choices, Hanoi, after resisting urban modernity for a long time, now seeks to expand and has achieved international metropolitan status. The Millennium anniversary of Hanoi (2010) was a further step in the endogenous development of the metropolitan area. Combined with economic globalization since the Doi Moi national policy in 1986 and the current trend of competition between world cities, which is particularly fierce in South-East and Pacific Asia, it has led to some remarkable transformations of the city and in town planning. All activity sectors, population groups and newly developed areas of Hanoi have been vastly reshaped by these metropolitan trends, and by planning processes, funding and management decisions. The scale and diversity of issues highlight the city's ambition to expand, with a metropolitan area covering more than 3300 km2, and to manage its urban transition and conflicting developments, notably the conversion of agricultural land, the implementation of more sustainable and participatory urban planning, the ability to attract sufficient foreign and domestic investment to drive urban growth, and, more generally, to open the country to globalization. Many objectives that seem at first sight to be irreconcilable.