Item Details
Skip Navigation Links
   ActiveUsers:1096Hits:21170458Skip Navigation Links
Show My Basket
Contact Us
IDSA Web Site
Ask Us
Today's News
HelpExpand Help
Advanced search

In Basket
  Journal Article   Journal Article
 

ID164713
Title ProperOrdering the exemplary urban spaces
Other Title Informationa critical analysis of Hanoi's embellishment projects
LanguageENG
AuthorTran, Hoai Anh
Summary / Abstract (Note)Vietnam has a long tradition of social engineering through which the ordering of urban space has effectively been used to enforce the state's vision of political and social order. With the country currently in transition from a centrally planned to a market‐oriented economy, the ordering of urban spaces is currently all the more important. This is prominently manifested in the numerous beautification projects that are being implemented in Vietnamese cities. This article explores recent ordering endeavours and considers the way they are legitimated and contested in Vietnam's new socio‐political context. Three beautification projects in Hanoi are examined using materials from policy documents, professional journals and media coverage. The article argues that state ordering actions and the ‘exemplary’ urban spaces they seek to create are embodiments of a complex system of orders of powers in transitional Vietnam, in which political visions of modernist socialism and the new market‐oriented agenda are sometimes in alignment and sometimes clash. Overall, the state's failure in sustaining these ‘exemplary’ urban spaces is emblematic of this hybrid system.
`In' analytical NoteAsia Pacific Viewpoint Vol. 60, No.1; Apr 2019: p.37-50
Journal SourceAsia Pacific Viewpoint 2019-04 60, 1
Key WordsVietnam ;  Social Engineering ;  Urban Space