Hanoi is a place of dichotomies. Where the average university graduate earns only $2.90 per day, the city also has some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Motorbikes that cost thousands of dollars can be found all over the streets, but sometimes four or five people sandwich themselves together on top of the driver’s seat. The smallest taxis tend to carry the greatest load – a Vietnamese family, and their extended family – while the largest taxis tend to carry only a few – the tourists who (unknowingly) pay the extra price for the bigger car.

The greatest dichotomy of all is the fact that Hanoi is the capitol of one of the purest Communist countries in the world – Vietnam – yet the urbanization of Hanoi is almost purely based on economic forces. In my observations and casual conversations with Hanoi people, I realize that economic forces generate multiple modes of urbanism characteristic of Hanoi: generational urbanism, informal urbanism, surface urbanism, copycat urbanism, and privatization.

Typical housing in Hanoi

Generational urbanism occurs when plots of land are commonly passed down from one generation to another. Because of the exorbitant home prices in the city, Hanoi residents simply do not have the means to buy a house or a flat, so many choose to move into their parents’ home along with their spouse and children. As a result, many former French colonial mansions are inhabited by multiple multi-generational families. The house is then subdivided until it is no longer possible to make any more changes, upon which the house is sold and the money is shared between the families. These families often move to the periphery of the city where home prices are less extreme, and then work their way back into the city.

Informal urbanism involves the illegal businesses that have become permanent fixtures in the city. The perimeters of highways and streets become places of exchange. Taxi drivers invite tourists to their cars. Shops spill out into the sidewalk to increase frontage, engage the street, and increase business. Bread vendors set up shop along the side of the highway to increase visibility for commuters who might want to buy bread for the following morning’s breakfast on their way home.

Surface urbanism is the treatment of façades to create an illusion of greater sophistication. Most sites in Hanoi are infill conditions, meaning that they have a front side and a back side. To create the illusion of greater sophistication, owners spend most of the construction costs on the front façade and save money on the side elevations by leaving them blank. Banks take it a step further and articulate their side elevations in addition to giving their facilities a grand staircase. Taxi drivers use the same approach to lure tourists into their cars. Usually newer, cleaner, and bigger, the scam taxis appeal to tourists who end up paying according to a marked-up meter.

Copycat urbanism runs rampant in the city center. The lots in the city are divided (generationally) into 20-foot-wide strips that vary in length anywhere from 40 feet to over 120 feet. These homes are often built to 6 stories high. Less than a mile from the Intercontinental Hanoi Hotel where I stayed was one of the typical 20-foot-wide lots with a peculiar-looking house built with a baby-blue façade accented by an orange plane. A few blocks away I found exactly the same baby-blue façade accented by an orange plane on another residence. In Hanoi, architects are one of the most respected professions, and architects are paid relatively high. Consequently, many Hanoi people cannot afford to hire an architect and most of the residences are not designed by architects; instead, the owner searches for an existing house that he likes the most and hires a construction firm to make a replica of it on his lot.

Privatization – ironically initiated by the Communist government – provides the government with a steady source of income. Taking advantage of the high real estate prices, the government actively sells off state-owned property to private investors and buyers. Current studies show an increasing trend in the demolition of existing French colonial buildings upon the purchase of a new lot to make way for taller buildings and denser inhabitation.

The economic forces that shape these modes of urbanism operating simultaneously create the current situation of hyper density and apparent chaos. A struggle to increase their personal wealth and personal space has simultaneously caused Hanoi to shrink. It has already shrunken quite significantly.