Metropolisation, migrations and urban civilisation: the example of Hanoi

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Introduction

The Vietnamese cities, which are the real engine of the economy and contribute to the “creation of a rich country, a strong and equitable economy and a civilized society” (the authorities' propaganda slogan), have been experiencing an unprecedented boom since the 1990s, which can be explained by the liberalization of the economy initiated with the Doi Moi reforms of 1986.

Between 1986 and 2021, the urban population increased from 19.5% to 38%, and the urban growth rate is estimated at 3%/year [GSO 2019]. Gradually, a trend towards metropolization is emerging, at least in Hanoi (political capital located in the North of the country in the Red River Delta), Ho Chi Minh City (economic capital in the South of the country) and Da Nang (emerging metropolis in the Center).

 Now fully integrated into the capitalist globalization, Vietnam is working to improve its comparative advantages and is showing pragmatism in order to attract the investments¹ necessary for the growth of its cities and metropolises. Open to market mechanisms and globalization, the Vietnamese state maintains its political structure but seems to be transforming the exercise of its power, notably by promoting the empowerment of its subjects, particularly in the cities.

Metropolises are privileged observation posts for the way in which the urban fact is becoming generalized, both in space and in minds. This process of concentration of value, population and activities in higher-ranking cities is characterized in particular by the arrival of new populations from the countryside, the densification of certain neighborhoods and the extension of urban areas into the hinterlands.

While the process of metropolization contributes to a polarization of the national territory as well as to a social atomization, the development gaps are widening between the metropolises and the countryside, but at the same time we are witnessing an intensification of exchanges between the cities and their hinterlands. It is in this context of intertwining of urban and rural spaces and cultures, made of advances of the urban front and rural migrations, that we question the program of “urban civilization” promoted by the authorities. A sign of a transformation of Vietnamese urban governmentality, this social and cultural component of the capital's modernization is based on a major effort to achieve collective discipline and to define a collective project for learning a new urban sociality. This article is the result of research conducted between 2016 and 2019 as well as semi-structured interviews with Ha Dong residents.

In the current researches on Vietnamese society, there are no studies on the conflicts of rural and urban cultures in the peri-urban area of Hanoi and urban governmentality in Vietnamese authoritative context. Studies on immigrants in Vietnam often focus on social inequalities in the living conditions of immigrants (living space, environment, etc.). Pulliat [2013] analyses how the residential registration policy in Vietnam labels as “migrants” a varied “floating population” of migration practices of commuters between Hanoi and its hinterland. Recently, Labbé, Turner & Pham [2023] explore the relationships between youth who are rural labor migrants and public spaces in Hanoi.

Hanoi: a regional metropolis undergoing modernization

From empire capital to regional metropolis

Built at the apex of the Red River delta in 1010, in the historical cradle of the Kinh people, inside the loop of the river, the old city of Hanoi is the very example of a geomantic citadel. The expression thành thị still best illustrates how Hanoi City developed on a relationship between the citadel (thành) and the market (thị) from which an extramural city spreads. The city of Hanoi at that time also maintained intense relations with its first ring of peri-central and multi-working villages.

In the 15th century, the system of exchanges between the countryside and the imperial capital was reinforced. The district of the “36 streets and corporations”, which includes a hundred streets, sells the products of the craft villages of the Red River delta. This system of exchange facilitated the establishment of a process of urbanization of the countryside and provided the basis for the economic development of the capital [Papin 2001].

While the capital had been established in Hue since 1806, the city, which took the name of Hanoi in 1831, grew denser than it did. More than just a city, Hanoi is now considered with its province and its rural hinterland to which the socialist ideology confers a powerful role. The provincial boundaries of Hanoi changed several times between 1960 and 1989. There was also an industrialization effort that partly structured the province's territory. The province increased from 1,107 ha in 1960 to 3,963 ha in 1989, with 35.6% of the population living in urban areas, while maintaining a very clear distinction between urban and rural areas. In fact, the city of the time, although progressive in terms of housing, did not integrate the multi-working peripheral villages into the urban space and relations with the hinterland were reduced.

From 1995, following the Doi Moi reforms officially launched in 1986, and taking advantage of the liberalization of the land market, the city began to expand into rural areas. Between 1992 and 1997, the urban area doubled. Three new districts were created and in situ urbanization (endogenous and informal urbanization involving self-construction practices on land not intended to be built on, but not exclusively) which developed near the communication axes or on the outskirts of craftsmen's villages contributed to the spread of the urban fabric.

The Hanoi metropolitan area, which includes 9 provinces (Vinh Phuc, Hoa Binh, Hung Yen, Hai Duong, Bac Ninh, Ha Nam, Phu Tho, Bac Giang, Thai Nguyen) covers an area of 24,314.7 square kilometers and has a population of approximately 20 million in 2022. Moreover, the provinces are in competition with each other, and, progressively, distinctions are being made between them, particularly with regard to their ability to attract investment and to develop by emancipating themselves as much as possible from the tutelage of the city-province of Hanoi.

Since the years 2000–2010, the process of opening up in which the metropolitan area is engaged favors the development of the provinces around Hanoi. Gradually, urban and industrial centers outside the province are being developed in an attempt to attract investors. Land along the road infrastructure or near the airport is indeed sought after by investors. Investors are also looking to take advantage of optimal fiscal conditions, particularly with regard to access to land and control of industrial production (environmental conditions for production, for example).

 Spatially, the emerging metropolitan area is structured on several scales and organized around the main centers of Hanoi and Hai Phong. A series of medium-sized cities of provincial rank surround Hanoi within a radius of 40 to 60 km (Bac Ninh, Hoa Binh, Bac Giang, etc.), and all are surrounded by peri-urban areas and desakotas which are spreading on agricultural land (figure 2). These urban areas have a total population of over 11 million. As shown in figure 1, a metropolitan area is gradually taking shape, especially from the late 1990s when a triangle of urbanization gradually stands out (Hanoi, Hai Phong, Nam Dinh).

 

Fig. 1. Urban population Hanoi metropolitan area (2019). Source: [Duchère 2021]

 

The whole of the Red River Delta region, in which Hanoi is located, is criss-crossed by a well-balanced network of cities and urban towns which, above all, fulfil a structuring role for the political power. The cities, all categories taken together, are very well distributed over the territory of the delta. Their administrative and political function in a territory where the control of water is historically linked to the control of the population explains in part this almost geometric distribution (figure 1). On the scale of the Red River Delta, in 2019, the population was 22,543,607 of which 35% were urban (7,094,784). In Hanoi province, in the same year, the population was 8,053,663 with 49% urban (3,962,310) [GSO 2019]. The time when the capital province had more rural people than urban people is now over as one out of every two inhabitants now resides in urban areas.

The process of metropolization is encouraged by the central authorities, whose plan is to make Hanoi a regional metropolis. In 2020, 49.8% of internal migrants in Vietnam moved from the countryside to the city, 2.9% moved from the city to the countryside, while the rest (47.3%) involved rural-rural migration [Huong Vo 2021]. The region of Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Ba Rịa - Vung Tau became the leading immigration region in a few years, closely followed by the Red River Delta region (figure 3).

 

Fig. 2. Agricultural land in Hanoi province. Source: [Duchère 2021]

 

Metropolization and migration

Attracted by the economic dynamism of the cities, led by the metropolises, rural migrants are in fact mostly women, which can be explained by the clear tendency of industries to employ more women than men (80% of workers in the electronics or textile industries are female workers) [Ibid.). Moreover, migrants are relatively young, with an average age of 29.2 years and 85% between 15 and 39 years.

These migrations, motivated by the search for work, upset the demographic balance between the cities and the countryside, the latter being populated more by men and older people. At the national level, while the number of urban residents continues to increase, the share of the rural population is gradually decreasing, but will still be high in 2021, with 60,836,000 rural residents (compared to 33,830,000 urban residents) [GSO 2021].

On the scale of Hanoi province, natural population growth is in line with the national average² (13.4‰ in Hanoi; 10‰ nationwide). As for net migration, it varies between rural districts and urban boroughs, but overall shows relatively high figures. In detail, the districts farthest from the center of Hanoi show lower migration balances than those in the second ring of urbanization such as Cau Giay, Ha Dong or Tu Liem North and Tu Liem South. As shown in Figure 5, in 2019, net migration is highest in Tu Liem North (314.3‰), followed by Cau Giay district (261‰) or Ha Dong (183‰). The districts receiving the most of new inhabitants correspond to those between ring road 2 and 4. Advances in national statistics even allow the geographic origin of migrants to be detailed. Thus, for Ha Dong, 5% of them come from another province, 7.2% are from another district/borough of Hanoi, while the rest come from Ha Dong itself.

A significant proportion of migrants heading to the capital are employed in under-skilled, undeclared, low-paying jobs and live in cheap, sometimes informal, often precarious housing. Others, such as some students from less impoverished classes, manage to find a job at the end of their studies and then settle permanently in the city, taking advantage of their new job to obtain the right of residence in Hanoi. Between these two types of profiles, there are also populations that move between rural and urban areas (floating populations) or even individuals who have been living in Hanoi for a long time but are unable to obtain residential registration.

Among the informal jobs held by migrants, there are many waste collectors, street vendors, waiters, dishwashers and xe ôm (motorcycle cab) drivers. In the peri-urban area of Hanoi, in the villages of the trade, there are many migrants without contracts, without residence permits and working in deplorable conditions. Still in the suburbs, sometimes near the villages of the trade, industrial parks and industrial zones can be developed that hire personnel on short contracts, rarely on permanent contracts.

 

Fig. 3. Net migration and human densities in Vietnam and Hanoi province in 2018 and 2019. Source: [Duchère 2021].

 

It is clear that obtaining an urban residence permit largely determines the future of migrant populations, particularly because it grants social rights (schooling for children at no extra cost, loans at preferential rates, free health insurance, etc.), opens up land rights and facilitates daily life. The residence permit, by complicating the settlement of populations from the countryside, also institutes a kind of relationship of domination between residents and migrants. Associated in discourse and representations with numerous “social ills” such as drugs, gambling, prostitution, etc., these individuals, who are essential to the running of the urban economy, are victims of discrimination pitting them against the “real Hanoians” (those who arrived before...).

Despite this social relegation, one cannot speak of spatial segregation in the sense that migrants share urban space with residents. Strong economic relations link them, but there seem to be two speeds and two worlds of socialization. For example, migrants are not very present in local associations.

“Urban civilization” as a performative framework for urbanization in Hanoi

Urban civilization and governmentality

The exercise of power has long been a practice, an administration, an art, some would say. Today, in the context of the country's opening up to the market economy and the importation of neoliberal values [Duchère 2022], power is asserting itself as a science. Indeed, the neoliberal political economy governs the behavior of individuals by relying on the market, while science becomes its watchword. Urbanization, perceived as the engine of the economy by public authorities, is tied to a materialistic logic that sees the city as a showcase for technological and economic modernity. It also contains within it devices of power based on the constitution of a field of technical knowledge intended to encourage, through legitimization, the process of urbanization and modernization. Moreover, this new rationality of power takes as new field of intervention, the life, the individual contrary to the masses however often solicited before the Doi Moi by the authorities of Hanoi. In this way, new ways of being in the world, of being in the city, are enacted. Progressively, norms and values are disseminated which, through processes of subjectivation, aim to qualitatively “improve” the Vietnamese population. The “urban civilization” program allows us to analyze the ideological and injunctive framework that limits and stimulates urban development in Hanoi.

Neoliberal governmentality, a concept theorized by M. Foucault, corresponds to the “techniques of government”, to the “political rationality” involving tactics, strategies, and dynamic and innovative procedures that allow the State to reorganize society, to shape the territory and to model the behavior of individuals (notably by trying to produce what Foucault called new “subjectivities”) [Foucault 2004]. The concept of governmentality is inseparable from the emergence of “biopolitics” in some Western countries from the eighteenth century onwards, but it can be used in the Vietnamese case.

In Vietnam, the urban civilization program (văn minh đô thị)³ participates, from the 1990s, in a new political rationality intended to govern and discipline the masses in a general context marked by an atomization of society. Thus, this program operates on a double level.

First, it acts as a process of legitimization of political authorities. Secondly, it refers to an injunctive corpus as well as to the redefinition of a new norm associated with a virtuocratic corpus [Shrik 1982] that has already proven itself in the past. As a marker of a relationship of domination, civilization intends to promote individuals and territories to higher levels of organization. One of the stakes is to succeed in modifying society so that each individual behaves as an “entrepreneur of his own existence”⁴, that he is governed by the desire to possess himself.

The normative injunctions that define the moral framework of daily life participate in a form of control of the city dwellers who in return, by their normalized and more or less dominated behavior,

validate this control process. One of the objectives of urban civilization, through its capacity to deploy a regime of morals in the sense of Norbert Elias [Elias 1973], is to bring about the emergence of an urban class with “good morals”, i.e. a class dominating the national geographical space (superiority of the city over the countryside) as well as the social space (civilized, polite, courteous and educated city dweller versus country dweller and boorish migrant, poorly educated and poorly integrated into the new territories of the modernization process).

The concept of “urban civilization” proposed in 1983, was first applied to Hanoi before spreading to the whole country and received renewed interest during the celebration of the 1000 years of Thang Long. Resolution 8 of 1983 states that “the capital of Hanoi should be built to become an exemplary city of Vietnam's socialism, a place based on the revolutionary path of the whole country.” In Resolution 15 of 2000, terms such as “elegant”, “modern”, “identity”, and “hero center” are added. The concept of urban civilization thus fits perfectly with the continuity of virtuocratic governability [Shrik 1982] that is observed in both China and Vietnam. According to this understanding of “urban civilization”, the appearance of the city reflects the situation of the whole country and the actions of its community; it is a showcase. A “civilized urban” is an educated individual who governs himself for the good of society and not for himself alone. In the civilized city, city dwellers are “educated”, “well educated”, have a good command of language and are “modern”. Each one is then called upon to work for the good of other city dwellers, for the respect of the environment and of course for the respect of the revolutionary heritage. Urban civilization is thus linked to the celebration of the country's greatness and its patriotic, revolutionary and nationalist history.

Self-control, learning urban sociality and competition for status: the example of migrants

As recalled in the first part of this article, the growth of Hanoi's urban population can be explained in part by the arrival of people from the countryside, both near and far. To this geographical and demographic process must be added a social dynamic of integration of migrant populations into the urban space and its social codes. Based on the work of the sociologist Norbert Elias, we wish to highlight the way in which, beyond its material aspects, the city also develops thanks to the adherence of its populations to the social project that it carries and which, in the context of Vietnam, can be identified with the urban civilization program whose main characteristics we have presented in the previous section.

In the past, particularly during the collectivist period (1954–1989), restrictions, codes of conduct and morals were clearly defined and imposed by the political system. Today, the authorities' manufacture of consent leads to the adherence to and dissemination of codes of morality, norms and moral values.

The program of urban civilization is then similar to a defined framework of moral values (good manners, hygiene, politeness, etc.) which, once internalized by the populations, are manifested in daily life by a form of self-control (a kind of super-ego in the Freudian sense) which breaks with the period of restrictions imposed from above. This internalization of external values (those of the dominant class and the urban elite), of codes of morals functions as a regime, that is to say as “a particular network of interdependencies, a certain range of socially accepted behaviors and emotions” as well as “models of self-regulation and structuring of the personality at the individual level” [Wouters 2003]. The dominant code of morals aims to maintain a distance between the dominant groups and those who try to belong to them. A real struggle for status can then be observed, especially between migrants and established or dominant groups.

For example, Phuong, who arrived from Nghe An 8 years ago, does not hesitate to describe the city as “more civilized” compared to the countryside. For this woman, who has obtained resident status and earns a comfortable salary of about 450 euros/month, “city dwellers are not vulgar like in the countryside. Other respondents, of the same social level and having obtained resident status, establish the same difference between rural and urban dwellers, insisting particularly on language that is not “controlled” or on the fact that Hanoians are more “gracious" than rural dwellers who “xới nhiều cơm trong bát, ăn nhiều” (“eat too much rice, pig out”). Some speeches finally point out that contact between people, even between neighbors, in the city is complicated and distant, whereas in the countryside “có thể đi từ nhà này sang nhà khác không cần đóng cửa” (“one can go from house to house, the doors are open”).

Mores function as instruments in the service of learning urban sociality in a general context marked by the inclusion or exclusion of groups on the basis of adherence to and internalization of codes, mores, and other rules of propriety.

The subjectivation of ideas, discourses and values linked to the societal paradigm of urban civilization then participates in urban production, at least in its social thickness, a thickness that is inseparable from the spatial dimension. From this postulate, it is important to analyze the way in which a subject works to accept to be what one wants him to be, but also how he does what one wants him to do, and how he wishes to do what one expects him to do.

As such, Phuong explained to us in an interview that when she moved to Hanoi, one of the first things she had to work on was her Nghe An accent. “Em đã phải học nói giọng Hà nội. Bây giờ đã bớt giọng Nghệ An lắm rồi, em nói rõ hơn rồi đó” (“I had to learn the Hanoi accent. Now my Nghe An accent is no longer heard and I speak more clearly.”) Through the action of educational institutions, journalism, or various forms of social control that may involve mockery and discrimination, the new norms spread all the better because they are accepted and called “natural” by social groups. By refusing inferiority, individuals then seek to appear “civilized”. This reflex and way of thinking leads superiors to indirectly impose values and morals to be respected. This subjectivation of external norms is thus coupled with efforts of self-control which show a competition for the status and for the right of city.

Moreover, in addition to adopting the residents' regime of mores, the migrants establish, in their discourses, a gradient of urban civilization from the center to the periphery. With recent urban development, new centralities emerge and can, depending on the scale, be embodied in representations by the new urban areas (KDTM). The city center is still identified as the heart of urban civilization, where it is impossible to settle, except in its interstices and areas of rejection, such as the flood zones built with illegal constructions hosting, among others, migrants. On the outskirts, sometimes more than 15 km from the city center, many migrants share a room of a few square meters in a villager's house that has been converted to accommodate workers from industrial parks and zones, trade villages or even the tertiary sector of the city center. These dormitory villages illustrate the advance of the urban front, the expropriation of agricultural land in the suburbs and the pragmatism of their inhabitants who, deprived of their means of production, must continue to live. Finally, in the vicinity of the KDTM, it is also possible to find this type of rental housing (nhà trọ) as shown in figure 4. Although subject to much criticism and discrimination from KDTM residents, nhà trọ residents work as domestic staff or technical employees in the KDTM.

 

Fig. 4. Nhà trọ and KDTM Mulberry Lane (Ha Dong). Photo: Nguyen Mai Hue

 

During our interviews, significant tensions between staff and residents of the KDTM could be noted. Most of the disagreement and friction is about how a city dweller should behave. As we looked further into the matter, it became clear that the question of behavior and manners within the KDTM was structurally underpinned by class antagonisms related to the rapid emergence of a middle class conscious of its social position, which it preserves by keeping other groups, especially individuals from the countryside, in the inferiority. Thus, as J. Scott suggested in his now famous book “Domination or the Arts of Resistance. Fragment of Subaltern Discourse” [2008], every dominated group produces a hidden text that represents a critique of domination. This is why we were interested in the discourses of KDTM residents on employees, and vice versa. For example, one resident confided to us:

“Mình về ở đây mấy tháng, đôi lần vào cầu thang chào hỏi mấy cô lớn tuổi ko thấy trả lời. Sau phát hiện ra toàn giúp việc. Từ đó chẳng muốn chào ai.”

(“I have been living here for a few months, several times in the elevator I greeted elderly women who did not answer me. Afterwards, I realized that these women were housekeepers. Since then I don't want to greet anyone”.)

Migrants working in the informal sector, who are not landlords and whose residence records indicate a rural address outside of Hanoi, are more likely to emphasize in their discourses the relationship of domination in which they find themselves. Bac Hop, a housekeeper in KDTM Van Quan states when speaking about her landlords, “Họ coi thường bác nhiều lắm, bác chỉ hơn ăn xin 1 chút thôi. Bác không được uống nước cùng cốc với họ, nhiều nhà không cho ăn cùng với họ. Khi bác dọn nhà xong dựa vào tường mà họ không cho dựa vì bẩn tường nhà họ.... “ (“They despise me very much, I am simply, to them, little more than a beggar. I am not allowed to drink from the same glass as them, I don't share meals with them, and they don't even let me lean against the wall for fear that I will dirty it...”)

Faced with these situations of domination, the situations of transgression of the rules of propriety and courtesy for which the employees are held responsible (in the discourse of the inhabitants) can be analyzed as situations in which the hidden text of the dominated is expressed in a disguised manner (the “infra-politics of the dominated”) or “directly and publicly in the face of power” [Scott 2008].

Finally, it should be noted that sometimes the hidden text of the subalterns bursts out in the face of the dominants, as is the case with this testimony of an apartment owner in the KDTM who takes offense at discovering that the maids "gather" to discuss "among themselves" and to "defame" the owner with whom they are employed:

Em tận mắt chứng kiến rất nhiều giúp việc đi lại ăn nói oang oang vô ý tứ, ngồi túm năm tụm ba vứt cháu bò lổm ngổm để buôn chuyện, so bì lương thưởng, nói xấu chủ nhà một cách công khai.

("I saw with my own eyes several housekeepers chattering loudly, sitting in groups, abandoning the children to chat. They compared their wages and bonuses, and publicly defamed the owner.)

As we have just seen, the study of the regime of morals understood as a code of conduct within the framework of a governmentality based on self-control and discipline should not obscure the class relations that can be guessed at through the examples given above.

Conclusion

Urban development and metropolization are recent dynamics in Việt Nam. The shift from the plan to the market, endorsed by the Doi Moi, led to an acceleration of urban growth and a tendency to concentrate values and populations in several large cities, particularly in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang. This process of metropolization, while it constitutes the modus operandi of Vietnam's integration into globalization, poses a certain number of problems and issues related to the modalities of the urban production process (land conversion, unequal access to land, integration of rural populations) as well as its consequences (pressure on space, environmental degradation, increasing distance between the rural and urban worlds). In the metropolises such as Hanoi, following the growing weight of the urban middle class, a process of social differentiation is unfolding, one of the modalities of which seems to be belonging to the “urban civilization” as well as adopting its codes and its system of morals.

Characterized by its rural atmosphere but also by its strong sprawl on agricultural land, Hanoi polarizes a large part of the Red River Delta and attracts many migrants who also want to benefit from the fruits of the growth generated by the city. The study of the integration of these populations reveals a political will to smooth out society in order to promote its homogeneous development, notably through mechanisms of self-control, responsibility and internalization.

Finally, the “urban civilization” is a real performative framework for urbanization, and beyond its material aspects, it highlights the pragmatism of the Vietnamese state, which, by supporting the development of the metropolises, is showing that it is adapting to globalization by anticipating the clash of cultures between the rural and the urban. Nevertheless, the question of class relations and the material conditions of existence of the impoverished peasantry seeking to join the city does not yet seem to be taken into account in such a prosaic manner and suggests the emergence of tensions against a background of social discrimination.

 

¹ In 2019, the total value of FDI was estimated at USD 20.38 billion [GSO 2021].

² The population of Hanoi province is 8,053,663 in 2019, including 3,962,310 in urban areas and 4,091,353 in rural areas [GSO 2019].

³ Văn minh is derived from Chinese wenming (文明).

⁴ This theory of power is based on the structuralist psychoanalysis of Lacan and considers that the modification of individuals depends on the internalization of power. The “internalization of exteriority” would say P. Bourdieu.

About the authors

Mai Hue Nguyen

Gustave Eiffel University

Email: maihue.archi@gmail.com

Architect and Doctor in Urban Planning, Lecturer, School of Architecture

France

Yves Duchère

University of Angers; University of Ningbo in the framework of the Franco-Chinese Institute Angers-Ningbo

Author for correspondence.
Email: yduchere@gmail.com

Lecturer and Researcher

France, Angers; Ningbo, China

References

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