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a sidewalk in Hanoi
high rises in Hanoi
The Sidewalk Lives in Hanoi, For Now.
In Hanoi, Viet Nam, the sidewalk is still the focus of urban life, but this may be changing. This semester a colleague and I are teaching 12 Connecticut College students in Hanoi, and I have been struck by the important role of the sidewalk in the life of this city. In an earlier Psychology Today blog ("Small Houses with Sidewalks, Anyone?" November 3, 2010), I wrote about the many advantages of communities characterized by small houses, set close together, with sidewalks connecting a neighborhood. I argued that such layouts create at least the possibility for a sense of community to develop, when neighbors casually encounter each other on the sidewalk. Sidewalks played a central role in the work of Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities), who championed the diversity and chaos inherent in a city that has grown over time, where the sidewalk and the street bring the city to life. Jacobs fought against what she saw as the demise of vibrant cities brought about by the rationalist principles of urban planning in the mid-20th century.
In Hanoi, anything you can imagine happens on the sidewalk. All aspects of eating are visible there: they sell food staples including fruit, nuts, vegetables, herbs, spices, rice in various forms, meat (and organs), poultry (alive as well as very recently killed), and an amazing variety of seafood, including turtles and more varieties of clams than I have ever seen. On the sidewalk people prepare and serve food, drink tea, and wash dishes. People eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner (on very low plastic stools) next to family members and strangers, as I have done many times eating phò´ ga`, the Vietnamese equivalent of chicken soup. Children play in the same space where adults are engaged in Chinese chess. Sometimes motorbikes (xe Ôm) appear on the sidewalk when the traffic gets backed up in the street. And the roving basket ladies (~ street vendors) sell everything, from socks and feather dusters to decorations for Tet, the lunar New Year celebration that starts this coming week.
Many families live above stores, on the second and third floors of very narrow buildings (real estate is precious in central Hanoi, just as in any other major urban area), and the cycle of life plays out on the street. Children play, wedding photos are taken, and the funerals of elders are acknowledged through extended family gatherings in tents. Hair is cut, tin is welded into trunks, garments are sewn, tires are sold, motors are refurbished, and signs are made. Literally and figuratively, the fabric of life happens on the street.
But the urban core is undergoing dramatic change, as are the areas surrounding the center. One of the remarkable features of Hanoi is the amount of construction that is underway, and in turn the rapid modernization of the city. There are fancy urban shopping malls, such as VinCom City Towers, which features Pizza Hut as well as Vietnamese food in the equivalent of a 5th floor food court. And there are enormous new urban districts developing, many west of the city. I visited one such district, Cau Giay, where one of the largest buildings in Viet Nam, the Keangnam Hanoi Landmark Tower (at least 70 stories and 4 more underground) is nearing completion. What struck me was the desolation of the sidewalks in that district; they were completely devoid of activity. In these areas, people increasingly use their own private automobiles, or their motorbikes, and not public transportation, such as buses, or their own two feet, to travel to their places of work. For many people, work is no longer "above the store."
What will Hanoi look like in 10 years? The Old Quarter, the shopping destination for every tourist to Hanoi, will undoubtedly be there, but in the sections of the city to the south of this district, where I am living this semester, my guess is that the life on the sidewalk will become increasingly less lively, and with it the excitement and energy that characterize a vibrant community. It's hard to predict what the ultimate price of modernization will be, but progress usually comes at some cost.
