On November 3, 2014 we went on a driving tour of housing developments in Ho Chi Minh City. In outlying districts we looked at new neighborhoods marketed toward expats and high-income families. We also saw what happens when housing projects are discontinued and neglected because of funding issues.
Here is a map of where we went. Click on the points to see what I saw!
I went into this study with the intention of looking at security around different kinds of housing developments, thinking that around western style, upper class inhabited housing there would be more security. In our reading, Huong mentioned that the homeowners association was responsible for security in these developments whereas in the rest of the district this was the Ward People’s Committee responsibility (2010). I noticed guards and guard houses in these areas but I don’t think I was able to gather enough observations due to the rain and cancellation of the walking segment of the tour.
I would instead like to talk about the poorly designed infrastructure to handle the torrential downpour we were lucky enough to experience. The streets were completely flooding and the minimal drainage that was in place was clogged. There was so much concrete the water had no place to sink in which contributed to the massive flooding.
This really struck me because I hadn’t seen that level of inundation in district one and this was all new construction. I noticed a different drainage system in district seven and four. In district one, water goes into the gutter where there are purposeful cracks for the water to drain as well as larger gridded drains. In parts of district 7 and 4 the drains were small grates placed at semi even intervals. It didn’t seem like the water could drain except in these locations. Most of these drains were not working and created large puddles. Since the water couldn’t drain throughout the length of the whole gutter, there were large streams/rivers running down the road that flooded the whole street. There were also issues where the pavement was not sloped towards the gutter and created lakes in the middle of roads. Christophe explained that the flooding was caused by rapid urbanization. Since this ended up being the major focus of the day and an inconvenience to our field trip I decided to do a little bit of research into the problem of urban flooding.
While there are green spaces in some of the new developments, the opposite problem of concretization is also at play in urban areas. The increase in impermeable surfaces means water is unable to percolate down through the soil into the water table. This is a huge disruption to the hydrological cycle and it means more unfiltered water enters the canals all at once, contributing to flash flooding and water pollution. The old drainage system is overworked and can’t handle the new growth. (Ho Long Phi 2007)
The scene above shows a fairly common occurrence in HCMC. Photo by Stephen McGrath.
Tran Thanh Tu blames the lack of natural irrigation and inadequacy of drainage infrastructure on poor urban planning. There are other problems besides the difficulty of navigating the floods. Especially in low-income neighborhoods, health risks from poor sanitation from flooding are prevalent . (2011).
Contrary to what you think when you visit during rainy season, water scarcity is also very much of an issue during the rest of the year. The areas that we visited have a high demand for water because of their affluence and standards of living. For the first time since being here I noticed a sprinkler going off which didn’t seem necessary considering it was also raining. These new developments are built leaving lots of open green space for the pleasure of the inhabitants but that also means they will have to be watered throughout the dry season.
Not to mention climate change! Ho Chi Minh city is on average only .5m to 1m above sea level. Drainage in the city can’t handle the higher tides from sea level rise that coincide with seasonal peak rainfall levels. Of course this goes beyond simply improving the drainage system. Climate change will have disastrous effects on the city. (Ho Long Phi 2008)
Works Cited
Huong, Le Thi Thu, and Edsel E. Sajor. 2010. “Privatization, Democratic Reforms, and Micro-Governance Change in a Transition Economy: Condominium Homeowner Associations in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.” Cities 27 (1): 20–30. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2009.11.007.
Phi, Ho Long. 2008. “Impacts of Climate Changes and Urbanisation on Urban Inundation in Ho Chi Minh City.” 11th International Conference on Urban Drainage.
Phi, Ho Long. 2008. “Formulation of an Integrated Approach to Sustainable Water Management in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.” The University of Adelaide.
Tran Thanh Tu, Vilas Nitivattananon. 2011. “Adaptation to flood risks in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam”,International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, Vol. 3 Iss: 1, pp.61 – 73
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