Made with a Macintoshwww.flickr.com
|
This park bench out in the Phu My Hung area of South Saigon (District 7 of HCMC) is a very interesting design, even if it is not very comfortable.
The following article from the official Ho Chi Minh City website delivers the bad news:
HCM City and South Koreaâs GS Engineering & Construction have signed a memorandum of understanding on the project of building the elevated road No. 1 along the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal.
The director of the Department of Communication and Public Works Tran Quang Phuong and GS E&C vice president Lee Hwi Sung signed the MoU on December 6 with the witness of HCM City Chairman Le Hoang Quan and South Korean consul general Min Young Woo.
Accordingly, the South Korean firm will build the elevated road running through districts 1, 3, Tan Binh, Phu Nhuan and Binh Thanh under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) form.
The 10.8 km long, 17.6 m wide road will have a maximum design speed of 80 km per hour and total capital of VND4.7 trillion. Construction will take four years to complete.
A seminar will be held in mid-December to define the direction and design plan of the road.
Speaking at the signing, the cityâs Vice Chairman Nguyen Huu Tin said this is one of the fourth elevated roads HCM City will build in the coming years to improve its transport capacity and reduce traffic jam.
He asked the Department of Communication and Public Works and relevant agencies to cooperate with GS E&C to carry out the next steps of the project.
(HCM City, December 7, 2007)
The Nhiêu Lộc-Thị Nghè Canal winds through the city from the airport area to north of downtown, emptying into the Saigon River. Here is a photograph of the twisty canal as it passes between District 3 and the Phú Nhuận District:
Can you imagine an elevated freeway running down the middle of the canal, or at the side of the canal above the parkway along the canal? In a city where the people decry the lack of park space, this is a ludicrous idea to put an elevated freeway along one of the few parkways in the city. Now I know there will be those who say the canal is a filthy mess, and they will be somewhat right at this point, but the canal does have a construction project underway to clean up sewage drainage into the canal and clean it up. The canal could become a very pleasant parkway for the people. Here is a photograph of the local fire brigade exercising one recent morning along the canal:
The new freeway would run right under the window of our friend Jon Hoff of the The final word blog and the founder of the Connections travel service. His apartment is in the high-rise tower in the photo below:
The route proposed by the city government is shown in red on the map below.
Does it make sense to design a freeway with a dozen sharp curves along its length? Why not build the freeway along the alternate route shown in blue -- right down the middle of Nguyễn Văn Trỗi and Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa Streets straight to downtown. This is analogous to the same situation faced in Shanghai in the early 1990s between its old airport and the city center -- they had sense enough to build their elevated freeway straight along the main street from the airport to downtown.
This decision by the HCMC government is unfortunately just the latest misjudgement regarding planning for the city. So how does one raise questions about these decisions to the government here?
Last year, I posted this photo of a house along Nguyễn Văn Trỗi Street in the Phú Nhuận District.
The front half or two-thirds of the house had been sliced off to accommodate the widening of the street. As streets are widened, the government takes back land use rights and compensates the rights-holders, who can then sell the remaining property or fix up what is left.
Here is the final result of the cut-back.
Not well done architecturally, in my opinion. But it would up being a highly-visible location for a large advertising sign.
An altar to the electrical grid, found on Nguyễn Văn Trỗi Street in the Phú Nhuận District, where the street has been newly widened.
On the other side of the street, the telecommunication cables are still hanging below head height.
This article is the second in a series on urban planning of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). The first article presented my image of the existing city.
The colonial French laid out the old city of Saigon, beyond the grid of downtown streets, with wide boulevards radiating at angles from monumental roundabouts.
As a result, most areas of TP. Hồ Chí Minh have very large blocks with long distances between cross-streets.
The street-front lots have much greater commercial value, so streets are lined with taller buildings featuring shops and restaurants at every ground floor opening. 
The vast interiors of the large blocks are accessed by very narrow 1-to-4 meter-wide lanes, called hẻm in Vietnamese.
Smaller houses are arrayed along the narrow lanes,
and these houses also often feature shops or food stands at their ground floor openings.
Therefore Ho Chi Minh City, with 6.12 million people in 2004, is one of the densest cities in the world, at 10,608 people per square kilometer in its 19 inner-city districts, with 45,001 people per square kilometer in its densest district, Chợ Lơn in District 5. By comparison, Hong Kong has a population density of 6,206 people per sq. km with 55,000 people/sq. km. in its densest district. Manila has 41,014/sq. km., Cairo 36,618/sq. km., Mumbai 29,434/sq. km., New York City 10,292/sq. km. (25,849/sq. km. in Manhattan), 24,775/sq. km. in Paris, and 16,391/sq. km. in Seoul [all statistics from Wikipedia]. Given the density of some of these cities, HCMC cannot be considered overpopulated. And there are many undeveloped areas within the city that can grow to increase the density of the city safely.
Although this density may seem high and unlivable to an American suburban dweller, the streets and lanes are actually very interesting and provide many varied experiences.
Many of Saigon's streets are tree-lined shady avenues.
In the heat of the day, people tend to stay indoors, so the density is not as apparent as it might be.
But the busy streets hold many relaxing venues and get-aways.
as well as parks spread around the city.
The high density of potential customers also allows for many varied restaurants and coffee shops along the streets.
These dense blocks are highly sustainable since they carry almost every activity and commodity necessary for urban life, including street-side markets.
Since automobiles cannot enter the narrow lanes of the block, these residents will not be tempted to buy automobiles and contribute to the air pollution and traffic congestion in the city. And since many of the residents are secure in the blocks and have everything that they need, they rarely venture outside the block and require transportation to other parts of the city. Those that have jobs outside the blocks commute via bus or motorbike.
The traffic congestion is becoming a critical problem since the city has delayed implementation of plans for subway or freeway systems. This is the view from a bus during the rush hour:
Parking for automobiles on the streets is nonexistent, although there is often overnight parking available in some neighborhoods.
Nevertheless, there are indications that the HCMC government will begin to address its infrastructure issues soon. How the government regulates future development, however, will greatly impact the existing urban fabric of the city. More about that later.
In order to prepare one's personal vision for the urban design and development of a city, one must have a good sense of what his/her city currently is. The description of one's personal image of his/her city is important as a means to determine differences in perceptions of images. While I might find TP. Hồ Chí Minh to be a very stimulating intensive environment, my neighbor might think that TPHCM is currently too messy and chaotic. It is these differences in perceptions that are important to lay out and explore in order to determine the basis for change in the environment that people can agree upon and make happen.
This is my image of Ho Chi Minh City at this time, tempered by my memories (and photographs) of Saigon past in 1971-1972.
To me, the inner-city HCMC is a very vibrant busy commercial center overlain directly on family houses, villas, and apartment buildings.
As a result of this mixed use, HCMC to me is an extremely intensive urban city -- intensive with people, smells, sound, color and light that is unmatched in most modern cities of the world. Yet HCMC is a modern city, with most of the amenities we usually associate with modern cities, such as department stores, shopping centers, high-rise office buildings, and transit systems.
And HCMC has so far avoided ripping out its past of old colonial buildings that set the urban fabric for the downtown districts of Saigon.
Over time, people found plenty of holes in the fabric to insert small houses and commercial stores. Then over the past couple of decades, developers have found holes in this fabric or cleared enough small houses to allow them to place higher-rise buildings. But the mix of people living and working and shopping together in one place remains.
Although there are several 20-to-40-story high-rise buildings spread around the city, the city on the whole is primarily composed of buildings from 3-to-8 floors.
It is interesting to me that the skyline of Ho Chi Minh City has not changed that much from its war-time Saigon days. This aerial photograph taken by me in 1972 shows somewhat the same scale of development existing today. 
Contrast the old photo with this recent photograph posted by Jaroslaw on the online skyscrapercity.com Vietnam forum:
Rather than a large increase of high-rise towers, the density of the overall fabric has been increased -- the average height may have increased from two or three stories to five stories.
The more recent high-rise buildings are spread around the city and have not been clustered in one area, except for the downtown hotels between Hai Bà Trưng and Đồng Khởi Streets.
So for me, my image of Ho Chi Minh City of the past, present, and future, is a mixture of uses within a fabric of commercial and residential structures that is constantly evolving rather than replacing itself wholesale. This results in neighborhoods of mixed uses and types, styles, and sizes of buildings.
The results may be a little jarring sometimes,
but that provides visual interest and energy that is highly stimulating and provides places for the differing needs of people. To me, that is the measure of a vital creative city.
If the sidewalks (usually quite wide on Saigon's main streets) aren't cluttered with motorbikes and street food stands, they are sometimes taken over for commercial selling. This is the Tet festival shopping season, so there is much more flowers and trinkets to sell.
Most pedestrians in HCMC (there aren't that many) take to the gutters anyway out of habit from having to constantly divert one's path to the street.
The Vietnamese blogger Le Bao Tuan from Hue posted on his blog a while back several beautiful pictures and his thoughts about the new development Phú Mỹ Hưng in the Saigon South new urban area of Thành Phố (City) Hồ Chí Minh. He espoused the view that this new development represents an advance in civilized life that all Vietnamese should aspire to. He was impressed with the clean park-like environment and security. He stated that "Phu My Hung is an evidence proves Vietnamese economy is developing quickly and Vietnamese people are trying to approach the more modern and more civilized lifestyle." I encourage you to visit his blog and his posting about Phú Mỹ Hưng because I believe he represents the views of many Vietnamese about new urban development.
To me, Phú Mỹ Hưng represents one valid planning model, but there are others that should also be considered civilized. Existing inner-city neighborhoods are not necessarily uncivilized, and will continue to evolve and grow over time. I hope that the Vietnamese people (and expats, too) will be offered many alternative life-styles in new developments. But in my opinion, the Phú Mỹ Hưng development was sterile and lacked the energy and interaction of people that I enjoy in my inner-city TP. Hồ Chí Minh neighborhood.
In later postings, I will show examples of other development models that will be used in TP. Hố Chì Minh. In this posting, I want to show my view of Phú Mỹ Hưng.
Phú Mỹ Hưng includes a mix of several different development types, ranging from high-rise condos down to individual houses. This is one of the high-rise developments, Sky Gardens.
Luxury high-rise apartments are also available in the My Khanh towers.
By observation, many of these condos or apartments are occupied by Korean, Taiwanese, and Japanese families, as well as westerners and Vietnamese. The Vietnamese families include Việt Kiều, overseas Vietnamese from the Vietnamese diaspora of the 70s, as well as native Vietnamese that have built businesses and can afford to live in this neighborhood. The expatriates are said to be managers and technicians working in the many industrial parks around TP. Hồ Chí Minh, including at Phú Mỹ Hưng. In addition to an International School at Phú Mỹ Hưng, there are also separate Korean, Japanese, Taipei, and Vietnamese Schools.
There is parking available below the buildings and plazas, and it is well-organized and bright.
In contrast, I found the elevator lobbies to be depressingly cramped, dark, and dingy, and the corridors are the same with no design elements to break up the lengths of the corridors.
Its as if residents and guests are expected to shut off their minds while in transit from vehicle to apartment.
Meager amenities were available for people within the development.
Eventually, market forces will require an upgrade in design thinking about these elements.
Other options include villas for sale or rent, such as these in the Hung Thai section north of Sky Gardens.
A large block of 4-meter by 15-meter lots were sold so buyers could construct their own houses of their own design. This is the type of development I like the best, because a lot of individuality in facade design emerges although the basic model of the house remains the same for all.
However, there is thus far very little of the creativity in these facades seen in many new inner city houses in HCMC. Perhaps this reflects the conservatism of the foreign clientele.
Most of the Phú Mỹ Hưng development is arranged along Đại Lộ (Boulevard) Nguyễn Văn Linh, the major thoroughfare through Saigon South.
There is currently light traffic along this boulevard, but that will change immediately after the freeway connecting the Hà Nội Highway to the eastern and southern parts of HCMC is completed, tying into this boulevard. Eventually, there will be a freeway along this route.
Unlike the majority of TP. Hồ Chí Minh neighborhoods, there is very little interaction between people here. As Mr. Tuan points out in his posting, there are very few motorbikes and many more cars. Therefore people seem to get from their cars to their apartments with as little interaction as possible. Unlike other neighborhoods, there are very few family stores and definitely no street food stands. None would survive here anyway because there is no pedestrian or motorbike traffic. The restaurants were typical of those found in American strip malls, and were double the price of inner city small restaurants, and many times the price of street stand food.
For those who want the security and feeling of home that this kind of development gives (and I believe this is probably true for the majority of expats in countries like Việt Nam), this development is the best development of this kind in HCMC. It will eventually fill to capacity, but it will still not have the character and interaction of the inner city HCMC neighborhoods. Therefore it is not a choice that I will take.
There is currently a very wide range of houses on the hems (lanes) of our district of Thành Phố (City) Hồ Chí Minh. To some degree, this is tied to the economic levels of the residents. This area is a relatively new area of HCMC, dating back to squatter shacks in the American war years. I administered a construction contract to a Vietnamese contractor in 1972 to build an underground storm water drainage tunnel through this neighborhood, and most of the houses in the neighborhood were either wood posts and grass thatch, or corrugated metal.
There are still some vestiges of the old squatter shacks around, but most have been replaced over the past thirty years with houses constructed of reinforced concrete frames with hollow-clay-tile block infill.
Since the squatter shacks were thrown up haphazardly, the plots of land they occupied were irregular and therefore the hẻm (lane) had no smooth right-of-way. The hems went everywhich way to provide access to each shack. As you look down into the hem today from my rooftop, or walk along the hems, you can see the legacy of this indiscriminate lack of planning. It appears to me that the lot lines have since been formalized based on the haphazard shapes of the shacks occupying the land.
Thus today's houses do not usually have parallel sides -- the corners are at odd angles. The house we occupy now is 3.66 meters wide at the front, and 4.25 meters wide at the back. Notice the middle-class house under construction in the photo below (click on the photo to expand it):
It bends around the white house next to it, which in turn has an even odder shape. This new house is now almost complete at four stories, and is very typical for a middle class house in the inner city of TP. Hồ Chí Minh today. It has around 120 square meters in area, or 1,300 square feet. It is likely that an extended family of a dozen people will occupy this house.
Some lots are very small at 9 square meters, like this one-story house in the photo below:
This house is occupied by an older woman who sells small grocery items out of the front door. Like many Vietnamese, she sleeps on the floor at night. Many houses like this are being bought up in combination with adjacent lots for construction of larger middle-class houses as the economy grows rapidly here in Viet Nam.
Other lot owners simply build on what they have, like this three-story small house on a 15 square meter area plot.
The middle story has no windows and is used as a bedroom with sleeping on the floor. This house is occupied by an family of four.
By comparison, the standard San Francisco lot at 25-feet wide and 100-feet long is 232 square meters in area, and that is low for most American cities and towns.
I know that there is a ferry from Saigon (Hồ Chí Minh City District 1 downtown) to Thủ Thiêm across the Sông Sài Gòn (Saigon River), but I don't believe there is a water bus or taxi system to take people up or down the river. There is a hydrofoil boat service between Vũng Tào on the coast and Saigon.
Bangkok offers a good mass-transit model for HCMC with its Chao Phraya River Express water buses. These long boats run up and down the Chao Phraya River, stopping at piers numbered like bus stops. The fare is collected on board and amounts to only US 40 cents or less depending upon the distance to be travelled.
Other long-tail boats ferry passengers up and down the numerous khlongs or canals intersecting through the city.
The Sài Gòn River winds through Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh very similarly to the river in Bangkok. There are also several canals through the city that could support water taxi service after the City completes its environmental clean-up of the black water.
In Bangkok, the water buses are large and roomy to allow standing when necessary by commuters during the rush hours.
The pier stops are located at strategic points allowing access to tourist and business centers.
Some of the stops are located on the Thonburi side of the river from central Bangkok, supplementing the cross-river ferries.
