Antidote to Burnout

Development History Summary of Saigon

The early development pattern of Sài Gòn was influenced primarily by means of transportation. The native population built the earliest settlements along the river banks where trade was facilitated by boat and barge shipping. The Vietnamese further developed the marine... Read more →

Urban Planning at its best

This item from Twitter by @pourmecoffee caught my eye: The link in the tweet goes here. An A.P. article provides further details here. Here is a photo of the urban plan for one of the cities: One city is planned... Read more →

China's New Tomorrowland - An FP Photo Essay | Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy magazine has an eye-opening photo essay up about the growth to Chongqing in China. I thought Saigon was growing quickly, but the growth in China is astounding -- in Chongqing, "The city expects to absorb 1 million urban... Read more →

Design Touches 9

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. We didn't spend much time sitting on this bench -- we... Read more →

Planning misjudgement by the HCMC government

The following article from the official Ho Chi Minh City website delivers the bad news: HCM City and South Korea’s GS Engineering & Construction have signed a memorandum of understanding on the project of building the elevated road No. 1... Read more →

Sliced-off house...

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... Read more →

Celebration of the utilities...

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. Read more →

The Urban Fabric of HCMC

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... Read more →

My Image of Ho Chi Mnh City

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... Read more →

Visions for downtown HCMC

Jon over at The final Word...in Saigon just posted a very comprehensive and thoroughly researched description of current and planned development projects in TP. Hồ Chí Minh. He is looking forward 13 years to a dream of "gleaming highways and... Read more →

It's not easy to be a pedestrian in Vietnam

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... Read more →

The new urban area alternative for Ho Chi Minh City

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... Read more →

Houses on the Hem...

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... Read more →

Water Buses in Bangkok

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... Read more →