Youth Perspectives: Navigating and Negotiation Top-Down Urban Change in Hanoi, Vietnam
hanoi
Student Projects
Madeleine Hykes
Department of Geography, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec
2017
Supervisor: Sarah Turner
Since the introduction of the Đổi Mới reforms in 1986, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has
undergone a series of major shifts across social, political, and economic spheres. Today, top-down
actors, such as the one-party state and private firms, are shaping the capital city of Hanoi to fit
with ideals of a ‘modern’ and ‘global’ cityscape with little or no prior public consultation. This
research focuses on how rapid urbanization within a fairly authoritarian context is impacting one
cohort: youth. As such, this research aims to investigate how youth (18 to 32), in Hanoi, Vietnam
perceive, interact with, and negotiate the built environment they are set to inherit. Based on
qualitative fieldwork conducted in Hanoi in the summer of 2017, my research analyzes how this
generation of youth is responding to rapid urban change through engaging in forms of everyday
politics and in the production of urban spaces that fit their needs.
Key words: hybrid urbanization, youth, post-socialist urban landscapes, Hanoi, everyday politics
