Youth Perspectives: Navigating and Negotiating Top-Down Urban Change in Hanoi, Vietnam

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.