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A Developing Ideas series.

FOCUS ON VIETNAM: Vietnam veers into urban nightmare

Asia's youngest economic tiger faces hard choices about the future of its cities. Part 3 of 4

By Shirley Brady

HANOI - In less than a year, the quiet flow of bicycles on Hanoi's tree-lined boulevards has given way to a chaotic crush of Honda Dream motorcycles. Negotiating Vietnam's capital is like being a particle in a physics experiment - there's no choice but to go with the flow. Rest assured, however, choices are being made about how the city will function in the future. These decisions will determine whether it becomes more like a manic Manila or a tranquil Toronto.

On the urban streets of Vietnam, the economic dream is starting to look like a nightmare. In its haste to catch up with more developed neighbours in Southeast Asia, Vietnam is finding its cities choked with an explosion of motorbikes and cars. In June, after a French woman lost her leg in a motorcycle run-in, an exasperated premier Vo Van Kiet signed a decree to "establish traffic order" and posted police officers at downtown intersections.

Among tourists, the word on the street is, "See Vietnam quick, before Saigon turns into Bangkok." The sprawling Southern city of Saigon, officially known as Ho Chi Minh City, already resembles the Thai capital, with its snarling traffic and neon-lit nightclubs. The more sedate Hanoi is not far behind. Everybody, it seems, has traded pedal power for motor muscle. "Five years ago, we all had bicycles. Now we have motorcycles. And in five years we will all have cars!," a Hanoi woman recently commented in the Vietnam Investment Review.

But there's a cost to careening down the newly paved road to development. About 5,000 people were killed on Vietnam's streets last year, with another 15,000 severely injured in traffic accidents. There are now 3 million motorcycles and 330,000 other vehicles in a nation of 73 million people. With seven foreign car makers putting down stakes in Vietnam this year, that number is sure to expand.

As with many developing countries, some of the loudest critics of rapid development are foreigners - whose affluent lifestyles have presumably inspired Vietnam's boom. "As a foreigner, it's hard for me to say you don't want everybody here to drive cars," says David Hulse, Vietnam director of the World Wildlife Fund. "What right do we have to say, 'We screwed up, but we're not going to let you make the same mistakes'."

One Canadian engineer, who has been hired to upgrade National Highway One, would like to see a more thoughtful, less rushed, planning process. "Doing business in Vietnam makes me feel like that American guy in Local Hero," a film in which an American executive grapples with the impact his oil refinery will have on a pristine coastal community in Scotland. "I want to tell them to take it easy and not rush into industrialization. Of course, they think I'm crazy." Looking out from the verandah of Hanoi's Sunset Pub, a popular local jazz club, the Edmontonian laments the loss of the unique cityscape. "What they have is special. What we have in the West may not be so desirable."

Yet romantic Westerners are not alone in their concern. Hanoi politicians have just unveiled their first urban plan to be created this century, with the goal of improving the city's infrastructure without losing its natural charms. Ho Chi Minh City is also drafting a master plan to take it into the next century, with ambitious plans for a US$213 million overhead railway; a US$300 million cablecar network, and a US$1.3 billion subway system.

After a prolonged period of economic isolation following the Communist victory in 1975, the nation is now looking forward to a prosperous future. The normalization of trade relations with the United States in July will surely provide more fuel for the economic revolution.

"The people are changing, there's no doubt about it," says Terry Kelsall, a British railway engineer currently working as a training manager in Vietnam. "They know they're going to get richer, and they're rushing full-throttle ahead. Who can blame them?"

Local leaders and foreign partners alike are starting to grapple with how to channel this economic fervour into sustainable growth. But such concerns mean little in a country where most workers earn less than US$240 each year. Despite the ravages of war and subsequent environmental degradation, Vietnam is remarkable for its cultural resilience and physical beauty. Still, as Local Hero points out, "You can't eat scenery."