New publication

Danielle Labbé and Gabriel Fauveaud have a new scientific article out on the micro-governance of Hanoi’s new urban areas (khu do thi moi). Read it here: available in open access

Annoucement: Making our Place documentary wins Best Next Gen Film award at the Better Cities Film Festival!

We are happy to announce that the documentary Making our Place, produced by the TRYHanoi team, has received the Best Next Gen Film award at the Better Cities Film Festival! Film entries were judged by an international panel of esteemed urbanists, architects and filmmakers including Jan Gehl, Christopher Leinberger, Tami Door, Trinity Simons, Ethan Kent, Mick Cornett, and Rama Perparim.

We congratulate all the team for this awesome work and for this well-deserved award! You can watch the documentary on Vimeo, found here.

Click here to see other award winners from the Better Cities Film Festival.

Announcement: Adhoc Talk 02: Surviving the fantasies of modernization

We are happy to announce the completion of our second Adhoc talk on modernization, co-organized by Ha Noi Ad Hoc and RMIT Vietnam, with support from UNESCO. This talk features Mila Rosentha of Hanoi Ad Hoc and Jennifer Vanderpool, a social practice artist, writer and curator. See below for a recording of the event, and click here for more information on the talk.

Update: The Guadalajara-Montréal international studio has a new website

The Guadalajara-Montréal international studio has recently updated their website to include more content! Click here for access (in French or Spanish).

About the studio:

Since 2018, the Université de Montréal and the Universidad de Guadalajara have been collaborating on training, research and intervention activities in urban planning in Mexico and Canada. The Guadalajara-Montreal workshop is part of this collaboration by offering future urban planning professionals an itinerant, intensive, multidisciplinary and multilingual training activity to prepare them to act in a globalized world.

In addition to the activities carried out at a distance, this workshop includes two on-site work stays per year, one in Montreal and the other in Guadalajara, during which the participants carry out information gathering, analysis and design activities on specific urban spaces, in collaboration with local actors (municipalities, NPOs, etc.).

Announcement: Welcoming new postdoctoral fellow Camilla Florez-Bossio!

We welcome Camilla Florez-Bossio as our new postdoctoral fellow. Camilla, a recipient of the FRQSC postdoctoral scholarship, will be studying Social Cues for Climate Change Adaptation in Metropolises of Latin America from September 2021 to August 2023.

Announcement: A successful PhD thesis defense from Marco Chitti!

Congratulations to Marco Chitti for their successful PhD defense on Urban planning histories and cultures in action and in situation: the practice of urban planning in a North-South technical assistance context (Histoires et cultures urbanistiques en action et en situation : la pratique de l’urbanisme en contexte d’assistance technique Nord-Sud en français), a project co-supervised by Professor Jacques Fisette and Danielle Labbé.

Thesis abstract:

The thesis investigates the practice of urban planning in the context of North-to-South technical assistance focusing on two recent development aid projects in Palestine. The research focuses on the analysis of situated professional action and, in particular, on the interactions between practitioners from Italy and Palestine, working together on the technical implementation of two aid projects selected as study cases: “Jericho Master Plan” and “Regeneration of Historic Centers in Local Government Units”. This research aims to better understand how the different backgrounds of urban planners coming from different countries influence their professional practice and to which extent the development aid project as the context of action affects this practice. The practice of urban planning in the context of international technical assistance is appreciated as an activity characterized by an intercultural context and a specific institutional frame.

Thus, this research envisions professional practice as “planning histories and cultures, in action and in situation”, that is an analytical framework that envisions that particular planners’ practice as : i) an activity influenced by the professional cultures of local and international professionals deeply rooted in the respective national planning histories; ii) a discursive professional practice interpreted as a rhetoric exercise of both evaluation and persuasion.; iii) an activity shaped by the obligations to deal with a peculiar context of action, i.e. the development project. The research strategy is based on an extended case method approach, centered on the analysis of “planning stories”, an ethnographic method to collect thick accounts of the actual professional practice of urban planners pioneered by John Forester (2012). Official documents have been used as elicitation instruments. The actual situated practice, as it emerges from those “planning stories”, is analyzed using this double analytical framework, as an activity influenced by the mutual interaction of factors originating at different scales and temporalities: structural ones, i.e. the historically shaped planning cultures, and situational ones, i.e. the specific institutional frame and the aleatory circumstances. The interaction between those factors is appreciated with the constructivist and empiricist posture advocated by the pragmatist sociology.

This historically grounded, culturalist and contextual analysis of the reflexive professional action of Palestinian and Italian planners engaged in a technical assistance project reveals a practice deeply influenced by normative and cognitive frameworks, rooted in the respective national planning histories. Professional action appears as equally hindered by the lack of contextual knowledge and the contradictory logic the development aid industry. Finally, planners’ stories reveal a professional posture animated by a pedagogical and missionary attitude, marked by a tension between the necessity to adapt to the local context and a generalized will to improve, to work for better cities.

You can access Marco’s thesis here.

New Publication: The role of the private sector in the production of open public spaces in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (décembre 2020)

Danielle Labbé, Clément Musil et Trần Thị Mai Thoa

About the publication:

The production of open public spaces, such as parks, public gardens and playgrounds, experienced major changes in Vietnam over the last two decades or so. Starting in the late 1990s, policymakers adopted a series of public policies aimed at transferring a significant part of the responsibility to invest in the design, construction and management of these spaces from the public to the private sector. This policy reorientation has been introduced as a means to boost green and open space provision in Vietnamese cities in spite of strained public budgets.

Twenty years on, very few studies have examined the outcomes of this major policy shift. While conflicts related to privately-produced open public spaces emerge sporadically in the domestic media, and while one can observe new types of public spaces in and around Vietnamese cities that are visibly produced by private entities, there is a lack of systematic research on these spaces. Little is known about the quantity, types and quality of the open public spaces produced by the private sector in this context.

This pilot study is an attempt to respond to these gaps in evidence. It relies on the cases of two areas at the near periphery of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to: (i) critically review the main policies and institutional mechanisms governing the private sector’s involvement in the production of open public spaces in Vietnamese cities; (ii) document how much and what types of spaces are produced through these various mechanisms; (iii) assess the quality of the resulting open public spaces, especially in terms of publicness; and (iii) propose avenues to address shortcomings and issues stemming from the involvement of the private sector in the production of open public spaces in Vietnamese cities. Fieldwork for the study was carried out between March and September 2020.

This research stems from a research partnership between the Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Urbanization in the Global South and the Observatory Ivanhoé-Cambridge of urban development and real estate at the Université de Montréal (Canada) and HealthBridge and the Urban Development Research and Consulting in Vietnam. It draws on our collective commitment to support the development of cities where economic development is in balance with social equity and human flourishing. It also draws on our conviction that one of the ways in which cities can attain this balance is by ensuring that everyone, including the most vulnerable, has access to high-quality, accessible and genuinely public green and open spaces.

You can download the publication here.

New Publication: Open Public Space and the Private Sector – A toolkit for overcoming barriers and best practices (novembre 2020)

Aaron Vansintjan et Danielle Labbé

About the publication:

This report accompanies and complements a pilot study titled “The Private Sector’s Role in the Production of Open Public Spaces in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.” This pilot study interrogates the role and impact of an important policy reorientation in Vietnam regarding the production of open public spaces in cities such as parks, public gardens and playgrounds. Beginning in the late 1990s, this policy shift transferred a significant part of the responsibility to invest in the design, construction and management of these spaces from the public to the private sector.

One of the objectives of the pilot study was to critically assess the policy tools and mechanisms currently used in Vietnam to involve the private sector in the production of open public spaces in cities. Building on the study, this report helps to put this critical assessment in international perspective. It does so by reviewing the experiences of a variety of cities around the world with privately-produced open public spaces. It synthesizes recommendations formulated by international organizations to overcome barriers related to the financing, planning, management, governance and quality of open public spaces by the private sector. It further identifies and discusses best practices identified by these same organizations to produce high-quality, accessible and genuinely public green and open spaces in cities.

The production of this report was funded by two research units of the University de Montréal, Canada: the Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Urbanization in the Global South, and the Observatory Ivanhoé-Cambridge on Urban and Real Estate Development. This report was reviewed by Danielle Labbé (Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Urbanization in the Global South) and Clément Musil (Urban Development Research and Consulting).

You can access the publication here.

New Publication: Gentrification or …? Injustice in large-scale residential projects in Hanoi

Potter, C. et D. Labbé (2021) « Gentrification or...? Injustice in large-scale residential projects in Hanoi ». Urban Studies, 58(12) :  2456-72

About the publication:

Large-scale residential developments on expropriated lands in periurban Hanoi resemble forms of gentrification seen elsewhere. But is it gentrification? Current debate over the definition of gentrification has focused on whether the term has become too broad to be useful in different institutional and spatio-temporal contexts. While some push for a generalisable definition based in capitalist development, others argue that the term harbours Western assumptions that fail to usefully explain unique local circumstances.

The paper first identifies one such conceptual assumption that must be made explicit since it provides the term’s politicising thrust: displacement generates an experience of social injustice. Then, drawing on surveys and interviews with residents as well as interviews with real estate agents, government officials and academics conducted in Hanoi between 2013 and 2017, the paper evaluates five types of displacement on the city’s outskirts. Because displacement only occurs in marginal cases and generates limited feelings of social injustice, the term ‘gentrification’ is of little use. Instead, the paper suggests that in a context of rapid urbanisation and relatively inclusive economic growth such as that of Hanoi the terms ‘livelihood dispossession’ and ‘value grabbing’ may better capture the experience of social injustice and are therefore more likely to generate political traction.

You can access the publication here.

New Publication: Urban dwellers’ adaptive capacity as a socio-psychological process: Insights from Lima, Peru

Bossio, C.F., D. Labbé et J. Ford (2021) « Urban Dwellers’ Adaptive Capacity as Socio-psychological Process: Insights from Lima, Peru ». Climate Risk Management. 34(en ligne): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2021.100352.

About the publication:

This study examines the adaptive capacity of urban dwellers in the face of a changing climate dealing with water insecurity. It builds on the case of Lima residents’ responses to the extreme events brought by the 2017 El Niño Costero, used here as a temporal analogue.

Our novel, process-oriented approach to framing adaptive capacity integrates elements from both environmental behavior and new institutionalism literatures. Based on interviews with Lima residents, policymakers, and stakeholders as well as on a qualitative document analysis of national and city policies we identify and characterize the socio-psychological processes that are critical to understanding why individuals adopt (or not) different adaptive strategies. We show how governance and social institutions (from municipal regulations to gender roles) influenced residents’ perceived vulnerability and how this, in turn, structured their coping actions during the El Niño Costero episode. We further demonstrate that ways in which individuals deploy coping mechanisms structure their future adapting paths through practices that privilege the status quo while deferring risks in time and space.

In this context, the interrelation of residents’ cognitive processes with evolving social norms lead to five strategies for dealing with climate change. The discussion reflects on the need to address institutionalized social inequalities that permeate Lima’s daily urban life in order to enhance the adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable, and on the relationship between residents and authorities on the pathway to urban resilience.

You can access the publication here.

New Publication: Handbook of Megacities and Megacity-Regions

Labbé, D. et A. Sorensen (eds.) (2020) Handbook of Megacities and Megacity-Regions, Cheltenham (UK : Edward Elgar Publishing.

About the publication:

Exploring the importance of megacities and megacity-regions as one of the defining features of the 21st century, this Handbook provides a clear and comprehensive overview of current thinking and debates from leading scholars in the field. Highlighting major current challenges and dimensions of megaurbanization, chapters form a thematic focus on governance, planning, history, and environmental and social issues, supported by case studies from every continent.

Analysing vital questions for contemporary urban research, this Handbook looks at: what place megacities and megacity-regions occupy in a world of cities; how they interrogate current thinking about urban society, theory, and policy; and what role these largest of urban areas will play in shaping humanity’s future. Key contributions reveal that research needs to further focus a critical and analytical lens on the particularities and distinctive issues associated with megaurbanization.

A timely and essential read for urban studies, urban geography, and public policy students, the interdisciplinary nature of this Handbook provides a thorough view into the features and importance of megacities and megacity-regions. Public policy-makers and planners will also benefit from the wide-ranging case studies included.

You can access the publication here.

Announcement: Adhoc Talk 01: Circulative Mapping

We are happy to announce the completion of our first Adhoc talk on circulative mapping! Co-organized by Ha Noi Ad Hoc and RMIT-Vietnam, with technical support from UNESCO and Université de Montréal, this open course explored the cartograsphic possibilities of geographic information systems (GIS) to visualize the flow of material in space across continents. The lecture features two speakers: Stanislas Turcon (architect, London, UK) and Thomas Lacour-Veyranne (architect-urbanist, Paris, France) who recently produced innovative mapping investigations. See below for a recording of the event and click here for more information on the talk.

Announcement: Adhoc Talk 03: Encounters with Architectural Modernism in Vietnam

We are happy to announce the completion of our third Adhoc talk on the encounters with architectural modernism in Vietnam, co-organized by the CRC in collaboration with RMIT-Vietnam and UNESCO. Weaving the examinations of our speakers, through their respective research approaches - Architectural and Anthropological, the talk explores the parallels between ideologies and the differing responses to modernism across the country. In addition, we discuss the influence and linkage of large-scale housing development for industrial, social infrastructure design in Vinh, and also the modernist building types found expressed in the buildings constructed by the populace in the South. In which, the former enhanced the producing conditions in the subjective socialist context, while the latter demonstrated the embracement of modernist architecture – giving rise to the unique vernacular modernism of the anonymous architect in Vietnam. This talk features guest speakers Mel Schneck (architect managing international design and construction, and author) and Christina Schwenkel (professor of Anthropology and Director of the program in Southeast Asian Studies (SEATRiP) at the University of California, Riverside), who draw from their recent books on architecture in Vietnam and examine these modernist building types. See below for a recording of the event and click here for more information on the talk.

New Publication

LABBÉ, D. (2021) Urban Transition in Hanoi: Huge Challenges Ahead, Singapore: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.

About the Publication

Vietnam is in the midst of one of the world’s most rapid and intensive rural-to-urban transitions.

In Hanoi, heritage preservation has gained significant policy attention over the last decades, but efforts continue to focus on the Old Quarter and Colonial City to the exclusion of collective socialist housing complexes and former village areas, and natural features such as canals and urban lakes.

Parks and public spaces are urgently needed to offset the high residential densities and to improve the quality of life of residents.

Motor vehicles continue to fuel the growth in transportation. Significant efforts were recently made to establish a mass transit system, but progress there is slow. More attention should be paid to improving the existing transportation system and to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Investments in new housing estates have fuelled a speculative real estate market but failed to address adequately the needs of the vulnerable segments of the population.

Regional integration is a challenge as the city expands and swallows the peri-urban areas around the city.

Documentary to compete in 2020 edition of Better Cities Film Festival

“Making our Place,” a video documentary produced by Danielle Labbé in collaboration with the NGO HealthBridge Vietnam and the Vietnamese Women Museum has been selected for the 2020 edition of the Better Cities Film Festival. The documentary, produced as part of the TRYSPACES research partnerhship. It will be screened in Detroit in mid-October 2020. You can watch the documentary here.

TRYinnerSpaces call on youth

In response to the recent shelter-at-home experience, the TRYSPACES team (in which D. Labbé and J Torres from the Chair are participating) launched the TRYinnerSPACES artistic call this week. The call is addressed to teens and youth from Hanoi, Montreal, Paris and Mexico so that they can express themselves on how they live the shelter-at-home moement in their respective city # covid19 #stayhome. Young people are invited to share what they miss most about public space by sending a short text, photo, video, song, dance or poem with the hashtag #TRYinnerSPACES and the name of their city #MONTREAL, #MEXICO , #PARIS and #HANOI. They are also invited to answer the questions: What do you miss most about public space? Where will you go as soon as the confinement is (finally!) completed? and what do you dream of doing?

This is the first step in a series of activities including virtual workshops with Montreal youths (April 30 to May 14, 2020) and a research lab (June 2020)

TRYSPACES launches a new documentary

What the new documentary on young female labour migrants and public spaces in Hanoi produced by our Vietnamese research partners: HealthBridge and the Vietnamese Women Museum as part of the TRYSPACES project. Click here to watch.

Les midi-séminaires: Potential for cycling in Belo Horizonte

During the lunchtime seminars Priscilla Dutra Dias Viola, PhD candidate in Urban Planning, Université de Montréal, will present her research entitled "Potential for cycling in Belo Horizonte: an exploratory study of the 2012 Origin and Destination Survey". 

The aim of this research is to verify the potential of the city of Belo Horizonte (Brazil) for urban cycling, considering the most likely cyclist profile, needs and travel behaviour. To determine the city's potential for cycling as a means of transport, it was proposed to use the statistical method of logistic regression using the database of the 2012 Origin and Destination Survey (OD 2012). Two potential scenarios were obtained. In the first scenario, the potential number of bicycle trips reaches 1.49%, almost four times more than the 0.4% of the 2012 OD modal share. In the second scenario, the potential value of cycling trips is 6.73% of the modal share, which represents an increase of more than 2,400% in the number of daily trips. The results show that the increased participation of bicycles in the modal division can contribute to improving mobility conditions and quality of life in Belo Horizonte. 

Bring your lunch and join the discussion on Thursday, November 14, at room 3073 of the Faculty of Planning of the Université de Montréal.

Seminar: Emerging and dynamic real estate markets and production dynamics of metropolitan areas

"MARCHÉS IMMOBILIERS ÉMERGENTS ET DYNAMIQUES DE PRODUCTION DES TERRITOIRES MÉTROPOLITAINS: les cas de Hanoi et Ho Chi Minh Ville (Vietnam)" a seminar by Clément Musil (geographer and urban planner, PhD) and Danielle Labbé (urban planner and architect, PhD).

In the early 1990s, as a result of reforms that put Vietnam on the path to a "socialist-oriented market economy", a real estate market reappeared in the country's major cities. Driven by a rapid growth of urban populations and a constantly increasing rate of economic growth, today the real estate markets in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, and Ho Chi Minh City, the economic metropolis of the South, are experiencing a real effervescence. However, this spectacular dynamism, which is reflected in the construction of residential real estate projects of unprecedented scale for the country, is not without consequences and leads to a profound transformation of the peri-urban spaces of these metropolitan areas. In a perspective between the cases of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, this paper sheds light on the main components of these emerging markets and their effects on urban production.

Be there, on Thursday November 7th, 2019 at noon in room #2077 of the Faculty of Development!

Conference: Ho Chi Minh and the manufacturing of new mobilities

"HO CHI MINH VILLE (Vietnam) ET LA FABRIQUE DES NOUVELLES MOBILITÉS: un exercice sous contrainte", a conference by Clément Musil, geographer and urban planner, PhD.

Ho Chi Minh City, a metropolis of more than 10 million people, is Vietnam's main economic engine - now considered an "emerging economy", a "middle-income country". As a result of the rising standard of living of urban households, mobility practices are changing. Vietnam's cities, and Ho Chi Minh City in particular, are known for the widespread use of motorized two-wheelers for their travel. The gradual enrichment of the middle and upper middle classes is pushing them to abandon the use of motorcycles for the purchase of cars. While the metropolis of southern Vietnam is now facing increasing road traffic congestion problems, the metropolitan authorities are planning to modernise the existing public transport network and, above all, to build a vast public transport network including metro and bus lines in dedicated lanes. The creation of this network would constitute a technical solution to improve the conditions of travel of city dwellers in the metropolitan area and also an opportunity to develop and redevelop the metropolis with the construction of new districts based on the principles of Transit-Oriented Development. On the basis of an inventory of the development of the public transport network, this communication examines its implementation, which is not without imposing significant constraints on the public authorities: financing of the network; access to land rights-of-way and development of new urban districts; institutional management of the network in its construction and operation phase.

Be there, on Wednesday October 30th, 2019 at noon in room #1150 of the Faculty of Development!