Hanoi and HoChiMinh city have been attracting the migration flow from rural and the neighborhood areas. Rapid urbanization has derived a large number of famers from cultivating land, causing unemployment and creating a class of urban poor. That leads to higher and higher poverty rate in the urban and larger distance between the urban rich and urban poor. The urban poor are being pushed away from urban centers to small lanes, low income areas with lower accessibility to urban services or social welfare. Living environment in several cities have been seriously polluted with average suspended particle matter concentration is 5-7 times, even 10 times, higher than the allowable level, solid water is increasing, flooding and congestion become common, land for green trees and community activities is squeezing.
The World Bank estimates that Vietnam has to mobilize a huge amount of money to improve the urban infrastructure. The World Health Organization is being concerned on Vietnam’s low population quality in spite of high economic development. Low population quality will be the main barrier to future development and lead to further backward in comparison with countries in the region and the world.
Thus the Vietnam’s urbanization strategy should stress sustainability and balance between man, environment and socio-economy. The weakness in urban management will lead to waste of urban resources. Good urban management is the main factor to enable public participation in urban planning, development and management, enable urban citizens to live a better life and higher longevity, and to be taken care of in situation of catastrophe or climate change.
Urbanization is an inevitable process, thus it is better to adapt rather than to avoid or ban it. No country can develop without experiencing an urbanization period. The future is depending on our readiness to adapt this great urbanization.
Source: Monre.gov.vn