Do densely populated periurban villages have right to the Hanoi metropolis? - Fanchette, Sylvie
Since the turn of the beginning of the new millennium, the change in speed brought about by the state and by property developers in the construction and planning of Hanoi province poses the problem of integration of periurban villages, the importance of preserving a green belt around the capital and the necessity of protection from flooding. The harmonious fusion of city and countryside, which has always constituted the Red River Delta’s defining feature, appears to be in jeopardy. The state accelerated the process of “liberating” People’s agricultural land to make it accessible to property developers and stop to subsidise industrial sites in craft villages in favour of industrial parks development with low local hiring capacity. This facilitated the creation of large, private real estate and industrial groups made up of what was left of former state-owned companies. The emergence of new stakeholders, conflicts over land, the questioning of local governments power, some of which are implicated in corrupt land deals, and multiform village strategies are symptomatic of a society undergoing profound change, product of a liberal society after several decades of collectivist management. However, the harshness of some conflicts, the very rapid social and economic stratification associated with the property boom, the end of peasantry in the peri-urban outskirts, challenge the foundations of this multi-millennial, densily populated and deeply village-oriented deltaic society. This paper demonstrates how the breakdown of the pluriactive production system threatens to trigger an exodus of many rural unemployed and challenge the social justice on land and the right to periurban villagers to be actors of this emerging metropolis. To create a city with its villagers or to create it without them, that is the question for the future of a globalised Hà Nôi.
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Keywords: conferencePaper; conflits; densités population; marché foncier; metropolisation; paysannerie