Problem Statement

Growing up

in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), the biggest metropolitan in Vietnam, with the population up to 9 million,2 and having lived in the city center, more than often, I have been too familiar with the bustling images of the central streets centers and burdens on sidewalk corners. These sidewalk activities had been a strong attachment between the city itself and me throughout 25 years and they continue to grow, especially in big metropolitans, for instance Hanoi and HCMC. Additionally, these street-oriented occupations are unofficially controlled under any organizations or official authorities, mostly they are spontaneously occurred on the pavements of most cities and take turns to open and close during one day. Vietnam “Sidewalk economy” or “informal economy” sector has a thick history from the feudal times, undergoing many periods of the country’s history, but until now the official definition of informality did not occur in any Vietnamese regulation text, there are also no current policies targeting the informal sector.3

2 Ho Chi Minh City covers a sizeable surface area with a total of 2,061.2 square kilometers (795.3 square miles). The city is quite densely populated, but somehow it all seems to work as Ho Chi Minh City continues to grow. The population density states that 4,097 individuals are residing per square kilometer (approximately 10,610 residents per square mile) within the city. <https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/ho-chi-minh-city-population>

3 The Hien Dang, Street Life as the negotiation process: case study of Sidewalk Informal Economy in Ho Chi Minh City, IOP Publishi, 2018, 1.