Topic: Transportation Development and Infrastructure Over Time in Vietnam Due Date: February 28, 2021 Word Count: 1609
Arnold, D., & DeWald, E. (2011). Cycles of Empowerment? The Bicycle and Everyday Technology in Colonial India and Vietnam. Comparative Studies in Society & History, 53(4), 971–996. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417511000478
There exist two types of technology: big and small. The former consisting of “capital intensive, [and] often state-managed” technologies such as railroads, steamships, and electric power grids, and the latter consisting of unmonopolizable, “everyday” technologies, such as the sewing machine and wristwatch. Bicycles, then, must fit in the latter category. However, in the colonies of the Great Powers of Europe alongside the United States, the bicycle had become the everyday commodity that changed everything in the early 1920s. Bicycles, when they arrived in Vietnam, were already established modes of transportation in North America and Europe. By 1926, there were an estimated 50,000 Bicycles in the Cholon Quarter of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), and in Hanoi, the bicycle was fast becoming a standard mode of transport. As is the case with most colonial machined objects, French-made bicycles were often preferred to local Vietnamese models for use by the colonial government, local or central. The economic importance of the bicycle was also seen by the Vietnamese, as can be seen with the development of mobile shops and bicycle-rickshaw taxis. Despite the prejudice against local machines, however, local bicycle makers and mechanics were able to withstand the economic downturn of the Great Depression due to the high demand of bicycles for their added mobility. This added mobility, alongside the host of other cultural changes such as the idea that bicycles were a step towards being equal to foreigners and the “modern bicycle-riding lady”, which is now the cultural standard in Vietnam, allowed Vietnamese cities to begin development of suburbs, as bicyclists were able to travel further in less time.
This article specifically relates to the social opportunities granted to Vietnamese (and Indian) people with the introduction of the bicycle, where it discusses the increase in social and economic freedoms Vietnamese people were able to obtain with the near instant adoption of the bicycle in French Indochina. These include developing a burgeoning suburbia, increased opportunities from aforementioned mobility, and as a tool of conflict, where the authors cite not only its use in propoganda campaigns by the Viet Minh during the 1940s, but also its use as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, camoflauged by its own ubiquity. The authors do not display any maps, graphs, or data sets, and instead rely on data from colonial government censuses and other documents from the period, as well as information from multiple other sources. We can also see the beginning of the two vs four wheeled social divide here.
Blancas, L. C., & El-Hifnawi, M. B. (2014). Facilitating Trade through Competitive, Low-Carbon Transport: The Case for Vietnam’s Inland and Coastal Waterways. Directions in Development: Countries and Regions.
Vietnamese GDP growth, which averaged at a fairly sizable 7.2 percent per year between 1993 and 2013, can be attibuted to Vietnam’s economic liberalization of the mid-1980s and their subsequent integration into the global economy. Despite Vietnam’s preference on road-based infrastructure, which accounts for 40% of the national freight in tons per kilometer and is the recipient of about 80% of public transportation spending, road transport produces the most carbon dioxide of the transportation means. River barge transport is nearly 4 times as fuel efficent than the road-based freight trucking. With both major population and industrial sectors of Vietnam, Hanoi and HChi Minh City, being situated on the Red River and Mekong River Deltas respectively, water-based transportation of freight, inland waterway transport (IWT) freight accounts for 48.3% of the tons transported in-country, compared to road freight’s 45.4% share of tons transported in-country. However, road-based freight transport has been growing much faster than that of IWT, and accounts for 6.2% more tons of freight per kilometer transported at 36.6%, compared to IWT’s 30.2%, as the road-based transport on average transports freight 31 more kilometers than IWT at an average of 143 kilometers. The size of the Vietnamese river-going cargo vessels has increased from 33,859 vessels in 2000 to 95,126 vessels in 2010, of which 50% are smaller 5-15 ton vessels, with a growing number of larger vessels of the 300 ton and above classes. IWT freight transport is projected to increase from 200,000 tons per day in 2008 to 300,000 tons per day in 2030. and from Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi Coastal shipping, according to data from the Vietnam Maritime Administration, also grew at an annual rate of 13.2% between 1998 and 2008. Overall tonnage that passed through Vietnam’s seaports increased from around 40 million tons in 1995 to nearly 195 million in 2008, with ~42% of all tonnage being domestic freight transport and another 32% being export freight transport.
The paper seeks to address policies that could “enhance the competitiveness and environmental sustainability characteristics of Vietnam’s freight transport system”, primarily the waterborne system, as well as to discuss and estimate benefits from implementing said policies. This article, in its entirety, focuses primarily on the economic freedoms in Vietname when analyzing it through Amartya Sen’s human development model, with more attention given to the growth of both the inland waterway freight transport and coastal shipping markets. The authors utilized data from both Vietnamese Government Agencies and a study conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The authors also utilized data from a document published in VITRANSS-2, which provided data for 2008 and projections for 2030.
Gaughan, Andrea E, Oda, Tomohiro, Sorichetta, Alessandro, Stevens, Forrest R, Bondarenko, Maksym, Bun, Rostyslav, . . . Nghiem, Son V. (2019). Evaluating nighttime lights and population distribution as proxies for mapping anthropogenic CO2 emission in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Environmental Research Communications, 1(9), Environmental Research Communications, 2019-09-11, Vol.1 (9).
The study primarily illustrates the differences between certain data sets and data visualization of those data sets on the Indochinese Peninsula regarding carbon dioxide output as a response for the “the strong need for a high resolution CO2 emission map for high-resolution atmospheric modeling and satellite CO2 analyses”. The study evaluated nighttime lights (NTL) as a way to estimate carbon dioxide output compared to a population-based carbon dioxide emissions output model in unites of metric tons per year per 1x1 kilometer square of space (which will henceforth be referred to by “t/y/km^2”). Findings reveal that NTL and population-based models have extremely high variances, and at best should be used for broader analysis rather than minute CO2 analysis. The NTL estimations instead seem to have higher emission estimations towards areas with the highest population, namely inner city areas of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, differing by more than 250 t/y/km^2 towards the NTL model when compared to the population driven model, and much lower emission estimations, differing by more than 250 t/y/km^2 towards the population model, in areas such as Can Tho City, which has approximately 1/8th of the population of Ho Chi Minh City.
Both models, however, illustrate that, over time, both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi have increased the size of the area in which the most population lives, as well as expanding the infrastructure in the city, as is illustrated by the NTL model over time, which details the expansion of CO2 producing areas in both cities. The article, however, strictly confines itself to data from these two cities over time, as well as Vientiane in Laos and Phnom Penh in Cambodia.
The article strictly relates to the social opportunities and growth of society in Amartya Sen’s definition of human development. The geospacial datasets used were from the Open Source Data Inventory for Anthropogenic CO2 (ODIAC), which uses data from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), and the WorldPop Project for the map modelling of population and nighttime lights.
Hansen, A. (2017). Hanoi on wheels: emerging automobility in the land of the motorbike. Mobilities, 12(5), 628–645. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2016.1156425
In most countries, the car is the epitome of mobility. Not in Vietnam. In the inner city of Hanoi, Vietnam, the primary mode of transport is not the automobile, but rather the motorbike (referring to two-wheeled motorized vehicles, such as motorcycles and scooters). In 1996, there were 4 million motorbikes in Vietnam, and by 2016, there are 43 million, with 4 million alone in the capitol and about 470 motorbikes per 1000 people. The article seeks to address the lack of attention given to motorbikes in automobility theory, as well as bringing attention to current developments and capabilities of people in auto- and motomobility in Vietnam. These motorbikes have been the basis for modern Hanoian mobility and mobility culture rather than the car since the Doi Moi, an shifting Vietnam’s economy from a Command Economy to a Market Socialist Economy, due to the relatively low initial costs of motorbikes, as well as savings due to how motorcycles not needing as much parking space/needing dedicated parking space, being taxed less than cars, and not requiring a driver’s license. This, alongside Hanoi’s narrow roads and underdeveloped public transportation system, have seen to the dominance of the motorbikes in the city. The automobile, on the other hand, is made much more of a status symbol than before, thanks to the aforementioned costs; the symbolization of the car is the culmination of Vietnamese efforts to transition to a market economy, as it is something one can flaunt around in the city and in the que (village, as many who live in Hanoi came from the countryside) to show their success, and in the case of businessmen, trustworthiness to future business partners. However, the car is currently being normalized as a proper means of transport rather than an accessory to reveal to others in order to illustrate one’s success due to increasing wealth in the country.
With regards to Amartya Sen’s definition of human development, this article specifically relates to social opportunities, as it discusses the social context of the motorbike in Vietnam, specifically how motorbikes can be seen as an extra pair of proverbial legs for the city denizens of Vietnam, as well as how there exists a divide between the car-owning and non-car-owning people of Vietnam, where those who use cars receive generally preferencial treatment (when they use their car to go to places in the city, anyhow) to those who primarily use motorcycles. The author, rather than use geospacial datasets, chooses to instead reference other articles and participate in and interview other participators of this motomobility-focused society.
Not only have Vietnamese urban centers become denser, with the migration of workers from the countryside to the cities, as well as greater development with regards to road and water infrastructure. Overall, I’m fairly certain that I will continue researching the multiple forms of infrastructure that developed in Vietnam between 1970 and 2020, as well as broadening my search terms such that it encompasses the whole of South East Asia, using population distribution and CO2 emissions data.