Megalopolitan megalomania: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s Southeastern region and the speculative growth machine

Abstract

Vietnam’s Eastern Southern Region is widely celebrated as the ‘engine’ of the country’s economy. Encompassing rapidly developing Ho Chi Minh City and five surrounding provinces, the region’s growth is fuelled in part by the expansion of export processing zones and numerous master-planned development projects known as New Urban Zones. This article documents the ambitions Vietnamese government officials and planners have of transforming the region into a Megalopolis or super-city consisting of a series of integrated satellite cities with Ho Chi Minh City at its core. Because this region of Vietnam does not include any important pre-existing secondary cities of major consequence, however, this megalopolitan model risks cooptation by megalomaniacs, larger-than-life figures driven more by the exercise of power than concerns about the development of an integrated regional plan.

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