Korean Developers in Vietnam: The Mechanism of Transnational Large-Scale Property Development and Its Planning

Abstract

Since neo-liberalism emerged in the 1980s, private actors have started to take a primary role in urban planning and foreign private developers became important actors, especially in urban development in developing countries. In order to investigate the mechanism of large-scale property developments by foreign developers, this paper focused on three cases developed by Koreans in Vietnam and investigated their similarities in development processes, and the resultant urban forms through analyzing relevant documents and conducting a series of in-depth interviews. As a result, a common strategy employed by Korean firms was to build villas first and apartments later, which would distort the resultant urban form. Conflicts with local governments over the provision of public facilities were another feature shared by these projects, and the provision of urban infrastructure, in turn, was scaled down during scheme changes. While previous studies argued that neglecting urban infrastructure has been a common feature of developments influenced by the privatization trend, foreign developers have more financial burdens and risks than their domestic counterparts, which increases the possibility of such neglect.