LookAtVietnam – Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a master plan for developing the country’s urban area system by 2025.

The Dinh Cong new urban area has been recently built in Ha Noi. A master plan for developing the country’s urban areas by 2025 has just been rectified by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

They will be built using advanced architecture but retain their original features and appropriate for the local economic and population conditions and competitive.

The plan makes many projections about urban growth and spells out many criteria for overall development, space, infrastructure and environmental protection, and outlines a road map and solutions for urban development through 2050.

Major cities like HCM City, Ha Noi, Hai Phong, Vinh, Hue city, Da Nang, Quy Nhon, Can Tho and others will become urban clusters or satellite areas to prevent overpopulation and economic ecological imbalance.

Until 2015, economic hubs and major cities that play a key role in the country’s development will get priority for urbanisation.

From 2016-2025, other urban areas will be developed to play a central role in their respective regions.

Between 2026 and 2050, urban networks will be developed.

It is estimated that by 2025, there will be 1,000 urban areas, 17 of them first grade, 20 second grade, 81 third grade, and 122 fourth grade. The remaining 760 will be classified as fifth grade.

Preserving the history

Along with urban growth, the plan deals with preserving the architectural features of urban areas like Ha Noi and HCM City, and the cultural and architectural heritage of places like Hue, Hoi An, Da Lat and Sapa.

At the 12th International Seminar Forum “UNESCO – University and Heritage”, held in Ha Noi from April 5-10, specialists on urban planning, architecture, archaeology, and heritage preservation explored creative solutions to the problem of preserving historic and cultural sites in modern urban areas.

Architect Nguyen Dinh Toan, from the Ministry of Construction’s Architecture, Urban and Rural Planning Institute, said the substance of an urban area was represented by the value of non-material cultural objects, like the architectural space of Ha Noi from ancient times until now.

“It creates an architectural combination in harmony with the old quarter for the city’s image. Those structures emphasise connection, inheritance and exploitation to match the current condition,” he said.

He said that creating a new role for the historical city of Ha Noi as a modern urban area depends on coherent planning and management, especially as Ha Noi is being expanded and there are plans to expand the capital even further in the future.

He also urged leaders to create a system of rules and regulations to manage the exploitation of heritage in urban areas, regional planning, relics in the expanded urban areas and creating a regulation to maintain traditional characters in new urban architecture and design.

Urban design is an interdisciplinary field that aims to improve the quality of urban spaces, said Ta Quynh Hoa from the Ha Noi-based University of Civil Engineering’s Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning.

“Among disciplines, community is an important factor that is influenced by the spatial changes caused by urban design,” she said. “Community contribution to urban design in local projects – especially those related to historical urban spaces – is necessary and fundamental.”

Luong Tu Quyen, of Ha Noi Architectural University, said an urban edge was needed in urban design to improve the identity of urban and rural areas.

“After the national unification in 1975, the Vietnamese Government tried to fill the gap between urban and rural areas through different policies,” she said. “These policies, on the one hand, had positive influences in terms of improving rural living conditions. But, on the other hand, they also had the negative effects of erasing the identity of urban and rural spaces.

“Furthermore, globalisation and economic development has pushed cities to collaborate in land use, infrastructure networking and environmental protection. So the urban boundary becomes more difficult to identify.

“Many countries in the world have experienced the same problems as Viet Nam in losing the characteristics of urban and rural spaces,” she said.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News