Beneficiaries or Casualties? Hanoi’s Redevelopment and Political Legitimacy

Hanoi is changing at a remarkable pace. Apartment towers rise where neighbourhoods once stood, highways cut through older districts, and redevelopment continues to reshape the city. These changes form part of Vietnam’s drive to achieve high-income status and build a modern socialist society. With plans envisioning roughly USD2.5 trillion in infrastructure and urban investment, redevelopment has become a central pillar of the country’s growth strategy.

The current push has gained additional momentum under President To Lam’s leadership, which places strong emphasis on administrative reform, infrastructure expansion and sustained economic growth. These ambitions are not without political benefits. Improved infrastructure, upgraded public services, reduced congestion and new economic opportunities can strengthen public support for redevelopment and reinforce the Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) performance-based legitimacy. For many residents, visible improvements to urban life may be viewed as evidence that the state is delivering on its promises of national development and modernisation.

Yet redevelopment is not only an economic project but also a political and social one. In reshaping Hanoi, authorities are altering the communities, neighbourhoods, and social connections through which residents experience continuity, belonging, and security. When redevelopment is perceived as benefiting some while displacing others, it can generate feelings of exclusion and resentment that ultimately pose risks to the legitimacy on which the CPV depends.

This tension is increasingly visible in public reactions to redevelopment. In a recent report on Hanoi’s redevelopment plans, one resident described feeling overwhelmed by the speed of change, while another questioned who the city’s transformation is really intended to benefit if it would remove long-established communities along the Red River, Hanoi’s main waterway. Such concerns are significant not because they amount to organised opposition, but because they reveal a deeper question: who is redevelopment for? Economic growth may benefit the city as a whole, but support becomes harder to sustain when some communities feel they are bearing the costs without sharing in the gains.

The recent controversy surrounding the demolition of the iconic Shark Jaw building in Hanoi’s historic Hoàn Kiếm district illustrates this dynamic. While many residents supported its removal, others openly objected, highlighting broader concerns about whether citizens have a meaningful voice in decisions that shape the future of their city.

These tensions are more acute in projects affecting the Red River corridor. If the Shark Jaw debate concerned the loss of a landmark, Red River redevelopment raises the prospect of the displacement of entire communities. The speed and scale of current projects, which could affect up to 250,000 residents, coupled with plans to seize land before finalising resettlement agreements, have raised concerns about the lack of transparency and consultation.

For many residents, the issue is not opposition to development itself. Indeed, many support efforts to modernise Hanoi, improve infrastructure and create new economic opportunities. Rather, it is whether they will be allowed to share in its benefits. Communities facing relocation often want one of two things: the opportunity to remain within redeveloped areas, or compensation sufficient to preserve their livelihoods, quality of life and social networks. When neither outcome appears guaranteed, redevelopment can come to be viewed less as collective progress and more as a process in which ordinary citizens are expected to shoulder the costs of transformation.

Prosperity can strengthen legitimacy, but only if people believe change is happening with them rather than to them.

Such concerns carry particular significance in Vietnam, where land disputes have historically produced some of the country’s most serious episodes of social unrest, including the Van Giang protests in 2012, when residents clashed with authorities over compensation and land seizures linked to the Ecopark development project. In such cases, conflict emerged not necessarily from opposition to development itself but from perceptions of inadequate compensation, unfair treatment or exclusion from decision-making processes. In a recent government survey, more than a quarter of respondents reportedly opposed the Red River plans, a notable figure given the limited scope for public dissent. The government’s unusual willingness to acknowledge disagreement suggests an awareness of the political sensitivities involved. The challenge for the Party is therefore not simply delivering redevelopment, but convincing affected communities that they are being treated fairly and included in the benefits of change.

Singapore’s experience suggests that successful urban transformation depends not only on economic growth but also on maintaining public attachment to place and community. Development is most sustainable when citizens feel they have a stake in the future being created. Prosperity can strengthen legitimacy, but only if people believe change is happening with them rather than to them.

For the CPV, the challenge is therefore not choosing between development and preservation. It is ensuring that redevelopment remains socially and politically inclusive. Meaningful consultation, fair compensation and opportunities for affected residents to remain within transformed areas can help ensure that citizens see themselves as beneficiaries of change rather than its casualties.

Hanoi’s future will not be determined solely by the height of its towers or the scale of its infrastructure projects. It will also depend on whether those asked to bear the costs of redevelopment are treated fairly and given a meaningful stake in the city’s future. When citizens feel excluded from the future being built around them, grievances over displacement, compensation and consultation can accumulate into broader political discontent. The government may successfully rebuild Hanoi, but if it fails to bring its citizens along with it, it risks weakening the very legitimacy that redevelopment is intended to strengthen.

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