Administrative urbanization in Vietnam: The mixture of political ambitions and administrative power under different economic theories

The number of the cities has been drastically increasing for the last three decades in Vietnam. The aftermath of industrialization and urbanization, especially during the Doi Moi (Reform) which was initiated in 1986 with the goal of creating a "socialist-oriented market economy" in the country is largely responsible for this increase. Theoretically, urbanization is known as a progress of the size, structure, and quality of the population and a progress of economic development. Urbanization process needs to rely on the requirements of economic development, particularly the development of non-agricultural sectors such as industry and services.However, the rapid urbanization in Vietnam is due to not only economic development process but also the administrative decision of the government. For instance, the expansion of Hanoi in 2008 contributed to the city becoming 3.6 times bigger than its original size. Hanoi has become one of the 17 biggest cities in the world, with an acreage of 3300 km2 and a population of over 6.4 million people. Noticeably, the expansion was administratively decided with a very few reliable socio-economic assessments. This paper first aims to present the effort of the Vietnamese government in pushing urbanization in the country, especially after the Doi Moi. Secondly, the paper argues that urbanization in Viet Nam at a certain time is "administrative urbanization". Finally, this paper seeks to prove that the rapid urbanization in the countries can be explained as the result of combining several economic theories, such as Marx-Lenin's and their successors' theories, Keynesianism, and the East Asian development model.