Land use

The flight from HaNoi to Danang did not allow for much study of the land below-- air quality was too poor--but first impression was of extremely dense pockets of housing in islands surrounded by large mosaics of rice.  It certainly looked that way on the ground. Rice is grown right up to the walls of four story "skinny houses."

Since half of the country is mountainous, its 90 million people live primarily where food is more easily grown -- on the flat lands and flood plains near the coast. all land in Viet Nam is owned by the state, but the uses are individually owned and taxed accordingly.  Farmland enjoys very low taxes, and to encourage farming, no taxes are charged for the first 4 or 5 years.  Land can be out under permanent agricultural preservation.

Homes traditionally have that skinny, tall, railroad quality since, starting in the 13th & 14th centuries houses were taxed on the width of the building. Ground floors are devoted to shops ( the majority of people are self-employed), and families live upstairs, the youngest generation at the top.

Landing in DaNang, I could see what looked like neighborhood blocks with only one or two skinny houses within -- the rest lost to war? Or not built? This city, the third largest in Viet Nam, is much less dense, and homes tend to be a little broader. According to Huy (of course, all of this is according to Huy), the mayor of DaNang is responsible for reducing density and retaining more green space within the core.  It's the city where Huy would like to move, leaving his native HaNoi.  We passed an enormous, multi-block long sports complex open to everyone and intensively used with courts, fields, etc.

Everywhere along the stretch of new road where the Furama Resort is located, there are frames of buildings begun and abandoned.  Long fences promote future development of "beachfront retreat," new gated condominiums and resorts planned but halted due to the same recession we have been facing.  International investors, I presume.  On a smaller scale, we saw the same thing in HaNoi--many partially constructed homes, piles of sand and bricks, lumber, metal sheeting sitting idle.

I wonder what this stretch of road will look like in another decade --the new Gold Coast of vacationland? And what about the rising oceans? I asked Huy.  He thinks the bedrock foundation and ridge of mountains to the west make this much less vulnerable to flooding and climate change than the southern part of Viet nam, but I wonder.