This document provides a summary of the author's undergraduate thesis analyzing the concept of "cities for people" through a case study of Hanoi, Vietnam. The author conducted observations over four weeks in three streets representing old, redeveloped, and new areas of Hanoi to understand how urban development has impacted public space usage. While initially thinking Hanoi exemplified a people-centered city, the author now believes it problematizes the concept by illustrating complexity not fully accounted for. The thesis draws on urban planning and design scholars like Gehl and Jacobs to critically analyze the implications of building cities for people and its relevance in 21st century urbanization globally and specifically in Hanoi.

1. Cities for People
An analysis and critique
Mary Xiao
DePauw University
Undergraduate Senior Thesis
Urban Studies
Professor Glen D. Kuecker
Spring 2016

2. Xiao 1
Jane Jacobs begins her 1961 seminal book, The Life and Death of Great American Cities,
boldly stating, “This book is an attack on current city planning and rebuilding.”1
A decade later,
Jan Gehl writes Life Between Buildings with “the purpose of pointing out the shortcoming of the
functionalistic architecture and city planning that dominated that period.”2
Together, the
American urban theorist and Danish urbanist, respectively, offer new principles for city planning
and rebuilding and demand consideration for the people who move through and populate the
spaces between buildings.3
The modernist planning that dominated cities in the postwar world
was deeply embedded in a top-down implementation methodology. Modernist planning echoed
ideas of efficiency, functionalism, and order, and engaged in creative destruction to achieve a
vision of the city.4
Jacobs and Gehl’s demand for people planning is an attempt to bridge the gap
between the form and function discourse.
In the 46 years since Jacobs and Gehl wrote their way into history, the movement for
building cities for people has made strides in the planning, design, and architectural world,
moving away from modernistic planning. 5
However, it must be noted that the continued
existence and conversation regarding cities for people notes that Jacobs and Gehl’s call for
change was not fully internalized.
The proposition of building cities for people may come as an odd concept, as it is odd to
think about the city without people. After all, what is a city without its people? Nevertheless,
how we imagine and conceptualize the city illustrates otherwise. When we discuss cities, we may
1
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Reissue edition (New York: Vintage, 1992), 3.
2
Here Gehl is referring to modernistic (functionalism) architecture and design.
Jan Gehl, Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space, 6 edition (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2011), 7.
3
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities; Gehl, Life Between Buildings.
4
Jane Hobson, “New Towns, The Modernist Planning Project and Social Justice: The Cases of Milton Keynes, UK,”
September 1999, http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu/latest/publications/dpu-working-papers/wp108.pdf.

3. Xiao 2
talk in terms of the built environment, and therefore, identify the street infrastructure, traffic and
parking, building architecture, and location of neighborhoods; the closest that we come to talking
about the people are in terms of the culture found in cities, the theater shows, art galleries and
museums, music performances, the restaurant and “foodie” scene, but rarely do we conceptualize
the city in terms that focus on people, that is the workers, students, residents, pedestrians and so
on. Jacobs and Gehl write their text with the focus centered on people and their uses of city
spaces.
Consequently, unpacking the proposition of cities for people begins with investigating the
questions of democracy, use of public space, and community that are involved in the cities for
people concept as understood and developed by Jacobs and Gehl. In considering these questions,
we are building the foundation for examining the concept’s relevance to the 21st
century city, one
that is rapidly urbanizing in places found in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. This line of
analysis brings us to inquire whether cities for people can work across different contexts and
understandings of politics and rights, communities and relationships, and uses of design. If we
are to follow Gehl and Jacobs’ understanding of what it means for a city to be a people city, that
is, prioritizes pedestrians—the people—and the role of city spaces as meeting places, does this
notion of cities for people easily translate to currently growing and urbanizing cities of the global
majority? My thesis, therefore, sets out to analyze the city for people concept and offer critiques
of the notion; my thesis navigates the idea and envisioning of cities for people and the reality and
(potentially the lack of) practice of the concept. In investigating the cities for people concept, I
hope to develop a more robust understanding of how we may approach planning, building, and
designing cities for people, an understanding that challenges our contemporary comprehension
and interpretation of development. It is important to anchor my work in this line of inquiry

4. Xiao 3
because of the potential illusion that development brings about progress, one that carries positive
connotations, but the reality that surrounds development is one of reproduction, that is,
reproduction of power, reproduction of inequity, and reproduction of colonialism. The ways in
which we engage with cities, and developing cities for that matter, reproduction and its
relationship to cities is a crucial and complex proposition to navigate. Consequently, my thesis is
an exercise in complexity and predicament thinking.
To begin our conversation about the 21st
century city and its relationship with cities for
people, our discussion is incomplete without focusing on a specific city. Therefore, our
exploration of the notion of a 21st
century people city is anchored in the urban development of
Hanoi, Vietnam. Hanoi is an old city; in 2010, it celebrated its 1,000th
birthday. In its 1,000 years
of history Hanoi experienced Chinese rule, French colonization, Japanese occupation, Soviet
influences, and the American War/Vietnam War.6
With all of these different groups involved in
the country and in the city, Hanoi experienced an enormous amount of transformations. As these
different groups—the Chinese, French, Soviet, Japanese, and US—inserted themselves into the
city, their influence manifested in physical ways, that is, the design and architecture. Hanoi’s
recent transition to a more economically liberal market will manifest in similar ways; in fact,
current development in Hanoi reflect a post-doi moi7
era.
6
William Logan, Hanoi: Biography of a City (Sydney, Austrialia: Univesity of New South Wales Press Ltd, 2000).
7
The policy of Doi Moi, otherwise known as Economic Renovation, officially started in 1986; the policy has
“reduced bureaucracy and the state-subsidy system, developed the multisector market-oriented economy, and
initiated an open-door policy.” This new economic policy has allowed for economic growth, but it has exacerbated
the divide between the rich and the poor. “The emphasis on economic accounting has made production and
business operations more efficient, and simultaneously resulted in the commercialization of aspects of education,
public health, and especially arts and culture, causing serious deterioration in these areas.” As scholar William
Logan states in his text, time will only tell what the effects of Doi Moi will do to the development of Hanoi and
Vietnam.
Peter Boothroyd and Pham Xuan Nam, Socioeconomic Renovation in Viet Nam: The Origin, Evolution and Impact of
Doi Moi (IDRC Books, 2000), 41.

5. Xiao 4
The differences in design and building architecture becomes noticeable as you travel
between city districts; the buildings themselves become markers of segregation as they imply the
beginnings and endings of districts. Within the last decade, Hanoi has expanded its city
boundaries three times and has a building construction turn-over rate of roughly a year,
communicating that the city is quickly growing and developing at a pace that is unfamiliar to the
city’s residents. Dealing with issues of preservation, identity, and heritage in the face of fast-pace
development, in addition to addressing issues of any urbanizing city, including rural-urban
migration, informal economies, health and safety, housing, and basic services, the proposition of
fostering a city for people in Hanoi seems to be at a crucial moment.
Hanoi’s Master Plan for 2030 and Vision for 2050 illustrates the unique opportunity and
placement the city has in the 21st
century urbanization narrative. The creation of the Master
Plan/Vision attempted to address local, regional, and global relationships, that is, how does
Hanoi relate to its surrounding area of Northern Vietnam; how does Hanoi relate/compare to
other Asian countries and how does the city fit into the Asian development form and narrative;
and finally, how does Hanoi relate to the global community.8
The authors of the Master
Plan/Vision identified sustainability—economic, environmental, social, and cultural—as the
cornerstone to Hanoi’s development in the 21st
century; interestingly, this notion of sustainability
was seen as an opportunity to do the type of development other Asian countries have either failed
to do or have not championed.9
8
JINA Architect, Posco e&c, Perkins, “Submission Ref: Approval on General planning task for construction of Hanoi
Capital to 2030 and vision to 2050”.
9
Mark Lamster, “The Grass Isn’t Always Greener: Hanoi Master Plan,” Architect, last modified January 03, 2011
and accessed May 18, 2016, http://www.architectmagazine.com/design/urbanism-planning/the-grass-isnt-always-
greener-hanoi-master-plan_o.
William Logan, Hanoi: Biography of a City, 247.

6. Xiao 5
My first introduction to Hanoi was on my comparative study abroad program in the Fall
of 2014.10
Hanoi was the final city on our journey and felt starkly different from the other three
cities our program visited, at least that is what my memory of the city conjured up when I
decided to return to Hanoi for research. I had a certain idea of the city, a certain idea of my
thesis, and a certain understanding of the cities for people concept when I first began thinking
about my thesis in August/September 2015 and when I began my research in Hanoi in January
2016. Hanoi’s use of public space was and remain the main reason to why I wanted to test the
cities for people argument on a 21st
century city. The appropriation of public space in Hanoi goes
beyond anything that I had ever experienced; it felt like residents were living their lives publicly
on those streets.
My understanding of cities for people prior to delving into this thesis topic was a limited
one; the cities for people proposition that I understood prior to this extensive research focused on
an almost colorblind understanding of people. Gehl argues that the body is an instrument, and
because everyone has a body and everyone uses city spaces, the conversation regarding cities for
people impacts everyone. My point of entrance into this conversation was through a pure
curiosity of whether focusing on human scale, that is, one’s field of vision and bodily sense,
really could make cities for people regardless of politics, culture, and societal norms. My
research in Hanoi over Winter Term tasked me with investigating whether the use of public
space was changing in response to the city’s rapid development; my focus on Hanoi’s urbanism
was meant to test whether this particular understanding of cities for people could be true. Despite
having a limited understanding of cities for people, I thought, pre-research trip, that Hanoi would
10
My study abroad program in the Fall 2014 semester was Cities in the 21st
Century with the School for
International Training.

7. Xiao 6
be a city that would problematize the cities for people concept, and I still subscribe to this
perspective post-research trip.
Before conducting my research, I understood cities for people to be a type of demand
fighting against the neo-liberal, capitalist, market-driven city, that is, a city that looked like New
York or London with a dense financial district centered on the movement of capital, not the
movement of people. Consequently, I understood cities for people as a radical cry to exert
people’s right to the city. I thought Hanoi already was a city for people due to the amount of
activity found on its city streets; there was a constant hum of people exerting their ownership and
therefore their right to the city. I thought Hanoi did not need to follow the recommendations of
how to be a city for people, as described by Gehl, because the city seemed to already function as
one.
Presently, as I author my thesis, I believe Hanoi problematizes the cities for people
concept by illustrating how the notion is and has been oversimplified; Hanoi is a complex city—
cities are complex—and the cities for people concept does not fully account for complexity,
despite the fact that Jacobs writes about complexity thinking in her text and Gehl recognizes the
dynamic nature of cities.
My paper uses data collected over the course of four weeks during the month of January
2016 in Hanoi to explore critically and in depth, the implications of the cities for people concept
and its connection to the 21st
century city. To conduct my research, I selected three sites to spend
a weeks’ worth of time collecting observations at different hours of the day; the three streets,
Hàng Đào, Giảng Võ, Hoàng Đạo Thúy, respectively represent the different phases of urban
development—old Hanoi, redeveloped Hanoi, and new Hanoi—taking place in city presently. I
selected those particular streets because I thought the collected observations would indicate that

8. Xiao 7
as you moved from old to new Hanoi, you would see the use of city spaces change dramatically.
As you traveled from Hàng Đào (new) to Giảng Võ (redeveloped) to Hoàng Đạo Thúy (new), I
thought you would see less and less people using the streets as living spaces, that is, cooking,
hanging out, eating, etc. out on the sidewalk spaces. To measure the urbanism and to capture
what was happening on those respective sites, I measured lengths and widths of sidewalks, noted
the building heights, mapped the streets, and people watched in an attempt to understand how
residents used the city spaces in pursuit of answering whether and how the built environment
impacted people’s behavior.
My observations took place predominantly during daytime hours, between 7am to 7pm,
as it gave me the best times to see everyone—young, old, students, workers, etc.—out using the
city. Of course there were limitations to this project. Overall, Hanoi is listed as one of the safest
cities in the region; however, I still took precautions to my safety as I was a solo female traveler
and without any language capabilities. This resulted in my decision to cut nighttime observations
from my data, but also, as previously mentioned, daytimes hours were my best chance of seeing
the city used to its fullest.
I would also like to mention that I will in no way do justice to the city and its people in
explaining the intricate urban life of Hanoi; having eight weeks of experience does not come
close to the experiences of those born and raised, and living many years of their lives on those
city streets. Moreover, my ethnically Chinese identity does not give me any leverage in
understanding the city.11
My nonexistent language capacity made navigating the city a slight
challenge as I could not communicate with locals to ask questions; consequently making my
11
Though I do want to note that one several occasions, I was mistaken as a native; this was communicated through
the fact that when I interacted with residents, they would speak to me in Vietnamese and when I indicated that I
could not speak any Vietnamese, their body language changed – usually expressing surprise and confusion.

9. Xiao 8
conclusions and understandings of the city based solely on the perceptions of a Western
scholar.12
Despite these limitations, my observational data could be collected without relying
heavily on language capacities since much of my observations dealt with reactions and uses to
space.
The sources that I use to analyze and critique the cities for people concept can be grouped
into the following categories: planning, design and architecture, democracy in the city,
community building in the urban setting, and Hanoi. To begin, I anchor my entire thesis in Jan
Gehl and Jane Jacobs’ scholarly work, which speaks predominately to the planning, design, and
architecture category. In addition to Gehl and Jacobs, the anchors in the planning, design and
architecture category are Aseem Inam, Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp; these scholars
collectively question space and people’s relationship and use of space, particularly public space,
in understanding the process of planning and design of the city. John Parkinson anchors the
democracy in the city category; he discusses the nature of democracy and how we can
understand democracy in the urban setting while exploring the notion of “public” and
“publicness”. The article by Iris M. Young is the bedrock of the community building in the urban
setting category; she scrutinizes the idealism in notions of building community, especially in the
city. In the Hanoi category, William Stewart is the main scholar in this category with supporting
scholars Yi-Fu Tuan and Matthew Stavros; collectively they discuss cities in the Asian context,
that is, historically the planning and design of cities in Japanese and Chinese cities and the
history of Hanoi. These scholars assist in analyzing how the cities for people concept can be
understood in the Asian context. In addition to scholar Stewart, Tuan, and Stavros, my Winter
Term data along with the official master plan documents, news articles, and email
12
I use the term Western scholar as a personal identifier to reflect an imperfect understanding of world. I want to
be clear that this is not a case of orientalism and/or imposing the ‘Western gaze’.

10. Xiao 9
correspondences with JINA Architects will also serve as important sources to discussing the
urbanization in Hanoi. While many of these scholars’ work lay the foundation for understanding
the topic in their particular categories, their work is in constant conversation with each other
asking the questions of whether planning, design, and architecture can reflect democracy and
social justice in the city; is there a process of romanticizing communities in the city building
process that perpetuates inequalities and ignores democratic processes; what are the implications
on a city like Hanoi and the Asian city narrative; and finally, how does this line of inquiry
contribute to the understanding of development in majority cities?
I began my observations in Hàng Đào, a main artery in the Hoam Kiem District and
Hanoi’s city center. Moreover, this district is the host of the Old Quarter and the Hoam Kiem
Lake, making it a major tourist destination. This street reflects “old Hanoi” as much of the
district is preserved for the dual purposes of upholding the city’s heritage and creating a tourist
attraction. Consequently, the Hoam Kiem district has a mix of tourist-targeted businesses such as
souvenir shops and the Water Puppet Theater and local businesses such as the Đồng Xuân
Wholesale Market, clothing and household goods; the two—the local and tourist-targeted
businesses—substantially overlap in catering to both the tourist and local demographic.
Giảng Võ is also a large traffic artery; however it is located between Quận Ba Đình and
Đống Đa district and serves as the road that divides the two districts. Despite being on the
border, Giảng Võ is listed as being in the Quận Ba Đình district, which is the host of many
embassies and government agencies. Giảng Võ look distinctly different from Hàng Đào as the
streets and sidewalk space widens and the building heights increase. Moreover, the makeup of
the street changes too. While there are some clothing stores located on the street, it does not
dominate the street like it does on Hàng Đào; instead Giảng Võ has a mix of businesses and

11. Xiao 10
offices ranging from small cafes and convenience store-type shops, restaurants, the School of
Public Health and the Ministry of Health to doctors’ office and household goods.
The new urban area is starkly different from both Hàng Đào and Giảng Võ. Hoàng Đạo
Thúy is the farthest site away from the city center (West) and is essentially on the periphery of
the city. The street is located in the Quận Cầu Giấy district, which is quickly becoming a new
commercial center as the headquarters of many financial companies, banks, and enterprises.
Hoàng Đạo Thúy is a heavily mixed-use and dense site that we would conceptualize as a typical
Asian city.13
Therefore the architecture follows the image of high-rise apartment complexes with
businesses, shops, cafes, and restaurants located at the bottom, first floor. The street and
sidewalk width is similar to Giảng Võ. Moreover, the presence of itinerant tea and food vendors
and security guards are also similar to Giảng Võ.
The following table outlines the types of activities found in each site as well as the
demographics:
13
The ‘typical’ Asian city is predominately dictated by images of Chinese and Japanese cities; I borrow this imagery
to provide an impression of what the streetscape looks like.
Hàng Đào Giảng Võ Hoàng Đạo Thúy
Overview  5.52 hours of
observations
 total of 1,084 people
using the street,
which translates to
4.88 persons per
meter and 196.52
persons per hour
 5.95 hours of
observations
 counted 1,801 persons
in the space; this
translates to 3.84
persons per meter
and 302.69 persons
per hour
 7.5 hours of
observations
 2,490 persons total,
which translate to
3.463 persons per
meter and 332 person
per hour
Demographics Age Group: 20 to 80
 Under 20 weren’t
seen in high
frequency
 Children under 10:
observed 67 over a
week’s time
 Limited to
nonexistent presence
of elderly
Age Group: 20 to 70
 20s: workers in stores
and cafes/restaurants
servers
 30s+: security guards,
mechanics, food
vendors, shopkeepers
 young teens (12/13),
high school age (17)
Age Group: infants to
75/80
 Security guarders/
parking managers
 Office workers
 Low-skilled workers
 Students (of all ages)
 Expats
 Elderly

12. Xiao 11
Disabled bodies: 3
observed instances
Female presence: 744;
61.3%
Male presence: 488;
38.7%
more around morning
and evening rush hours
 A few expats
 Children under 10:
observed 41 over a
week’s time
 Limited to nonexistent
presence of elderly
Disabled bodies: 1
observed instances
Female presence: 532;
28.8%
Male presence: 1,313;
71.2%
 Children under 10:
observed 94 over a
week’s time
Disabled bodies: 7
observed instances
Female presence:825;
29.5%
Male presence: 1,933;
69.0%
Activities
taking place on
the street in
high
frequency/
occurrence
Using phone for:
texting/calling / internet /
listening to music
Conversing
Packaging orders
Unloading and unpacking
deliveries
Eating snacks or meals
Street-watching (waiting
/ sitting)
Patroning informal tea/food
vendors + food preparation
Patroning cafes
Eating snacks or meals
Using phone for: texting/
calling / internet
Conversing
Reading
Street-watching (waiting /
sitting)
Mechanics at work
Kids playing
Using phone for:
texting/calling/internet
Conversing
Street-watching (waiting /
sitting)
Walking leisurely
Patroning tea vendors
Other activities Bookkeeping
Setting up merchandise
(hanging/ sorting)
Assisting customers /
Making sales
Cleaning
Reading
Knitting / Embroidering
Kids playing
Group playing / watching
a game of checkers (or
similar game)
Preparing vegetables
Buying food / groceries
from itinerant vendors
Preparing and receiving
deliveries
Interacting with customers
Setting up and packing up
Kids playing
Cleaning
Knitting
Buying groceries
Smoking
Group playing hacky-sac
Cleaning
Smoking
Eating
Receiving deliveries
Reading
Exercise class
Group playing/ watching
game of checkers
Itinerant
vendors /
Informal
vendors
Fruits & vegetables
Food (meals and snacks)
Shoe-shiner
Manicures/pedicures
Food (meals and snacks) &
tea
Phone minutes
Flowers
Shoe-shiners
Key duplicate
Food (meals and snacks) &
tea

13. Xiao 12
Table 1. This table summarizes the collected observations across Hàng Đào, Giảng Võ, Hoàng
Đạo Thúy, identifying the demographics and type of activities taking place on the respective
streets. Interestingly, the number of persons per meter remains similar across three sites; I
expected there to be less and less people out using the streets as you moved away from Hàng
Đào (old Hanoi) because Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy (respectively, redeveloped and new
Hanoi) has made architecture and design aspects that, Gehl and Jacobs argue, would discourage
life on the street. The collected data in this chart illustrates that Hanoi is a complex city, and
demonstrates that its complexities may challenge the cities for people concept.
The concept and phrasing of cities for people is taken from Gehl’s text, Cities for People,
yet I believe the phrase captures both Gehl and Jacobs’ notions of what cities can be for the
people who inhabit and use its spaces. Moreover, Gehl’s influential text, Life Between Buildings,
perfectly encapsulates the concerns of Gehl and Jacobs that has led them to be the champions of
people planning. Gehl’s texts provides more concrete tools for what a city for its people looks
like and how it can be developed, while Jacobs speaks more to the type of urbanism that can
develop because of a city built for people. It must be noted that Jacobs does offer
recommendations in her text, The Death and Life of Great American Cities; however, they are
not as extensive as the recommendations provided by Gehl.
Cities for people according to Gehl is a city that focuses on pedestrianism and sees city
spaces as meeting spaces; Jacobs would also agree to this characterization of cities for people. In
creating and fostering cities that promote walkability, safe, healthy, socially and environmentally
sustainable cities are constructed. 14
The guiding principles for creating cities for people under
Gehl’s criteria, and his understanding of urbanism, is the human body. Gehl advocates for human
14
Jan Gehl, Cities for People, 1 edition (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010).
What
goods/services
are they
selling?
Small trinkets for tourist:
hats, cigarette lighters
Xeoms (motorbike taxis)
Magazines/newspapers
Barber
Fruits
Xeoms
Household goods / small
trinkets
Household goods / small
trinkets
Xeoms

14. Xiao 13
scale to be the bedrock of architecture and design. The focal point of Gehl’s work is “how our
cities—the architecture and planning influence life between buildings and life in general”;
consequently, the conversation surrounding the building and creation of cities for people relies
heavily on design, planning, and architecture.15
The emphasis on the social field of vision, as
seen in Figures 1-3, demonstrates clearly the distances and heights that would best suit the
human body and how the body navigates through city spaces. The consciousness of how the
physical design of a space can impact use is part of the formula Gehl introduces, one that
underscores the notion that a living city is the result of good quality public space enhanced with
the higher degree of concern for the human dimension.16
The design and architecture become
crucial in fostering public life demonstrated through Figure 4, charting necessary, optional, and
social activities. Here, Gehl and Jacobs merge.
Gehl explains that necessary activities are tasks that must be completed regardless of and
without consideration to space, such as going grocery shopping or picking up your kids from
school. Optional and social activities, on the other hand, are more dependent on the space. If the
space, and weather permitting, is inviting through design and planning, people are more inclined
to engage. This engagement is crucial in fostering the city as a meeting place and emergent
property that is filled with potential and opportunity for the development of community and
understanding.
In her text, Jacobs focuses on the use of city spaces and how to increase and sustain that
usage; the second part of her text, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is entirely
dedicated to how we can create the type of urbanism we want in a city for people. She places an
emphasis on mixed-use and diversity, that is, creating a street that has multiple functions and
15
Gehl, Life Between Buildings, 9 (preface in earlier edition).
16
Gehl, Cities for People, 68-69, 71.

15. Xiao 14
provides many services to attract different types of people and activity throughout the day and
night.17
You cannot have a street that solely supports necessary activities because, according to
Jacobs, that would only attract a certain demographic of people and therefore, only a certain type
of street activity. To cultivate an active street means there must be a diversity of services and
functions on the street that interests people to engage with the city street; consequently, fostering
optional and social activities on city streets and sidewalks would lead to the active use of city
spaces. The city life cultivated through optional and social activities will lead to safer cities,
either perceived or felt. Jacobs places a heavy emphasis on street activity because “a well-used
city street is apt to be a safe street.”18
When fear and crime set into city spaces it becomes a
vicious cycle and contributes to a lifeless city.19
Optional and social activities reflect interactions
and exchanges among neighbors and strangers; by having a space that encourages these types of
activities, you are allowing for stronger community and relationship bonds to be built.
Communities care for and protect their streets and neighborhoods better than any police force, as
the many antidotes described by Jacobs illustrates.20
Moreover, the emphasis on the spaces and life between buildings carries the perception of
why a city’s public space is valuable; public space is rooted in the ideas of community building
because of its accessibility and openness. Gehl reminds us that a city ideologically has no
admissions requirement therefore city spaces should be open to all.21
In any case, the publicness
of a space creates an image that it is open to all.
17
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 152-153.
18
Ibid, 34.
19
Gehl, Life Between Buildings, 77.
20
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 31-32.
21
Gehl, New City Life, 86.

16. Xiao 15
The lack of barrier to entry is also important to our understanding of democracy, that is,
rule by the people, because this accessibility to space communicates that anyone is able to
engage in the space; it is the opportunity to have public space empower people. The
characteristics of accessibility and openness allows for safety and democracy that cultivate
inclusivity and empowerment through the usages of public space. We “tend to think that the
public space fulfills an important role in increasing the ‘social cohesion’ in society.”22
The
imagery of meeting friends or encountering strangers in the city street illustrates the idea of
shared ownership of the space, that is, a community space or a space for its people, as well as an
open and fluid space, where any person can freely enter and exit. The fluidity of the space is able
to empower the people in how they can occupy and use space.
If we are to evaluate Hanoi’s urbanism based on the listed understanding and criteria of
cities of people established by Gehl and Jacobs, how does the city fare? Is Hanoi walkable?23
A
majority of the streetscape is flat with a slight elevation on the curbs that separate the street from
the sidewalk. The demarcation of street and sidewalk vary, as illustrated in Figures 5-6, on Hàng
Đào the elevation is almost nonexistent, but on Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy, the differences
in street elevation is noticeable. The sidewalks, themselves, are walkable for able-bodied persons
on Hàng Đào, Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy.24
The width of the sidewalk on both Giảng Võ
and Hoàng Đạo Thúy vary slightly; however, overall they measure to be seven meters wide.
Wide sidewalk space allows for people to walk comfortably and share the sidewalk with fellow
22
Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp, In Search Of The New Public Domain (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2002), 8.
23
This analysis and observation will be provide in the context of the three sites: Hàng Đào, Giảng Võ and Hoàng
Đạo Thúy.23
24
It could be argued that due to the flat surfacing, aids such as wheelchairs could navigate the sidewalk spaces.
However, for those who are sight-impaired or hearing impaired, city spaces are difficult to navigate. Moreover,
being mindful of the elevation differences on the three sites is also important, as they may pose challenges of
getting wheelchairs onto and off of the physical sidewalk space.

17. Xiao 16
pedestrians, itinerant vendors, informal vendors, and motorized parking. Interestingly, despite
the increase in sidewalk width and scope of the street, Hàng Đào compared to Giảng Võ and
Hoàng Đạo Thúy, the amount of people using the street space did not decrease, as I expected it
to, as Gehl explains it would.
On Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy it is rare to see a person walking in the streets with
the flow of traffic unless completely necessary, such as crossing the street or itinerant vendors
are pushing their goods alongside the street. Hàng Đào, on the other hand, has a sidewalk width
of roughly three meters, enough space to walk without any issue; however, at any given time, the
sidewalk space would be fully occupied by shopkeepers assessing merchandise and handling
wholesale deliveries, itinerant vendors setting up shop momentarily to sell their goods, social
groups25
gatherings, or simply motorbike parking. Consequently, pedestrians oftentimes move
between the sidewalk and the street based on the availability of space. Due to the narrowness of
the street and the location of Hàng Đào, traffic can be the defining feature of the streetscape, and
makes walking in the street essentially mean walking in traffic.
Moreover, there is a lack of stoplights and crosswalks on the three sites, which do not
facilitate safe crossing of the street; if there are crosswalks or spotlights, they are located at the
ends of the street. For long streets like Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy, respectively 469 meters
and 719 meters long, it is inconvenient and illogical to walk to the ends of the street to safely
cross to the other side. Crossing the street during high traffic hours would be the most dangerous,
especially on streets like Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy where there are three lanes of traffic
going one way, which translates to six lanes of a constant stream of cars and motorbikes. I have
watched the elderly and kids in their early teens cross Giảng Võ during rush hour, and I have
25
These social groups can be defined as neighbors, family, friends, and the shopkeepers themselves.

18. Xiao 17
personally experienced crossing the six lanes of traffic holding my breath hoping I did not get hit
by an oncoming car or motorbike. It is important to note that crossing the street and entering the
middle of traffic is a common occurrence in Hanoi; in fact, this pedestrian-vehicle relationship is
a distinct feature of the city’s urbanism.
Furthermore, the current infrastructure and transportation network in the city is under
considerable stress as a result of the population increase, expansion of city limits, and increase in
car ownership in addition to the continued use of motorbikes. Currently, the bus network is the
only alternative to car and motorbike transportation; however, the demand has surpassed the
supply creating an “urban transport crisis”. Consequently, in the city’s Master Plan/Vision, there
is an intention to create a metro for the city. 26
In fact, creating infrastructural linkages—in the
form of roads, bridges, and transportation networks—occupy a crucial part in the Master
Plan/Vision because it is a stepping stone in achieving the city’s vision of being the first
sustainable capital; addressing infrastructural linkages speaks towards growth controls and
mitigating environmental impacts.27
However, presently, with the increased presence of cars and
motorbikes and the lack of a more extensive and robust transportation network, issues of
congestion, road safety, and public health indicate Hanoi’s failure to prioritize pedestrianism, as
defined by Gehl.
However, it should be noted that the diversity in the streetscape, that is, the multifunction
of the street, does exist in Hanoi. Jacobs believes that street activity is fostered through having a
diversity of primary and secondary uses of the street; these different functions would attract a
variety of people to use the street, which in Gehl’s argues, would result in more pedestrians. On
26
“Hanoi metro: a solution to growing urban congestion,”afc.fr, last modified October
2014, http://www.afd.fr/lang/en/home/pays/asie/geo-asie/afd-vietnam/cac-du-an-cua-afd-tai-viet-
nam/transports/hanoi-pilot-metro-line-no-3-nhon-hanoi-train-station.
27
Submission Ref: Approval

19. Xiao 18
the three sites Hàng Đào, Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy, the frequency of use of public space
remained fairly high; there can be a number of reasons for this occurrence. The mixed-use
streetscape can give many different reasons as to why a person would be on a particular street;
moreover, the interaction with space in Hanoi is distinct because of how people understand the
purpose and use of space, which will dictate behavior. Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy have
similar streetscapes in that the ground floor of buildings are businesses, cafes and restaurants
with the upper floors being a mix of more offices or of residential apartments. Moreover, on
Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy, there are also standalone buildings, such as the School for
Public Health, the local university, or the Ministry of Health on Giảng Võ and the Vinmart
grocery store on Hoàng Đạo Thúy. Figures 7-8 illustrates the full diversity of Giảng Võ and
Hoàng Đạo Thúy, which provides a variety of reasons to why you would be on those respective
streets. Hàng Đào is a special case, as it is located in the Old Quarter, which is known to cluster
similar goods and services on the same street; consequently, Hàng Đào is solely a clothing retail
street and lacks the diversity Jacobs argues is necessary for an active street. Nonetheless, the
number of people on the streets across all three sites remain similar in numbers, as seen in
Table 1.
Are the city spaces in Hanoi reflective of making the city a meeting place?
Overall, I think the city spaces in Hanoi are meeting places because of how public/private
is understood in Hanoi. There is an ‘inside out’ and ‘outside in’ phenomenon that blurs the
distinction of private and public. Our focus will be on the ‘inside out’ part of the phenomenon
that sees “families and individuals make use of so-called public space for private activities to an
extent and in ways that render that public space notionally private.”28
Across all three sites, we
28
Lisa B.W. Drummond, “Street Scenes: Practices of Public and Private Space in Urban Vietnam,” Urban Studies 37,
no. 12 (2000), 2378.

20. Xiao 19
see activities that would be deemed as an activity for the private sphere take place on the streets.
For example, on Hàng Đào, you would see instances of food preparations, such as cutting and
separating vegetable greens, and on Giảng Võ, specifically, food vendors grill meat and wash
their dishes on the side of the street.
People are noticeably present on the streets, partly through the facilitation of informal tea
and food vendors. On Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy, informal vendors have established
locations where you will find them every day. It is important to note that when we discuss the
nature of established locations of informal vendors, we are not speaking in the sense of rent, that
is, the informal vendor is not paying rent to anyone to have the permission to use and occupy the
sidewalk space. However, the nature of consistently being at your location day after day gives an
impression of ownership, and the informal tea and food vendors on Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo
Thúy unquestionably have their spot, as my time spent on both Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy
revealed vendors returning and using the same location every day. The presence of informal tea
and food vendors on Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy create meeting points for people whether
you stop for tea before work, grab post-lunch tea with your co-workers, a snack break in the
middle of the day, discuss business while patronizing the vendor, or hang out with coworkers
and friends after work. With the presence of informal tea and food vendors, the sidewalk spaces
are not merely transit spaces; the informal tea and food vendors invite people to sit and stay a
little longer. The action of lingering that is facilitated by these informal tea and food vendors
help cultivate a sense of place and belong, and more importantly, a shared ownership of the
space.
The patron-vendor relationship illustrates Gehl and Jacobs’ notion of community building
through the democratic nature of public space. Across all three sites, vendors did not

21. Xiao 20
discriminate in who they would serve or sell to; in fact, some itinerate vendors were aggressive
in attracting customers. By appropriating the public space, informal vendors demonstrate to their
fellow citizens that the space is technically anyone’s to claim; almost prompting the question of
“if I don’t use it, what is its purpose?” It must be noted that less consistent informal vendors will
have their space used by other vendors, which only further illustrates the openness and
accessibility of the public spaces in Hanoi.29
Moreover, the shared use of public space by
vendors speaks to the idea of shared ownership. However, the vendors are not the only
demographic taking space, literally and figuratively. For example, on Hoàng Đạo Thúy, a large
group of middle-aged and elderly folks engaged in an exercise class on the sidewalk and in the
plaza space during one evening, and on Giảng Võ, an entire section of the sidewalk was
overtaken by a party tent because of a celebration. With the mentality that the streets and
sidewalk space are for the people, sharing space and creating a familiar experience allows for
bonds among strangers develop. You become a “regular” of a space; you become a regular of
that street, and therefore, part of a community.
I think Gehl and Jacobs would evaluate Hanoi as a city that is working on becoming a
city for people because of the city’s overall failure to prioritize pedestrians, but the city’s overall
success in using city spaces as meeting places. However, is the city not always in the process of
becoming, regardless of the parameters placed on it? The Gehl and Jacobs’ identified criteria of
cities for people seems to be an all or nothing endeavor, that is, to be considered a city for
people, the city must successfully fulfill the goals of pedestrianizing its city spaces and creating
spaces for meetings. Nonetheless, I think Gehl and Jacobs would argue and say any city has the
ability to become a city for people. Conversely, I would argue that Hanoi in many different ways
29
It is also worth mentioning that there is very limited policing of informal and itinerate vendors/vending. Vendors
of Hanoi are the epitome of resiliency, as they use the resources in any given situation they have to survive.

22. Xiao 21
demonstrate how it is a people city; it is simply a matter of defining what criteria you are using
to measure and judge Hanoi as a city for people.
Hanoi, in many ways, is a city in transition. It is already a dynamic city with its long
history, its geography, its culture and heritage before even considering the growth and
development it is undergoing. The cities for people contemporary conceptualization30
does not
take into consideration the complexities of the city, the different types of urbanism that emerges,
and the quilted nature of the city. Cities for people sounds like an inherently good proposition,
until you ask the question of “who are the people?” When Gehl and Jacobs imagine a city for
people, they are imagining a certain type of city for a certain type of people. It can be argued that
through the nature of colorblindness and only relying on the human body, its social field of
vision and its senses, that a city can be built for any type of people, that is, the city can be for
everyone. While this may be true to an extent, the argument ignores the inherent power that is
vested into the city that manifest in the physical urban landscape. “Cities represent not only the
mediation of the everyday world for citizens, but also the means through which power structures
are reproduced.”31
Despite the apolitical practices of cities for people, the urbanism that urbanists
cultivate and the cities that are built as a result are, in fact, reinforcing the current economic and
political power structures that conform to market- and investment-driven production and
consumption.32
The criteria of focusing on pedestrianism and on the city as a meeting place does
not fully identify the power that exists in design, that mobility is given to certain types of people,
30
I use the terms ‘contemporary conceptualization’ of cities for people because I think it is important to make the
distinction that the practitioners of Jacobisms/Gehlisms in the planning, design, and architecture world have
interpreted cities for people in many different ways; however the overall impression that I have of this
contemporary conceptualization to be incomplete.
31
Aseem Inam, Designing Urban Transformation, 1 edition (New York: Routledge, 2013), 4.
32
Sharon Zurkin, Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World (Berkeley, CA: California University Press,
1991), p.39. cited in Inam, Designing Urban Transformation, 161.

23. Xiao 22
that safety concerns are directed for a few and not for all, and that there is a particular type of
community that is envisioned. The dangers of advocating for cities for people without being
critical of the conceptualization, the process, and the practice perpetuates the “corrective” nature
that follows development narratives as well as engages in the erasure of local knowledge, which
reproduces power, that in Hanoi’s context, has the potential of reproducing colonialism.
Jacobs and Gehl are depicted as cutting-edge thinkers of their time, but it should not be
mistaken that their work is revolutionary. Cities for people, while championing the idea of
people/participatory planning, sets out to change policy; Jacobs and Gehl work within the
framework of public and private partnerships in achieving ‘good’ urbanism. There is a danger
that the cities for people proposition returns us to the modernist type of planning, masked under a
different name, because now people planning has been co-opted to be in the urban planner’s tool
box. It must be clear that cities for people is not the demand the urban revolution is looking for.
The danger moving forward lies in the disciples of Gehl and Jacobs—this author included—who
may have misinterpreted and misunderstood the work of Gehl and Jacobs. However, this is not
meant to discount the work developed by Gehl and Jacobs. We are tasked with understanding the
cities for people concept that was first established in the 1960s and 1970s to the 21st
century city.
By the nature of time, we need to have an updated understanding of cities for people. Gehl and
Jacobs provides us with the beginning tools on how we can conceptualize a city for people.
Moreover, the type of work Jacobs and Gehl engages in is part of an evolving field; there should
be an expectation that the ideas developed by Jacobs and Gehl also evolve. Therefore, to expand
our understanding of cities for people, we must begin by critically investigating the space that
exists between buildings, that is, the public space that allows for people to live life in public
view.

24. Xiao 23
Our understanding of public space is based on its ‘publicness’, that is, its ability to be
accessible to any person. The ‘publicness’ of public space, according to Gehl and Jacobs, is
crucial in fostering social sustainability because it creates opportunities for community building
and democracy. The notions of accessibility and openness are common characteristics assigned
to the imaginary of public spaces, which tie to notions of democracy. We understand democracy
as inclusive, that is, ideally every citizen has the ability to voice their concerns, vote, and select
their representatives. The “publicness” of public space allows for any person and every person to
lay claim to that space and voice their concerns because of its openness and accessibility.
Eliminating as many barriers as possible to accessing a space allows for more activity and
interactions on the streets. City spaces, such as sidewalks and streets, are already integral parts of
people’s lives; “everyone must use the street.”33
However, the reality is that there is uneven
access to the city and its spaces. Moreover, they simply are not, as Jacobs states in her text, being
used efficiently to create activity and to encourage interactions.
Consequently, our understanding of public space remains incomplete because the people
planning trend is wrapped up in the idealism surrounding it. If our basic understanding of public
space is shaped through a particular lens, our starting point in assessing ‘good’ or ‘bad’ public
space across time and space is imperfect. “There is a tendency among officials and critics to treat
all public space as qualitatively the same, and thus criticize particular spaces for not having
qualities that they need not and cannot have.”34
Moreover, the partial understanding of public space creates an impression that public
space is a neutral space. The lamenting of the demise of public space, that is its lifelessness, by
33
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 36.
34
John Parkinson, Democracy and Public Space: The Physical Sites of Democratic Performance (OUP Oxford, 2012),
207.

25. Xiao 24
contemporary urbanists imply a process of emptying out, an erasure of meaning. The argument
for using design and planning to support life between buildings gives an impression that by
moving away from our current planning and design trajectory we are able to rebuild meaning
into our city spaces. The recent movement surrounding placemaking exemplifies this desire to
create place, that is, a sense of belonging, in city spaces. Gehl and Jacobs recognize the value in
creating a sense of place in our city streets because it is an essential feature in fostering and
building community that keeps our cities safe and active. Space that is laden with meaning
communicates ownership to different parties. Gehl and Jacobs wants more of and/or a return to
this type of public space.
However, when Gehl and Jacobs state their discontent with the lifelessness of public
space or the increasing demise of public spaces, they fail to consider the fluidity of space. Gehl
and Jacobs are lamenting an end to a particular type of public space caused by modernist
planning. Yet, the failure to acknowledge fluidity of space overgeneralizes space and calls into
question Gehl and Jacobs’ support for and understanding of public space.
John Parkinson in his text, Democracy in Public Space, proposes the idea of having
different types of publics.35
The idea of having different types of publics is not an entirely
foreign concept to us as we begin to consider the fluidity of space and the language that we use
to describe the ambiguity: public—semi-public—semi-private—private, and everything in
between. He defines public space using admittedly, “a novel set of four criteria for judging the
‘publicness’ of any given space or structure [but expands our understanding and definition of
public space]: accessibility, use of common resources, common impact, and public role
performance.”36
With the idea of having different types of ‘publics’, Parkinson also introduces
35
Parkinson, Democracy and Public Space, 67.
36
Ibid, 10.

26. Xiao 25
the idea that a public space can have one or a combination of the listed criteria, that is, a space
can be solely accessible (type 1)37
or it can be accessible and have a common impact (type 1 and
type 3). This way of viewing public space changes our understanding of what is a public space
and pushes us to question whether Gehl and Jacobs’ lamentation of public space when they
wrote their important text was solely anchored in one particular type of ‘public’.
Moreover, scholar Aseem Inam argues in his text, Designing Urban Transformation, that
public space is never truly without meaning because power designs cities and “the public realm,
especially open space, is in fact very much about control.”38
Planning and designing space is a
demonstration of power and control; a powerholder is able to dictate a vision and oversee
implementation. Similarly, how meaning is cultivated, fostered, and established is deeply tied to
power, that is, who is making those decisions. Scholars Hajer and Reijndorp identifies the
misunderstanding of public space by contemporary urbanists by stating that
a functional-spatial analysis leaves no room for the many ways in which meanings are
etched in the landscape. On the other hand, the increased attention for the cultural
meaning of places is generally nostalgic in tone and static by nature.39
Contemporary urbanists—some of which are followers of Gehl and Jacobs—tend to romanticize
a particular image of public space and has an incomplete conceptualization of space, one that
cannot see the space as dynamic and evaluates space based on whether it cultivates life.
Parkinson, further offers, that the form, one that Gehl in particular, identifies as the physical
infrastructure, is “filled with cultural, political, and historical associations…used by people in a
particular context.”40
37
Type 1 through type 4 are given by Parkinson in his text and is used in that manner in this paper as well.
38
Inam, Designing Urban Transformation, 7.
39
Hajer and Reijndorp, In Search Of The New Public Domain, 36.
40
Parkinson, Democracy and Public Space, 72.

27. Xiao 26
With this wider conceptualization of public space, one that recognizes different types of
‘publics’ and that meaning always exists based on context, how do we evaluate and understand
how Hanoi sees and uses its public space? As previously mentioned, residents of Hanoi will fully
appropriate public space; this is exemplified through the extensive presence of informal and
itinerant vendors. Moreover, the “inside-out” phenomenon further illustrates the wider
understanding and employment of that understanding of how to use public space and what it can
be, as illustrated in Table 1. Public space in Hanoi is a place to live, that is, to be with neighbors
and friends, to care for one’s health, and to care for others; public space is also a tool and a
resource for transporting goods and conducting business, to be temporary storage, and to connect
people. Consequently, public space in Hanoi always has a purpose and it always has meaning.
The maps of Hanoi only further this point as they
trace the way government administrators thought about the city and how they wanted the
map readers to see the city and their work on it. Each successive regime created new
maps of Hanoi, both on the ground and on paper.41
Power designs cities, whether that power is Chinese, French, Japanese, Soviet, or neoliberal
market forces. The layers in Hanoi’s history manifest in its planning and design, and its public
spaces are not spared from this. Scholars Tuan and Stavros explain in their respective texts how
many Asian cities are planned and designed for the purpose of reinforcing power and status. The
ideal city, the planning and envisioning, was dictated by the importance of ritual performance
and symbols of legitimacy; city maps of pre-modern Kyoto demonstrate this and city planning
conversations during French colonization in Hanoi echo this notion of legitimacy and power.42
41
William Logan, Hanoi: Biography of a City, 11.
42
Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values, Reprint edition (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1990), 151, 153.

28. Xiao 27
The Master Plan for 2030 and the Vision for 2050 of Hanoi only continues and further
demonstrates the amount of meaning and intention in creating a sense of place in the city is not
by happenstance. As Hanoi continues to grow, change, and develop, its public spaces will
undergo a range of types of ‘publics’ and our evaluation of whether the city is a city for people
based on a particular type of public space is too narrow and too rigid because it does not account
for the changing dynamics of the city.
Gehl and Jacobs emphasize the importance of good public space because of its ability to
build community, that is, fostering a support network that echoes shared experiences and shared
values, and therefore a shared public identity. According to Gehl and Jacobs, good public space
generates the activity needed to attract people and in sharing the space, these interactions make
strangers familiar and streets safer, which then builds the trust that is needed for community.
The trust of a city street is formed over time from many, many little public sidewalk
contacts…[and] the sum of such casual, public contact…is a feeling for the public
identity of people, a web of public respect and trust, and a resource in time of personal
and neighborhood need. The absence of this trust is a disaster to a city street.43
Gehl and Jacobs both speak about community as the answer against the privatization of
city spaces. A return to good public spaces carries the impression of returning to community, to
the narrative of the commons that has been erased by the process of privatization and
modernization. Moreover, community carries notions of inclusion and safety, that is, one of
protecting each other, including and sharing among one another.
Yet, we are reminded by scholar Iris M. Young, that
Matthew Stavros, Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan’s Premodern Capital (Honolulu: Univ of Hawaii Pr, 2014), 21-
24, 57-59.
43
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 56.

29. Xiao 28
the sharing, however, is never complete mutual understanding and reciprocity…The same
difference that makes sharing between us possible also makes misunderstanding,
rejection, withdrawal, and conflict always possible conditions of social being. 44
The community that we imagine and conceptualize is oftentimes idealized; when we
discuss community, we are expressing a desire for cohesion, that is, for a shared “specific
heritage, a common self-identification, a common culture and set of norms.”45
To achieve a level
of commonality, groups have to deny, repress, and/or exclude people of different backgrounds or
differences within members of the community. Consequently, the “commitment to an ideal of
community tends to value and enforce homogeneity”46
instead of celebrating the diversity of
identities and experiences that exist within a society. The process of romanticizing the ideal
image of community neglects the reality of community building in city spaces. The extra cause
for concern is from the echoing by contemporary urbanists and Gehl and Jacobs disciples of this
notion of community, but without the critical conversation.
The embellished notions community demonstrates the contradictions that exists in the
cities for people concept. Jacobs writes in her text that the urbanism we want in a city for people
cannot divorce the street’s ability to handle strangers and safety and that “the tolerance, the room
for great differences among neighbors… are possible and normal only when streets of great cities
have built-in equipment allowing strangers to dwell in peace together.” 47
There is an
inconsistent communication of how the process of community building works. Gehl and Jacobs
valorize community in the context of togetherness, yet you have statements such as the one
44
Iris Marion Young and Danielle S. Allen, Justice and the Politics of Difference, (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University
Press, 2011), 231.
45
Ibid, 234-235.
46
Ibid, 234.
47
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 35, 72.

30. Xiao 29
above that acknowledges differences that inherently exist in the urban fabric and discusses the
need for integration and not assimilation. However, the idealized notion of community is all
about assimilation. Again, there is an incomplete conversation about how to engage in
community building at the local level, like in your neighborhood, and then at the city level, and
how to integrate the two. There is a failure to embrace the idea that community is fluid and is not
a bounded notion. The urbanism in Hanoi illustrates this fluidity and the reality of community in
its city spaces.
Due to the fact that Hanoi is geographically vast, we are going to see enclaving and the
enclaves will gather and/or cluster different types of people. Central districts like Hoem Kiem
will be different from the satellite cities being built in the peripheries of Hanoi and different from
gated communities such as Ciputra International City.48
Consequently, in all three sites, Hàng
Đào, Giảng Võ, Hoàng Đạo Thúy, it makes sense that we see different types of communities.
While they may all function to some combination of a ‘live-work-play’ atmosphere; how people
relate and interact with each other is rooted in context, that is, anchored to their particular site.
48
Five satellite cities are currently being built in Hanoi. Each city is to have specific functions and characteristics to
not only mitigate the growth that is happening in the center of the city, but also make it easier to attract
businesses and industries to the new cities. “’Hoa Lac will focus on science, technology and training; Son Tay will
be a city of culture, history, resorts and tourism; Xuan Mai will specialise in services and support industries and
handicrafts; Phu Xuyen will be a hub for industry and transport; while Soc Son will specialise in services for Noi Bai
International Airport,” according to Viet Nam News.’” In addition to satellite cities, gated communities, such as
Ciputra International City and Splendora, are cropping up; these particular cities are upscale living arrangements
echoing American suburbia. From the currently development the city is engaging in and the vision communicated
through the Master Plan, it does not appear to me that the Master Plan is too concerned about community.
Regardless, of whether or not the Master Plan focuses on community, with the different satellite cities and gated
communities, the term ‘community’ is under the spotlight, that is, when we talk about community in the context
of Hanoi, we must ask ourselves, ‘what do we mean by community’ and ‘how is community building possible with
a big city like Hanoi’.
Nate Berg, “No One Wants to Move to Vietnam’s New Cities”, CITYLAB (The Atlantic), last modified January 09,
2012 and accessed May 18, 2016, http://www.citylab.com/work/2012/01/no-one-wants-move-vietnams-new-
cities/906/.
Matt Kennard and Claire Provost, “Inside Hanoi’s gated communities: elite enclaves where even the air is cleaner”,
The Guardian (Cities), last modified January 21, 2016 and accessed May 18, 2016,
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jan/21/inside-hanoi-gated-communities-elite-enclaves-air-cleaner.

31. Xiao 30
The community found on Hàng Đào is made of predominately neighbors and established
vendors. A majority of the layout and design of the Old Quarter reflects the impression of tight-
knit spaces, overcrowding, and living on top of each other. The building infrastructure on Hàng
Đào allows for a particular type of community development. As you can see in Figure 9, the
buildings are all mixed-use with shops on the first floor/street level and housing above. There are
small alleyways found along the street that provides access to the entrances of those homes;
however, because of the compact nature of the Old Quarter, there is limited community spaces.
Consequently, the sidewalk and street space on Hàng Đào serves as the communal space of not
just the shopkeepers, but also their families. A common sight on Hàng Đào is the clustering of
people sitting in front of the shop entrances engaging in a range of activities as Table 1
illustrates. The people sitting on the sidewalk in front of shops—the shopkeepers and their
family and their neighbors—are the primary characters of the street, that is the anchors that
watch the street and keep it safe.49
While strangers flow through the street, the crowd of people
that station themselves every day in the same location are the eyes on the street and react to
incidences that are out of the ordinary. On Hàng Đào, it felt like the cohesive community, that is,
it felt like everyone knew each other. However, this feeling of cohesion is particular to Hàng Đào
because the street is narrow and short, compared to Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy, which are
both wider and longer streets. Density and proximity plays a big part in cultivating community
on Hàng Đào.
49
Primary characters are essentially anchors of the community; they are the people who watch over the street
based on their role in the community. An example that Jacobs gives in her text is with the shopkeeper; this person
has an invested interest in keeping peace on the street. Moreover, because the shopkeeper is always present
(through their business), this person is able to monitor and watch the street as strangers enter and exit.
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 37.

32. Xiao 31
Conversely, there are multiple communities found on Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy.
On both streets, you see enclaving. For example, the student population on Giảng Võ is a
prevalent community because of the School for Public Health and the nearby middle and high
schools. These students stick together and are aware of what is happening within their own
community, but extending that awareness to the rest of the street does not happen frequently. We
do not see students engaging in conversations with the office workers or the businessmen/women
that also have a presence on Giảng Võ. Nevertheless, this is not to say there lacks a greater sense
of community on Giảng Võ or Hoàng Đạo Thúy. The primary characters on Giảng Võ and
Hoàng Đạo Thúy, that is, the informal vendors, the security guards, and parking managers, help
build the greater sense of community. By illustrating that there exists different types of
communities found on Hàng Đào, Giảng Võ, Hoàng Đạo Thúy, and therefore different parts of
the city, demonstrates the reality of community and community building. The three sites proves
that there are micro and macro levels of community and how these different layers of community
interact only furthers the point that the process of community building is more complex then
what the cities for people concept allows, especially when residents are sharing the same public
space.
Gehl and Jacobs’ emphasis on good public space is not simply a conversation about
community building; the conversation extends to discuss notions of democracy, rights, and
citizenship. It is important to note that Gehl and Jacobs do not extensively discuss democracy in
public space, but rather, uses the imaginary of public space to imply the democratic nature found
in public space. Nevertheless, there are layers of complexity that are not acknowledge by Gehl
and Jacobs in building a people city.

33. Xiao 32
We begin with our basic understanding of democracy: rule by the people. If we are to
subscribe to the notion that public space is open and accessible to all, then we should extend our
understanding to include the idea that public space is also about common ownership. When we
marry democracy and public space, we are discussing the notion that the people—everyone and
anyone—has the right to use and determine the use of said space. This line of thought is crucial
to the Right to the City concept, which is rooted in the idea that people have the power and the
right to transform the city. However, Harvey states that the right to the city goes beyond
accessing resources, in this case accessing public space.50
The action of access speaks to the
larger discussion about citizenship, that is, who is seen and recognized to be a citizen, and
therefore has the right to access, use, transform, and be transformed by the city. Moreover, when
discussing democracy and public space, Gehl and Jacobs make the assumption that every person
has equal rights; this, again, illustrates a lack of awareness to the systematic inequalities found in
cities.
Our basic understanding of democracy in public space falls into a common fault of urban
theory literature that tends to “appeal to concepts of democracy and public to resolve
[spatial] conflicts, when more often than not the concepts of democracy and public give
rise to those conflicts.”51
Scholar John Parkinson argues that democracy, in fact, is a performance of roles; those
roles being: narrating, claiming, deciding, scrutinizing, and representing.52
Therefore, democracy
is not simply a tool to fix conflicts and conflict is not the result of democratic failure, but instead
inevitable because of the “large-scale, multilayered and interconnected societies in which
50
David Harvey, “The Right to the City,” New Left Review, II, no. 53 (2008), 23.
51
Parkinson, Democracy and Public Space, 8.
52
Ibid, 87.

34. Xiao 33
whatever one group does with a spatial resource affects what others can do with it.”53
When
discussing democracy in public space, we are navigating so many issues that both Gehl and
Jacobs overlook when discussing cities for people. We have to acknowledge that power designs
cities, that access talks about citizenship and how some are not seen as citizens, and that
democracy is a performance. We must be careful to not fall into the assumption that democratic
public spaces only exist in the Western “democratic” world because democratic space—and
democratic in the Parkinson sense—can be found in Hanoi.
Using the idea that democracy is a performance of roles, we see performances take place
on the streets of Hanoi, mainly through the negotiation of space. The street activity on Hàng Đào
exemplifies this notion of performing the democratic role of claim-making. At any given time,
the sidewalk space on Hàng Đào can be used fully by established and itinerant vendors as well as
neighbors and families. Table 1 gives an idea of the type of activity that is happening on the
sidewalk space and Figure 10 further illustrates the different uses of the sidewalk space. The
fluctuation of use, that is, the sidewalk could be occupied by objects or people during the
morning and not in the afternoon for one day and then the next could be occupied the whole day,
demonstrates the constant negotiation and process of claim-making that the people of Hàng Đào
engage in on a daily basis. The occupation and use of a particular area of Hàng Đào speaks to the
idea that the space is commonly owned and commonly used as itinerant vendors will stop along
the street where space is available to sell their goods at any moment of the day. Moreover, there
is a process of recognition, that is, identifying, acknowledging, and (for the most part) respecting
your fellow citizen. There were no instances of disputes over the use of sidewalk space, that is, I
did not witness any disputes; this does not mean there never are disputes over space. However, I
53
Ibid, 32.

35. Xiao 34
think that because there was no constant fighting over space meant that a discourse was taking
place in some form, which is another way for democratic performance—narrating, deciding, and
claiming—to manifest in public space.
The question regarding citizenship, especially in the context of building cities for people,
is a crucial topic to discuss that Gehl and Jacobs do not fully acknowledge. The notions of citizen
and citizenship returns us to question “who are the people” that the city is being built for in this
concept. We see in Hanoi that not everyone is included. When we ask the question of who is
missing from the streets and the sidewalks, we are tasked to grapple with the exclusion that
happens because power design cities.
While in Hanoi, I tried to be conscious of the male to female ratio and whether the
elderly, young children, and the disabled/differently abled were present on the streets. The data
illustrated that overall, women’s presence fluctuated across the three sites; women had the most
presence on Hàng Đào (61.3%), while on Giảng Võ and Hoàng Đạo Thúy, men had the highest
presence with 71.2% and 69.0%, respectively. The presence of children also varied between the
three sites; Hoàng Đạo Thúy had the highest presence of children with 94 observed instances of
kids playing and hanging out on the street, while there were 67 observed instances on Hàng Đào
and 41 observed instances on Giảng Võ. Disabled bodies had the smallest presence overall on the
three sites with 11 observed instances of using the street. Consequently, the absence of some
populations and the fluctuations in their presence prompts the question of what cities for people
means, that is, who is the city built for, and what is deemed achievable.
This line of inquiry brings me back to my starting pointing for creating this thesis; it is
attempting to identify what it means to be a people city, why this conversation is important, and
understanding where it fits in the greater discourse about urbanization. Concerns for public

36. Xiao 35
health in cities, notions of walkability and livability, sustainability and more are conversations
that continue to crop up as we tackle challenges of the 21st
century in a rapidly urbanizing world.
The cities for people concept has an opportunity to place itself in the center of the urbanization
conversation, as both Jacobs and Gehl explain that the difference between a living city and
lifeless city will depend on the quality of public spaces and how it can support people to live
their lives publicly in city spaces that make for safer, healthier, and more sustainable cities. In a
world with nearly 70% of the population projected to be urban by 2050, understanding how
planning, designing, and redeveloping cities for people becomes a crucial endeavor. With more
than six billion people living in cities, notions of safety, health, sustainability, community, and
citizenship are not small topics of discussions, but rather points of urgency as urban growth
continues to accelerate. Moreover, understanding the cities for people concept in relation to the
21st
century city has potentially heavy implications, one that could echo the oppressive nature of
a Western development and neo-colonial narrative co-opted into ideas of progress and being a
“global city”.
We see this danger in the cities for people concept. There is a power-knowledge dynamic
that exists in creating cities for people and an inconsistent acknowledgement of the power
dynamic at play. I identify the core themes in the cities for people concept—democracy in public
space, community building, and power in design—because to some extent the themes provide
commentary about power. Cities for people walk a fine line in how it chooses to address issues
that surround cities. The question of whether cities for people echo neo-colonial and neo-liberal
policies results partly because of the idealization of the concept itself. Contemporary urbanists
valorize Gehl and Jacobs’ work and they have also valorized the cities for people concept. The
idealization of cities for people creates the oversight that I identify in this thesis, that is, in the

37. Xiao 36
idealization of public space, our criteria of good public space is incomplete; in romanticizing the
image of community, we unknowingly support exclusion; and in glorifying the relationship
between democracy and public space, we forget democracy as a tool, a living concept to be
performed, not a static state, and we overlook its link to (uneven) citizenship. Consequently, the
mechanisms to create a people city lacks the critical analysis and struggles to find the balance
between recognizing the power, resilience, and agency of people and the physical policy. In
2016, we need to apply a critical lens to the work we do as urbanists because to build resilient
cities of the future we need to engage in critical reflection of the existing structures and systems
that lead our development.

38. Xiao 37
Appendix A
(above left) Figure 1, in
Cities for People page 40
(above right) Figure 2, in
Cities for People page 39
describes the field of vision
vertically
(below right) Figure 3, in
Cities for People page 34
describes the field of vision
horizontally

39. Xiao 38
(above) Figure 4, found in Cities for People page 21
A map of Hanoi with the sites highlighted in red for reference
Hoàng Đạo Thúy (left) Giảng Võ (middle) Hàng Đào (right)

40. Xiao 39
Figure 5
Figure 6
Hoàng Đạo Thúy Giảng Võ Hàng Đào
Hoàng Đạo Thúy Giảng Võ Hàng Đào

41. Xiao 40
Figure 7, street map of Giảng Võ, detailing the type of places found on the street

42. Xiao 41
Figure 8, street map of Hoàng Đạo Thúy, detailing the type of places found on the street

43. Xiao 42
Figure 9, the street architecture on Hàng Đào

44. Xiao 43
Figure 10, the different street activities happening on Hàng Đào

45. Xiao 44
Acknowledgements
There is an overwhelming amount of gratitude that I must express for those who have helped me
during my thesis writing process. This is only a small instance of the lifetime of gratitude I owe
to the following:
Professor Glen D. Kuecker, my primary advisor and seminar professor, for being incredibly
encouraging since the moment I stepped foot in his office as a terrified sophomore thinking
about becoming an independent major, for being an intellectual role model and constantly
challenging me to think differently, for all his guidance, advice, and perspective, and for keeping
the calm during this storm.
La Lucha Sigue.
Professor Pauline Ota, my secondary advisor, for being so engaged in my work and reassuring
me each step of the way, for being meticulous with my writing, and for her willingness to
embark on this Urban Studies journey with me.
Professor Bui Duong, Hien Nuygen, Phad Ngoc, Minh Tran, Ly Tran, and the Tran Family,
the people of Hanoi, for allowing me to ask questions, for helping me in almost every capacity,
for welcoming and trusting me in your home. Cảm ơn.
Douglas B White Travel Award, for making my thesis research possible.
Professors and friends from the International Honors Program: Cities (Fall 2014), for being
one of the most important parts of my life thus far, guiding me in how to be a better intellectual,
a better urbanist, and a better community member; the support I receive from this group is
endless. Without this experience, I would have never written this thesis.
Most importantly, thank you for helping me find my voice.
Chinese for Affirmative Action, for the opportunity to intern with an incredible grassroots
organization, learn about community organizing and community building, and lead me to Urban
Studies.
Bonner Scholar Program, for letting me engage in capacity building and experience what being
a community member feels like through the many placements and intern positions I held
throughout my four years at DePauw.
Grace Anne Oczon, Jessica Keister, Hanae Weber, Sarah Dela Cruz, for your boundless
support of me and my work, for the reminders of my capabilities, and for putting up with me
throughout this process.
Mom and dad, for their unconditional love and support, despite having no idea what I do and
study. The endless encouragement and continual sacrifice are the only reasons why I am who I
am and do the work that I do.

46. Xiao 45
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