Aspirational urbanism and the symbolic influence of Singapore in Vietnam

Abstract

For many planning practitioners and policymakers, Singapore is framed as a model of efficient, growth-orientated urban development. Yet, efforts to take up Singapore-linked planning approaches and urban design are uneven and contested. In this article, we reconsider Singapore’s influence in urban planning and design through a critical lens of aspirational urbanism, using Hanoi, Vietnam, as a case study. We conceptualise aspirational urbanism through three linked approaches. First, we mobilise external models not only as technical templates or policy frameworks but also as normative ideologies and symbolic claims about desirable futures, including particular ways of producing cities and lifestyles. Second, we treat aspirational urbanism as being articulated through the discourses, practices, and strategies of multiple actors, including a hybridisation of city models. Third, we note that aspirational urbanism entails conjunctions and disjunctions between the urban agendas and planning practices of the countries brought into relation. Drawing on this framework, we analyse media articles and interviews with architecture and planning professionals involved in Hanoi’s recent urban projects, alongside interviews with residents of Singapore-designed residential developments in Hanoi. We show that, despite broad enthusiasm for green and smart city agendas and claims of ‘good’ governance, references to Singapore are selectively assembled and contested through project marketing and professional narratives. In practice, uptake in Hanoi is concentrated in high-end residential enclaves rather than broader or city-wide transformations. Singapore-referencing functions as a performative gesture and legitimising trope, mobilised by Vietnam’s state planners and private developers to justify elite and privatised development and to signal Hanoi’s world-class ambitions.