The Case of Ɖà Nẵng

Abstract

Unlike Thái Bình and Hung Yên, in the last decade, Đà Nằng has seen political and social stability, and been widely recognized in Vietnam for many positive measures of progress. These include its being the most dynamic and fastest developing city; the fastest urbanized city; and a great construction site (Anh 2013, Thanh 2010a). This latter description reflects that, with 18,500 hectares of land reclaimed, involving 100,000 households in both urban and rural areas (TUDN 2012: 8), only approximately 100 households were evicted (Dũng 2012b, TUDN 2012: 8). The city was considered the best province in dealing with land clearance and compensation (Thành 2003: 9) as it had no “hot spot” and collective complaints (Cuang 2004: 40), except the case of Cốn Dằu parish (Ngữ 2013),¹ and was thus a “win-win” model for other cities and provinces to learn from, including those having a high rate of land grabbing like Hà Nội and Hộ Chí Minh City (Võ 2012, Tú 2013). While petitions and complaints by citizens of wrongdoing by public officials are universal in Vietnam (Đửc 2013b), and more than 70 percent of them are concerned with land issues (GoV 2012: 6, GolV 2012: 1), Đà Nằng saw only 400 complaints and denunciations between 2003 and 2012 as compared with other provinces across the country: 9,200 in Đống Nai (in the South), 7,300 in Bằc Ninh (in the North), 4,400 in Thanh Hóa (in the North), and 12,500 in Sóc Trăng (in the South) (SCNA 2012). Furthermore, for years, Đà Nằng has emerged as “number one” in the PCI index in governance reforms to attract investments. The above conditions make Đà Nằng a unique and suitable case for investigating how GRD has been implemented there.