ABSTRACT
Over the past decades Vietnam has substituted bicycles for motorbikes and cars at a remarkable pace. The radical transformation of Vietnamese streetscapes have unfolded as part of the larger processes of socio-economic transformations in the country since the doi moi reforms. This chapter considers how the rapid motorization of Vietnam’s streets has taken place as part of multi-scalar development processes, as well as what the cases of cars and motorbikes can tell us about Vietnam’s development trajectory, both in terms of industrial aspirations and socio-economic changes. In other words, the chapter studies motorized mobility through the lens of doi moi and doi moi through the lens of motorized mobility. In order to do this, the chapter shifts between zooming out to analyze macro-scale political-economic changes in Vietnam and zooming in on everyday mobility practices in Hanoi. It analyses Hanoi’s ‘system of moto-mobility’ as well as the increasing presence of cars and how one of the icons of global capitalism have become the ultimate symbol of personal success in the nominally socialist country.
