Caught between Plan and Market: Vietnam's Housing Reform in the Transition to a Market Economy

The housing sector in Vietnam follows a 'gradualist' approach of transforming from a socialist system in which the state assumed effective control to a market-oriented system that the laws of supply and demand rule. Yet the long and winding transition within such a dual system produces inevitable contradictions between the state and the market as well as between the economic and the political institutions. This paper explores the dynamics of such interactions and contradictions in Vietnam's transforming housing system, employing Hanoi as a case study. The paper analyses the functioning and teething problems of the new housing market as well as the resurgence of the role of the state in solving the contradictions in the reform process.