ABSTRACT

As it pursues the “art of being global” (Roy and Ong 2011), Ho Chi Minh City is increasingly embracing an “urbanism of megaprojects” (Goldblum 2015), leading to a rupture with its historically organic urban growth. This shift entails a “super-sizing” metropolitan process characterized by rapid urban expansion and new urban scales for city production, as evidenced by the creation of superblocks, the multiplication of high-rise buildings, and the establishment of new, iconic urban forms such as massive shopping malls and flyover highways. In this context, “urban figures” are given priority over “urban texture” (Chow 2015: 4).