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It is by no means clear that they will, though. Outside investment has pushed both ways. Dozens of spacious villas in the old French quarter have been restored to their original splendor by foreign companies eager to establish offices from which to cash in on Vietnam's 9% annual growth rate. Demand for commercial and residential space has pushed rents to Hong Kong and Tokyo levels. As a result, many investors would rather replace the old three-story buildings with office towers. Late last year Hanoians looked on in wonder as demolition crews razed the historic--though architecturally undistinguished--prison known as the ``Hanoi Hilton,'' where hundreds of captured American servicemen spent much of the war. In its place, a Singapore developer plans a 22-story hotel-and-office complex.
The area most at risk, the city's ancient quarter, is being dismantled not by foreign investors but by Vietnamese entrepreneurs. Established hundreds of years ago by craftsmen who moved to the banks of the Red River to be near the markets of the capital, Hanoi's ``36 streets'' district was once home to 60 temples, shaded by the red-tile roofs of old shop-front ``tube houses''--so called because many, as deep as 50 m, are only 2 m to 3 m wide. Now the neighborhood is becoming dominated by boutiques, bars and ``mini- hotels'' of cheap cement and glass. ``The ancient city is being destroyed,'' says Mayor Hoang Van Nghien. He is also concerned that the huge dikes that protect Hanoi from the Red River may collapse under the weight of new homes and hotels, causing a devastating flood.
As Vietnam's first businessman mayor, Nghien intends to run Hanoi with the same determination he used to build the country's biggest electronics conglomerate, Hanel Co. Amid great fanfare last fall, officials rolled out the city's first master plan in nearly a century. It aims to preserve Hanoi's historic center with strict height restrictions on new buildings. As in Paris and London, modern office towers and apartment blocks will be pushed to the outskirts of town. The plan, which has yet to be implemented, also provides for new regulations governing sewage treatment and power generation, details that have never been seriously considered in Hanoi. ``We're working on a development plan that looks ahead 30 years,'' says Nghien. ``If people build in the wrong places, their houses will be removed.''
But reform has unleashed a freewheeling, often defiant, disregard for authority among a traditionally obedient populace. ``The only law here is supply and demand,'' says city economist Nguyen Quy Lan. The race to make money has bred corruption within an already unresponsive bureaucracy. Regulations are routinely ignored. Smuggling and prostitution, once confined to Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, are rampant. Consider Hanoi's top-draw weekend entertainment event: midnight motorcycle races through the streets. When police showed up at 3 a.m. on Christmas Day with paint guns and electric batons to put an end to a big race, the crowd of several thousand threw stones at their jeeps.