THE IMPACT OF MIGRANT PEASANTS ON THE URBAN SPACE (HO CHI MINH CITY — GÀNH DẦU)

Abstract

Background: This article uses the term “way of living” in its connection with “place identity” to analyze the impact of new urban residents (migrant peasants) on the urban space transformation. In the thematic study of the spatial development of the Ho Chi Minh City center, the configuration of the influence of the key actors (state and community) is analyzed. The architectural environment of the Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) is considered in the context of the similarity of its development (consequences of development) to the transformation of the space of Ukrainian cities. Methods: Observations and theoretical discourse on the recent changes in the city’s spatial organization are used to create a detailed description of several quarters of the city center on which the study focuses. This description allows us to understand the nature of changes in the urban environment, which is expressed in the continuous (daily) deconstruction of the historical environment, and the main drivers of this process. Turning to the hypothesis of the influence of the new residents’ “way of life”, which is different from the one of the urban residents, the study was supplemented by the analysis of the spatial organization and neighborhood of the fishing village of Gành Dầu in the province of tỉnh Kiên Giang. Results: The study of the space-community interactions of this sustainable rural settlement determines the similarity of the “rural identity” of local residents with the “urban identity” (autochthonous urban population of Ho Chi Minh City) in terms of perception and use of the common space. Therefore, differences in lifestyle (urban/rural) are not the main source of influence on the gradual changes in urban morphology and the loss of authentic buildings. In the context of this study, the impact of “consumer identity” as a manifestation of a “fluid society” (characterized by instability and uncertainty) that is in the process of constant change is more noticeable. It is important to emphasize that the influence of the local community (with any type of identity) on the transformation of the urban space occurs only through the informal spatial practices, and is not the only or determining factor. Conclusions: Due to the similarity of the processes of the spatial development of the Vietnamese and Ukrainian cities, this study provides a significant comparative example for the analysis of the urban environment transformations. This study helps to introduce a new research program that addresses the gap between the architectural analysis of the interaction between the (substituted) community-space and research in other scientific fields.